What we're reading, following & covering

Mexico City much better prepared for earthquakes, says mayor

February 27 | Zilient Org

Five months after a large earthquake shook Mexico City, the capital is better prepared to deal with future tremors and is focused on tightening up building codes and improving its emergency response, said Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera. Improving air quality in the city of over 21 million people and securing enough water to supply the population remain chronic problems, he said, as do cleaning up dirty industries and switching to greener energy supplies. Read more.

Plumbers cite research linking low water flow with Legionnaire's Disease

February 27 | Code Watcher

It's rare to see trade groups citing the EPA, but in this case, Plumbing Manufacturers International (PMI) wants the Washington Senate to take a cold, hard look at some new research on low-flow plumbing, before it votes to toughen water regulations. According to safeplumbing.org, PMI's web portal: Washington's flow rates are now in line with federal regulations. The proposed legislation would reduce them to the WaterSense level for toilets and below WaterSense levels and equal to California levels for urinals, showerheads, and bathroom faucets. California is the only state with plumbing standards more stringent than WaterSense levels, having implemented them in response to the state's drought emergency. Read more.

Houston's dangerous apartments

February 27 | Houston Chronicle

"Raw sewage backing inside unit … need atten. asap please [sic]." Houston's 311 line receives complaints like that all the time from residents in Sunnyside apartments. And like the brackish filth in the pipes, those complaints have a habit of piling up in the wrong place. Issues are misrouted to the wrong city department, legitimate issues rarely result in an inspection, and health threats are allowed to fester. Read more.

Breaking it down: What you need to know about Florida code changes

February 27 | Glass Magazine

It's no secret in our industry that codes are ever-changing, particularly in Florida, where codes are revised every three years to clarify existing requirements and introduce new ones. The most recent changes went into effect December 31, in accordance with the 6th Edition Florida Building Code. Based on the 2015 International Building Code, the 2017 Florida Building Code includes an onslaught of change, including clarification of Missile Level E requirements for Essential Facilities, and a switch from ASTM E 1886 and ASTM E 1996 as the baseline standards for impact and cyclic pressure testing. Read more.

USRC release white paper in association with seismic safety legislation

February 27 | Stamford Advocate

Growing concern over the threat of a major earthquake in California has sparked a statewide movement for resiliency and pending legislation that calls for the identification of buildings most vulnerable to seismic damage and collapse. Scientists say that stress along the San Andreas fault has been building with little relief since the mid-1800s. The next "Big One" which could come at any moment could be of a magnitude of 7.5 or more. The force of that quake could result in twice the damage of Hurricane Katrina and be up to 45 times more destructive than the Northridge earthquake, they say. Read more.

Beverly targeting unsightly properties

February 27 | The Inter-Mountain

There is a new air of authority in the small town of Beverly, one that has added bite to the battle against blighted and unsightly properties within corporate boundaries. With the recent adoption of the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code, "The Town of Beverly has added teeth to its ability to levy fines on owners that do not keep their property in reasonable repair," said town attorney Robert Chenoweth. Beginning last fall with the repeal of an ordinance adopting the 1967 National Building Code and replacing it with the IPMC, Beverly can now regulate and govern the construction, alteration, movement, enlargement, replacement, repair, equipment, location, removal and demolition of applicable structures within town limits. Read more.

Argentinean expats build affordable homes in Chester County using shipping containers

February 27 | Vista Today

CW Dwellings, a local builder of modular homes, transforms commercial shipping containers into affordable, but comfortable and attractive modern homes, writes Pete Bannan for the Daily Local News. The company, which has a sample home on display at the Great Valley Shopping Center, was started two years ago by Argentinean expats Guillermo Weston and Carlo Castelanelli. Now, they have started marketing their product. Read more.

Six months after Harvey, plans for a more flood-resilient Houston have a long way to go

February 26 | Houston Public Media

About six months ago, Houston woke up to a new reality, ushered in by the remnants of Hurricane Harvey. As the city became submerged by record rainfall and flooding, local leaders and experts quickly realized that traditional wisdom about flood planning, and about how intense tropical cyclones can even get, might not apply anymore. Adjusting to that new reality has taken time, and is in many ways just getting started: you can't completely reshape how a city deals with flooding overnight. Read more.

The modular open house lets you live in one home. Forever

February 26 | The Architects Newspaper

Today, almost a third of U.S. households are households of one, but the housing stock still reflects social values of the last century: Most homes are built for a married couple with children, the idealized nuclear family, yet these households now make up only 20 percent of families, down from 43 percent in 1950. While affluent singles may chose to live in a two- or three-bedroom house, lower-income individuals, or those who live in cities with white-hot housing markets, often have no choice but to co-house with others. An exhibition at Washington, D.C.'s National Building Museum responds to the changing American family and presents a compelling alternative: a home that can be rearranged for every stage of life. Read more.

St. George woman sees better way to do her job, then starts a company to do it

February 26 | Cedar City News

Instead of complaining about a system that wasn't working for her or the people it was meant to serve, Bradi Frei built her own software to fix it. Despite the challenges of being a single mother starting a business and without a background in programming, Frei spent a lot of late nights developing her software and establishing her company, My City Inspector, which is now used by cities across Utah. Frei's journey started as executive assistant for the Santa Clara public works and building departments, where she found that the process for managing city inspections for building permits was not effective or organized. Read more.

Wood you believe it: 10 ultra-tall timber towers compete for world records

February 26 | Indigo Interiors

As studies proving the strength and fire-resistance of timber construction loosen building codes around the globe, a new class of towers emerges, each of them angling to set records for the world's tallest wooden buildings. In fact, so many towering timber creations are planned, there's no telling which ones will actually manage to score the title before another snatches the crown. Here are some of the contenders. Read more.

Pete Riveiro: Hurricane Irma did not impact Key Largo at all

February 26 | Haute Residence

Almost a half year, after Hurricane Irma unleashed its furry on the Florida Keys, the first of the idyllic isles, Key Largo, has fully rebounded. Its real estate market, famed for its lavish resort properties, took a mere month to spring back to pre-Irma conditions, said Pete Riveiro, internationally renowned, Key Largo-based real estate broker with The Firm Realty Group. This is not to say, however, that Key Largo sustained no harm. The storm surge damaged a string of oceanfront estates, but repairs were quick. More strenuous to mend was the initial wave of reticence to purchase real estate here. Read more.

Council rejects code changes

February 26 | West Plains Daily Mail

The St. Joseph City Council voted down a new edition of the city's property maintenance code at its meeting Monday night. St. Joseph updates its codes as published by the International Code Council once every six years in a series of six or seven ordinances focused on different section of the codes, such as electrical, plumbing and mechanical. The majority of council members present Monday felt that the property maintenance codes should not be altered at this time. Read more.

National Glass Products expands Denver facility, adds production lines

February 26 | USGNN

National Glass Products (NGP) has completed a $500,000 expansion of its Denver-based production facility as part of a multi-phased strategy to meet market demand in the area driven by population growth. "We have expanded our Denver-based production facility by 8,000 square feet to accommodate the addition of a laminated glass production line. This is an approximate 16-percent increase in production space and 25-percent increase in production capacity," says Tony Eschmeyer, vice president of sales and business development at NGP. Read more.

Fire escapes are evocative but mostly useless

February 25 | The Atlantic

Tony wooed Maria from one in West Side Story. Rosario Dawson belted from one in Rent. They became just another piece in a gritty urban jungle gym for the kids in The Get Down. Police procedurals regularly feature guys fleeing (or entering) by means of them. Fire escapes, the clunky metal accessories to buildings constructed in response to industrial building code reform, have become an iconic part of the urban landscape. They serve purposes as numerous as their pop-cultural cameos. Read more.

Four dead after tornadoes and floods rip through central and southern states

February 25 | The New York Times

Powerful winds and heavy rains delivered flooding and property damage to the central and southern United States this weekend, leading to at least four deaths, officials said. In separate cases in Kentucky, two men were found dead in cars that appeared to have been swept away from flooded roadways. Also in Kentucky, a woman died after a tornado struck her home. In Arkansas, a man was killed after his trailer home was blown into a pond. "The flooding and tornadoes are loosely related in that the same overall weather pattern led to both," Bill Bunting, the chief of forecast operations for the Storm Prediction Center at the National Weather Service, said in an email on Sunday. Read more.

Skyscraper officials see opportunity for progressive changes as Chase Bank prepares to vacate

February 24 | Amarillo Globe-News

In less than two weeks, a sign that has dominated the downtown Amarillo skyline for years will come down when Chase Bank moves out of the Chase Tower and consolidates its operations on the city's south side. While the bank's departure, coupled with office space vacancies created by the recent decisions of Xcel Energy and West Texas A&M University, might be cause for concern for some, there are other signs that the city's tallest building will survive the moves with few serious problems. Read more.

Code compliance on Cortez city council agenda

February 23 | The Journal

The Cortez City Council plans to spend most of its meeting on Tuesday voting on whether to conform the city code to new national standards. Tuesday’s meeting will start with a workshop at 5:30 p.m., where council members will discuss several upcoming issues, including a request from a resident to change the city code's residency requirements for those starting a marijuana business. The regular meeting will start at 7:30 p.m., and it includes several votes on proposed changes to city codes. Read more.

Essex council talks safety improvements

February 23 | The Valley News

Members of the Essex City Council met Feb. 14 and talked safety. Building on a 2008 ordinance, city members passed the first reading on an amendment that builds onto the fire chief's responsibility to not only protect the fire fighters but the liability of the city. The amendment reads, "If any member of the fire department is injured while participating in fire department activities or is injured from activities outside of fire department activities, that individual shall not return to fire department activities until and unless safe to do so." Read more.

The case for making cities out of wood

February 16 | Nautilus

Last month, Dan Doctoroff, the C.E.O. of Sidewalk Labs, Google's sibling company under Alphabet, answered a question about what his company "actually does" during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session, replying, "The short answer is: We want to build the first truly 21st-century city." Quayside, a Toronto neighborhood the company is developing in partnership with a Canadian tri-government agency, is the first step toward Doctoroff's goal. It has been in the news recently because it could inspire a Black Mirror plot: It will be built from "the Internet up," according to a project document, a merger of "physical and digital realms." Read more.