City of Belton Provides Road Map
I was recently provided an outline of the City of Belton development review process. Fred Morris, the Development Services Director for the City informed me that the document is intended to aide the local development community in understanding the time frames and processes involved in gaining construction project approval and permits within the City limits. The document can be accessed on the presentations page of the TABA website.
If you have any questions about the document that you'd like me to get answered, just let me know. Always glad to help if I can.
Educating Members Remains A TABA Priority
With the demise of the Texas Residential Construction Commission, the mandate for continuing education for those in our industry has gone away for the time being. In our area, education was never really seen as a "have to" as much as it was embraced by our association and our members as an opportunity to remain current on industry trends and increase our knowledge on relevant industry issues.
Since September, when the TRCC closed its doors, TABA has offered a seminar related to the demise of the TRCC and what the implications are for your business, this seminar can be viewed in its entirety on our website. If you are reading this online, just click here. We have also held a seminar on code items relative to properly weather proofing homes. Each of these meetings was held on site at the TABA "campus" and were well attended. Neither of the seminars was attended by less than 60 folks, a number that is similar to the attendance we saw when education was mandated by the State.
It is clear to us that the seminars that TABA can provide are viewed as beneficial to our members and we intend to put on as many seminars as we can in the future. From issues that our members are dealing with in the field to items that we are alerted to by the Texas Association of Builders or NAHB--your TABA staff will be glad to bring speakers to Temple to advise you on ways of improving your business practices. Please let us know if you have any items that we can address through education here at TABA.
Upcoming seminars include a refresher by Richard Therriault, Temple Construction Safety Director and TABA member Phillip Snyder related to significant changes of the 2006 IRC and IFC. They will also discuss amendments that were made during the local adoption process to each of the codes. This event is tentatively planned for November/December. I'll send out invitations as soon as we have the logistics worked out.
In early 2010, TABA will host a 3 hour class entitled “Green is Mainstream: Building Codes, Energy Efficiency, and Best Practices in Green Building.” This is provided through TAB and is designed to educate our members on changes to Building Code and Energy Performance Standards as they relate to 2009 building codes. The course will also provide information about national green building programs and best practices on installation of energy efficient products.
