How will the new Rehabilitation Code promote the rehabilitation and re-use of existing buildings?
The new code will promote reinvestment in existing buildings in at least three ways. First, in place of the confusing patchwork of construction codes that vary among jurisdictions, the new Rehabilitation Code will provide building owners, contractors, design professionals, and local code officials with a predictable, easy to use code that will spell out all of the code requirements for existing buildings. Second, the new code will clearly separate rehabilitation requirements from those for new construction. Third, the code will provide a framework in which code requirements will gradually increase as the scope of the rehabilitation project increases. This will allow small rehabilitation projects to proceed that otherwise would have been postponed or abandoned due to the unnecessarily long time delays and high costs of achieving compliance with the full set of construction codes for new buildings.
