[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 206 (Tuesday, October 26, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 57736-57737]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-27839]
[[Page 57735]]
_______________________________________________________________________
Part III
Department of Housing and Urban Development
_______________________________________________________________________
Notice of Public Meeting and Solicitation of Comments
Federal Register / Vol. 64, No. 206 / Tuesday, October 26, 1999 /
Notices
[[Page 57736]]
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
[Docket No. FR-4540-N-01]
Notice of Public Meeting and Solicitation of Comments
AGENCY: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal
Opportunity, HUD.
ACTION: Notice of meeting and solicitation of comments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD or the Department) announces a public meeting and requests public
comments on a draft report developed by Steven Winter Associates (SWA)
which identifies the variances between the Fair Housing Act's design
and construction requirements and the:
National Building Code, Building Officials and Code
Administrators International (BOCA) 1996 edition;
Uniform Building Code, International Conference of
Building Officials (ICBO) 1997 edition;
Standard Building Code, Southern Building Code Congress
International (SBCCI) 1997 edition; and
International Building Code First Draft, International
Code Council (ICC) November 1997; Proposed International Building Code
2000, International Code Council (IBC-2000) Chapters 10 and 11,
Appendix to Chapter 11, and Section 3407 (1999).
The draft report discusses only variances that do not meet the Fair
Housing Act's design and construction requirements. As stated in the
BACKGROUND section of this notice, the draft report is a precursor to a
final report that HUD will deliver to the United States House of
Representatives by December 31, 1999, as directed in the Committee
Report of the FY 2000 HUD/VA Appropriations bill. After receipt and
review of public comments, the Department will make its final revisions
to the draft report and then issue the final report.
DATES: The meeting will be held on November 10, 1999, and will commence
at 2:00 p.m. EST and continue until 5:00 p.m. EST. Written public
comments will be received prior to the meeting, during the meeting, and
after the meeting until the close of business (6:00 p.m. EST) on
Monday, November 15, 1999.
ADDRESSES: The meeting will take place at the United States Department
of Housing and Urban Development headquarters, 451 7th Street, SW,
Washington, DC 20410 in the south side of the cafeteria on the ground
floor of the HUD building. The Department of Housing and Urban
Development is located at the L'Enfant Plaza Metro stop. The meeting
will also be broadcast in HUD field offices. The addresses for the HUD
field offices and telephone numbers for the Senior Community Builders
may be obtained from www.hud.gov/directory/ascdir3.html or from Juanina
Harris at the address and telephone number listed in the
``RESERVATIONS'' section of this notice.
Accessibility
The HUD headquarters building and field offices are accessible. The
meeting in HUD headquarters will be interpreted in sign language and
presented in open and real-time captioning. The broadcast will be open-
captioned on television monitors in the HUD field offices with the
exception of the following offices. The broadcast is available for
listening only in Burlington, Vermont; Flint, Michigan; Wilmington,
Delaware; and Springfield, Illinois. In Camden, New Jersey; Fargo,
North Dakota; Memphis, Tennessee; Shreveport, Louisiana; Spokane,
Washington; and Tucson, Arizona, the broadcast will be shown on
computer monitors. If you plan to attend the broadcast in one of those
offices, please notify the Senior Community Builder seven days before
the meeting if you need the services of a sign language interpreter.
Hearing or speech-impaired individuals may access any of the HUD
headquarters and field telephone numbers referenced in this notice via
TTY/TDD by calling the toll-free federal Information Relay Service at
1-800-877-8339.
Reservations
If you would like to attend or view the meeting, you should make a
reservation by 5:00 p.m. EST on November 8, 1999.
To make a reservation to attend the meeting at HUD headquarters in
Washington, DC, you should telephone Juanina Harris at (202) 619-8046,
extension 6979, with the following information: your name; the
organization you are representing, if any; any reasonable
accommodations you may need to attend or view the meeting; whether you
intend to present oral comments; and the anticipated length of your
comments. This telephone number is not toll-free. Commenters will be
allowed no more than ten and, depending on the number of commenters, as
few as five minutes to make their comments.
To make a reservation to view or listen to the broadcast of the
meeting at a HUD field office, you should telephone the Senior
Community Builder at the HUD field office where you would like to view
or listen to the broadcast. You should provide the following
information to the Senior Community Builder: your name; the
organization you are representing, if any; and any reasonable
accommodations you may need to view or listen to the broadcast of the
meeting. The field office telephone numbers are not toll-free.
Alternatively, you may make a reservation to attend the meeting or
to view or listen to the broadcast by using the registration form found
at hud.gov/fhe/modelcodes, and following the instructions on the form.
Submission of Comments
Written comments should be submitted to Cheryl Kent, Director,
Program Compliance and Disability Rights Support Division at 451
Seventh Street, SW, Room 5240, Washington, DC 20410-0500. Written
comments will also be accepted at the public meeting. Written comments
must be submitted by close of business (6:00 p.m. EST) on Monday,
November 15, 1999.
Location of Documents
The HUD policy statement and draft report are located at
www.hud.gov/fhe/modelcodes. The Fair Housing Act, the Fair Housing Act
regulations, and the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines can also be
obtained through links provided at this web site. Hard or Braille
copies of the HUD policy statement and draft report may be requested
from Ms. Harris at the telephone number or address listed in the
``RESERVATIONS'' section of this notice.
The Department recognizes that this report is designed to provide
technical assistance to model code organizations and thus, because the
report is responding to code language, it may be using terms unfamiliar
to the general public. For this reason, the Department has arranged to
have all of the source documents that SWA and the Department used in
the analysis available to the public. The original and revised industry
matrices that SWA and the Department reviewed are available at
www.intlcode.org/fairhousing. You may also request a hard copy of the
original and revised industry matrices from Ms. Harris at the telephone
number or address listed in the ``RESERVATIONS'' section of this
notice. The model code organizations have agreed to provide free of
charge access to the chapters of the model codes that SWA and the
Department reviewed. ANSI-A117.1 1992 and ANSI-A117.1 1998 are
available for
[[Page 57737]]
purchase at that web address. ANSI-A117.1-1986 is out of print and not
available except in the HUD headquarters library at 451 Seventh St.,
S.W., and at HUD Fair Housing HUBs in the following locations: New
York, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Atlanta, Georgia; Fort Worth,
Texas; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Chicago,
Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and
Denver, Colorado.
Copies of all the relevant documents are also available for viewing
at the HUD Library at 451 Seventh St., SW, Washington, DC 20410. To
gain admission to the HUD Library you must present identification to
the security guards and ask to visit the library. Photocopying in the
HUD library is limited to 40 pages and all of the documents, with the
exception of the HUD policy statement and the draft report, are
copyrighted and therefore not available for photocopying.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cheryl Kent, Director, Program
Compliance and Disability Rights Support Division, Department of
Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street, SW, Room 5240,
Washington, DC 20410-0500; telephone (202) 708-2333, extension 7058.
(This telephone number is not toll-free.)
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
In December 1997, the Council of American Building Code Officials
(CABO) submitted to the Department a matrix (``the industry matrix'')
that compared the four model building codes referenced in the SUMMARY
section of this notice to the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines (56
FR 9472-9515) (``the Accessibility Guidelines''). In response, the
Department retained the services of SWA to analyze the industry matrix
and to identify variances between the model building codes and the Fair
Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3604; the Fair Housing Act Regulations, 24 CFR
100.205, and the Accessibility Guidelines, 56 FR 9472-9515. The
Department also requested that SWA draft recommendations that code
organizations could use to conform their codes with the Fair Housing
Act, the Fair Housing Act Regulations, and the Accessibility
Guidelines. SWA and the Department did not limit their review
exclusively to the industry matrices or the Accessibility Guidelines.
The review compared certain relevant chapters of each code with the
Fair Housing Act, the Fair Housing Act Regulations, the Accessibility
Guidelines, and ANSI-A117.1 1986, 1992, and 1998.
The Department is not promulgating any new technical requirements
or standards by way of this draft report. This draft report and the
final report will serve solely to respond to the model building code
organizations' request for technical assistance and to provide
technical assistance to other interested parties. This request for
comment on the draft report is not a solicitation for changes to the
design and construction requirements of the Act, its Regulations, or
the Accessibility Guidelines.
Since the industry matrix was submitted to the Department, in
December 1997, new editions of the BOCA and SBCCI codes have been
published. Additionally, CABO indicated that there is a movement to
fold all of the model building codes into one, the International
Building Code. After consultation with CABO, CABO submitted a revised
matrix to include the available proposed chapters of the Final Report
for IBC-2000. The Final Report for IBC-2000 has not been published;
however, the Department was able to obtain Chapter 10, Chapter 11, the
Appendix to Chapter 11, and Section 3407 (1999) and has included an
analysis of these in the draft report.
The United States House of Representatives Appropriations Committee
issued a Report accompanying the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban
Development Appropriations bill, HR-106-286 (Aug. 3, 1999). The
Committee directed the Department to complete its review of the
industry matrix and issue a policy statement by December 31, 1999. The
Department intends to meet this deadline; however, prior to finalizing
the report to Congress, the Department seeks public comment on the
identification of variances and the recommendations contained in the
draft report. Department staff have carefully reviewed and commented on
the draft report and would like to hear from persons with disabilities,
organizations representing persons with disabilities, code officials,
home builders, and other interested parties prior to finalizing the
report.
The draft report focuses only on the areas where the respective
codes do not meet the requirements of the Fair Housing Act, the Fair
Housing Act Regulations, the Accessibility Guidelines, ANSI-A117.1
1986, ANSI-A117.1 1992, or ANSI-A117.1 1998. If a particular provision
of a code is not discussed, then the reader should presume that the
position of SWA and the Department is that the provision meets the
requirements of the Fair Housing Act even if the wording of the code
provision and the Fair Housing Act requirements are not identical.
The November 10, 1999 Meeting
The November 10, 1999 meeting will be open to persons who register
in advance. Attendance may be limited to the space available. A thirty-
minute presentation by SWA will commence the meeting. The remainder of
the time will be used for HUD officials to listen to public comments on
the draft report. Members of the public may present oral comments
during the meeting, to the extent that time permits, and file written
comments with the Department for its consideration. Commenters will be
limited to no more than ten minutes, and if there are numerous
participants, as few as five minutes to make an oral statement. Written
comments should be submitted to Cheryl Kent at the address listed in
the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION section of this notice or to the registrar
at the public meeting. The transcript of the meeting will be available
for public inspection and copying by requesting them from Ms. Harris.
The Department will consider all comments received by close of
business (6:00 EST) on November 15, 1999 and will publish its final
report by December 31, 1999.
Dated: October 20, 1999.
Eva M. Plaza,
Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
[FR Doc. 99-27839 Filed 10-25-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4210-28-P
