October 23, 2002—The nation’s three leading building safety organizations recently voted to consolidate services, products, and operations into one member service organization. BOCA (Building Officials and Code Administrators), ICBO (International Conference of Building Officials), and SBCCI (Southern Building Code Congress International) have become the International Code Council (ICC), which is expected to begin operations in January 2003.
“The consolidation unites our nation’s leading building safety experts under one common goal—to serve public health and safety,” said ICC Chief Executive Officer Bob Heinrich. “This will ensure that our members and the public receive quality technical and educational services that support the ICC International Codes [I-Codes]. The ICC will continue to service BOCA, ICBO, and SBCCI with regional code products as municipalities and states transition to I-Codes that have no geographic boundaries.”
More than 97% of US cities, counties, and states that adopt model codes choose building and fire codes created by the three building safety groups that make up the ICC. BOCA, ICBO and SBCCI have more than 190 years of collective experience developing codes. Since 1994, that expertise has been focused on creating I-Codes. The development of I-Codes also responds to the needs of the construction industry and has strong backing from code enforcement officials, architects, engineers, builders, developers, and building owners and managers.
In 1994, BOCA, ICBO, and SBCCI created the ICC to develop a single set of comprehensive, coordinated, model construction codes that could be used throughout the United States and around the world. The first I-Code published was the 1995 International Plumbing Code. By 2000, a complete family of 11 construction codes was available. The ICC Performance Code for Buildings and Facilities joined the I-Code family in 2001. The ICC also introduced I-Code Commentaries and a host of other products and services.
As ICC, the association will expand the wide range of technical and educational services; extensive inventory of codes, standards, and publications; and other code-related support services and products currently offered by BOCA, ICBO, and SBCCI.
