Abbottstown Borough’s Building Code Enforcement, provided by PA Municipal Code Alliance (PMCA), has recently been rated Class Two on the Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS) for commercial/industrial and residential structures by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), according to a release issued by Abbottstown Borough Manager David W. Bolton and Code Officer James Graham.
“The advisory program assesses adopted building codes and the degree of enforcement of those codes, with a focus on natural hazard mitigation,” the release reads.
The assessment translates into a classification of 1 to 10, with Class 1 representing excellent code enforcement and adoption efforts.
The current classification for Abbottstown ranks in the top 5% of commercial and residential structures in the United States and ranks in the top 1% for Pennsylvania residential structures, (https://www.isomitigation.com/bcegs/facts-and-figures/), according to the release.
R. Clem Malot, chief code official for PMCA, said the borough is only limited in attaining Class 1 qualification due to the state’s delay in adopting the 2021 Building Code updates, according to the release.
In Pennsylvania, the average classification for both residential and commercial/industrial structures is Class 4 with scores of 65-71, opposed to Abbottstown’s range of 85-92, according to the release.
“Benefits to the residents of Abbottstown Borough from these high classifications include higher rankings for community mitigation grants, community rating considerations for FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, improved opportunities towards property insurance underwriting. Benchmarking data to compare various communities can be acquired free of charge,” the release reads.
The building code department ratings are used in various ways. According to the release, some of these are:
1. Filed Rating Program – credits available to participating insurers now and any future insurer use. (Premium discounts for the community)
2. FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant and FEMA Post-Disaster Mitigation Grant – Application ranking. Participation in BCEGS is one of various criteria used by FEMA in ranking applications for pre and post disaster funding for communities.
3. FEMA BRIC Grants- BCEGS ratings are part of the criteria used by FEMA for applications for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grants (BRIC)
4. CRS Program- Community Rating Service. This rating measures the flood management efforts of a community and is part of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). It is a prerequisite to participate in the BCEGS program, to achieve more favorable results in the CRS program.
5. Underwriting data – Building Underwriting Reports (BUR). These are reports that property insurance underwriters can access to obtain pertinent information concerning a building. The BCEGS results for a community, in which the building is located, is included in this report.
6. Benchmarking data made available to the community. After a BCEGS review is complete for a community, a benchmarking report is sent with their results which includes comparison data for like sized communities, free of charge.
