Building Officials Corner - July

Category: Build-Remodel-Topics
07/15/2021

Code Adoption

written by Christine Rose, Assistant Director, Fargo Inspections Division

The Fargo Inspections Department is at it again! It seems like just yesterday we adopted the 2018 group of International Codes. We have started our review and presentation process to the Board of Appeals to adopt the 2021 codes which include The International Building, Residential, Mechanical, Fuel Gas, Energy Conservation and Property Maintenance Codes.

Each discipline is tasked to go over their 2018 code, compare it to the 2021 edition, and present the significant changes to the Board of Appeals.

We also make recommendations on amendments that we would like either continued or added to the ordinance.

Each year we try to eliminate amendments we no longer use.

Some amendments were added for ease of construction, some were because of the part of the country in which we live. There are times where the code catches up with our amendments. In other words, we had an amendment and the code changed so we no longer need that amendment.

All meetings are open to the public and recorded if you cannot attend the day of the meeting.

The videos can be viewed from Fargo’s website.

Once the board has heard all of the changes and recommended amendments, they place it on the Board of City Commissioners’ agenda for review. It is open for public comment for two meetings and after the commission directs the city attorney to draft the new ordinance siting the new set of codes with amendments.

On July 15, inspectors presented Chapters 1-9 of the International Residential Code to the Board of Appeals. The mechanical chapters will be heard on Sept. 9.  For now, the International Energy Conservation Code has an unscheduled meeting date.