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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0128.119 2010-2012Murashige, Laura From: Sent: To: Subject: Importance: Attachments: Bill 270 Hawaii County Buildin... P?PwPRo Gary Chock [gchock @martinchock.com] Friday, December 30, 2011 12:37 PM counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us Bill 270 Draft 5 Hearing January 3 2012 testimony High :icc�svOb Ali County Coundl Bill 270 Hawaii County Building Code SEAOH(December 30 2011).pdf SEAOH testimony for January 3rd hearing on Hawaii County Bill relating to building code Gary Chock SEAOH President, Martin & Chock, Inc. 1132 Bishop Street, Suite 1550 Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 (808) 521 -4513 tel (808) 531 -4508 fax gchock @martinchock.com 1 270 Draft 5 Comm. NO. Ref. To: Pt /n &0°4C Ref. Dote 4" 3 2012 December 30, 2011 STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS ASSOCIATION OF HAWAII P.O. Box 3348, Honolulu, Hawaii 96801 TO: Hawaii County Council do County Clerk 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720 counciltestimony (co.hawaii.hi.us fax (808) 961 -8912 SUBJECT: Bill 270 (Draft 5) Relating to adoption of the 2006 International Building Code with amendments Repeals Chapter 5 of the Hawaii County Code 1983 to be replaced by a new Chapter 5, relating to building Public Works and Parks and Recreation Committee Hearing Date: January 3, 2012 1:00 pm Hawaii County Building Honorable Members of the Public Works and Parks and Recreation Committee: The Structural Engineers Association of Hawaii (SEAOH) is the local chapter of the National Council of Structural Engineering Associations (NCSEA), and we have over 200 active members in Hawaii. SEAOH has a historic role spanning several decades in assisting Hawaii with the development of the technical portions of the building codes, especially as it relates to hurricane and seismic resistance of buildings. We would like to express our opposition to the proposed amendment of Bill 270, that would delete Hawaii from the definition of the windborne debris region. The amendment we oppose is the following that would strikeout Hawaii from the windborne debris region: W101 41 Revisions to Section 1609 2 Section 1609 2 is amended to read as follows 1609 2 Definitions The following words and terms shall for the purposes of Section 1609 have the meanings shown herein HURRICANE PRONE REGIONS Areas vulnerable to hurricanes defined as 1 The U S Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico coasts where the basic wind speed is greater than 90 mph 40 m s and 2 Hawaii Puerto Rico Guam Virgin Islands and American Samoa WIND BORNE DEBRIS REGION Portions of hurricane prone regions that are within 1 mile 1 61 km of the coastal mean high water line where the basic wind speed is 110 mph 48 m s or greater or portions of hurricane prone regions where the basic wind speed is 120 mph 53 m s or greater; Of-Hawaii There are several reasons for this opposition: 1) Windborne debris protection would be eliminated for hospitals, schools, residential care facilities, shelters, hazardous material storage facilities, police and fire stations, critical power and water infrastructure buildings, aviation control towers, thereby creating unjustified vulnerability to essential facilities and putting vulnerable persons at great risk during a hurricane. Besides future potential class- action liability against the county after a hurricane, we anticipate that there will be great difficulty to obtaining federal and state funding for such facilities in the future, since federal and state funds cannot be spent on facilities not conforming to the federal and state requirements that include windborne debris protection for these types of facilities. 2) The windspeed criteria in the International Building Code was developed for application to the US mainland to set an inland setback from the coastline of the south and east states, where the higher hurricane windspeeds in that region would diminish after hurricane landfall. Hawaii is comprised of islands where the landmasses are not large enough to diminish the hurricane intensity after landfall, and hurricanes can affect the islands without direct landfall. That's why Hawaii has always had a windborne debris definition separate from the mainland. Otherwise, we would support passage of Bill 270,which would improve public safety and construction efficiency by adopting a modern building code. This bill provides for a comprehensive building code that implements the 2006 International Building Code. The IBC represents the national consensus on building standards for use in design and construction. The UBC code that the County now uses was developed by an organization that now longer exists and it was discontinued nationally in 2000. STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS ASSOCIATION OF HAWAII P.O. Box 3348, Honolulu, Hawaii 96801 The bill for the ordinance includes a number of amendments to make it applicable to the environmental and natural hazards of Hawaii. These purely technical amendments were developed within the Hawaii State Building Code Council as prescribed by State Law HRS 107 Part II. The technical amendments incorporated the recommendations of the local design professions and agencies such as State Civil Defense, and SEAOH in particular, after thorough technical study and review of the International Building Code for applicability to Hawaii. The consensus -based amendments were then subject to evaluation by all four county building officials as well as the other representatives of industry and the state that make up the 9- member State Building Code Council. Moreover, the provisions related to wind and hurricane protection were given special attention per State Law. These wind provisions account for topographic wind effects caused by mountainous terrain, and the research and development of the Hawaii wind maps in this code was awarded the 2010 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement in Hawaii by the American Society of Civil Engineers and by Region 8 of the national ASCE. The proposed code also incorporates a local option of achieving hurricane protection at low cost by installation of a safe room in new home construction, which is estimated to save tens of thousands of dollars per Hawaii home compared to the requirements of the IBC without this local amendment. This basically allows a single room to be economically protected for life safety by plywood or gypboard with light -gage steel sheet backing , rather than the more stringent national code's requirement for hardening the full exterior wall and all windows of the entire home against hurricane debris. The amendment that enables the Hawaii safe room option is the last sentence of the following sub - section of W101 4 Revisions to Section 1609 1 2 Section 1609 1 2,: 1609.1.2.1 Building with openings. Where glazing is assumed to be an opening in accordance with Section 1609.1.2, the building shall be evaluated to determine if the openings are of sufficient area to constitute an open or partially enclosed building as defined in ASCE 7. Open and partially enclosed buildings shall be designed in accordance with the applicable provisions of ASCE 7. Partially enclosed Occupancy R -3 buildings shall also include a residential safe room in accordance with Section 422, Hawaii Residential Safe Room. For the council's information, R -3 Buildings are Single and Two - family dwellings, Adult care facilities for five or fewer persons, Child care facilities for five or fewer persons, and Congregate living facilities with 16 or fewer persons). These are the buildings that would be subject to section 1609.1.2.1, only if they have unbalanced locations of windows on one side and basically closed -off walls on the other three sides. Therefore, safe rooms would not be typically necessary in the proposed code submitted by the Department of Public Works. However, if it is not desired to have any low -cost residential safe rooms for hurricane protection at all, in lieu of striking windborne debris protection for essential facilities and all other buildings, then just the italicized sentence above would be omitted while not amending the windborne debris region definition. In the 2012 version of the IBC that references the ASCE 7 -10 Standard, there are changes to hurricane criteria and recalibration of the windspeeds. However, windborne debris protection requirements would not be eliminated throughout Hawaii in the ASCE 7 -10. It is my understanding that another party present at the December 20th hearing made that statement, but that was misformed and incorrect. I serve on the ASCE 7 Standards committee and the wind subcommittee for that Standard in particular, so I am a co- author of the ASCE 7 -10 Standard. Commensurate with its central importance to the design and construction industry as well as disaster preparedness, it is important that this new building code be adopted prior to April, 2012, as mandated by HRS Chapter 107 Part II, State Building Code and Design Standards. This should be done without creating a new weakness in the hurricane construction standard for Hawaii County essential and critical care facilities. We advise the council to consider adopting Bill 270 without the windborne debris region amendment of Draft 5 that would certainly create this problem. Gary Chock, S.E. 911,," KC:64, SEAOH Representative to the State Building Code Council