Resh­ma Ra­goonath

T&T should have a na­tion­al build­ing code by ear­ly 2015, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Build­ing Code Com­mit­tee Shyankaran Lal­la told the T&T Guardian.He said the com­mit­tee has re­ceived $12 mil­lion in fund­ing to be­gin for­mu­lat­ing a code aimed at set­ting prop­er guide­lines for lo­cal con­struc­tion to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty.Fund­ing for the project was ap­proved late last year, some 18 months af­ter the com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed in April 2012.The com­mit­tee is un­der the purview of Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Lal­la said the na­tion­al build­ing code was one of rec­om­men­da­tions of the Uff Com­mis­sion of In­quiry."The Com­mit­tee has since in­di­cat­ed its in­ten­tion to adopt in­ter­na­tion­al build­ing codes (IBC) which pre­scribe min­i­mum re­quire­ments to safe­guard pub­lic health.

"The IRC pro­vides min­i­mum re­quire­ments to safe­guard pub­lic health, safe­ty and gen­er­al wel­fare for res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion lim­it­ed to one and two-fam­i­ly dwellings and mul­ti­ple sin­gle-fam­i­ly dwellings (town hous­es) not more than three storeys above grade," he ex­plained.

Lal­la, a qual­i­ty con­trol con­sul­tant with more than 25 years ex­pe­ri­ence, said adop­tion of codes such as the Build­ing Con­struc­tion and Safe­ty Code (NF­PA 5000), "will cer­tain­ly sig­nal to the con­struc­tion in­dus­try that safe­ty and qual­i­ty are and will al­ways be of para­mount im­por­tance."He said the com­mit­tee al­so has the man­date to look in­to en­force­ment of build­ing codes and a Build­ing Code Act is ex­pect­ed to be draft­ed for en­force­ment.

"This would en­sure that bet­ter qual­i­ty struc­tures will be built in the fu­ture, there­by re­duc­ing the risk of dam­age from earth­quakes, hur­ri­canes and floods."When build­ings are built to code it re­duces the risks as­so­ci­at­ed with dis­as­ters and re­duces the bur­den on the state in the event of a dis­as­ter," he said.

The 19-mem­ber com­mit­tee in­cludes Mark Fran�ois, a reg­is­tered civ­il/struc­tur­al en­gi­neer; Dr My­ron Chin, for­mer head of UWI's Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing De­part­ment and a reg­is­tered civ­il/struc­tur­al en­gi­neer, as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the T&T Board of En­gi­neer­ing and the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers.