The International Code Council (ICC) has written to Minister of Housing and Urban Development Marlene Mc Donald asking to be paid US$27,000 owed to them for development of T&T’s National Building Code.
In a congratulatory letter sent to the minister on September 24, Raj Nathan ICC’s head of Global Services said the body had an agreement with the T&T government to assist in development of building codes. These include 2015 International Building Code, International Residential Code for one and Two family dwellings, International Mechanical Code, International Fuel Gas Code, International Plumbing Code, International Green Construction Code, Energy Conservations Code, Fire Code and Solar Energy Provisions. All of these codes are the intellectual property of the ICC.
Nathan said over the past year, ICC has been in communication with Shyankaran Lalla, chairman of the Cabinet appointed National Building Code Committee of T&T.
He said ICC’s executive vice president Mark Johnson had visited and met various officials, including the former minister Dr Roodlal Moonilal, members of the National Building Code Committee and members of the engineering community to discuss development of international building codes.
He said during one of the meetings, an agreement was signed to provide licensing details of the ICC’s International Codes.
“We had signed the agreement on the condition of US$27,000 being transferred to the ICC towards the use of the I-codes to develop the T&T National Building Codes. We respectfully request that you review the documents and approve to release the funding towards the development of the building codes,” Nathan said.
Copies of the agreement obtained by the T&T Guardian show that the Ministry of Housing would have a non-exclusive license to use ICC’s adopted codes. Authorisation was given for the codes to be reproduced and commercially distributed in print and electronic format.
Lalla said yesterday that buildings codes must be developed with a sense of urgency.
“It should be noted that the planning and facilitation of land development Act which was partially proclaimed, cannot be fully implemented with building codes,” he said, adding that “without building codes to regulate the safe design and administration of resilient structures, we will continue to see poor quality work.”
Lalla also called for a revamping of Town and Country and local government departments responsible for the approval of land development.
Efforts to contact Mc Donald for comment yesterday were futile and Moonilal did not respond to questions sent to him via text.