What Governmental Services Aims to Deliver
Building code policy has grown to be more than selecting an edition of a model code and preparing an ordinance. Each adoption requires a community to balance local conditions, development priorities, state requirements, administrative capacity, industry readiness, and the practical realities of implementation.
Shums Coda Associates brings a distinctive perspective to that process because we work on both sides of adoption. SCA professionals advise communities on code policy and adoption while also serving jurisdictions directly through building department operations, plan review, inspection, permit administration, technical assistance, and education.
Our team understands not only how a code provision is written, but how it will ultimately be interpreted at the counter, documented on a plan set, inspected in the field, and administered by a local government.
Across the communities we serve, SCA offers a customizable suite of services that support long-term strategic partnerships based on a holistic understanding of your community needs and your community goals. From that starting point, our work may include evaluating model code editions and state requirements; developing local amendments; drafting adoption ordinances and supporting documents; comparing policy alternatives; coordinating related building, fire, energy, existing building, and resilience provisions; facilitating stakeholder engagement; presenting technical information to boards, councils, commissions, and industry groups; and preparing implementation resources for staff and the regulated community. SCA’s involvement does not have to end when an ordinance is adopted. Because our teams provide plan review, inspection, training, technical support, and building department administration, we can help jurisdictions prepare for the operational changes created by a new code.
This work can be performed as part of SCA’s direct building department services, through a dedicated consulting engagement, or through broader regional and utility-supported programs. The objective remains the same: help communities move from policy direction to codes that are technically defensible, administratively workable, and capable of being implemented consistently.
Selected Policy & Adoption Projects
City of Golden, Colorado
Energy Code Adoption & Existing Building Code Alignment
SCA has assisted the City of Golden with evaluation and development of its energy code adoption approach, including the relationship between updated energy requirements and regulations governing existing buildings.
Existing buildings present some of the most complicated questions in modern code adoption. Alterations, additions, repairs, changes of occupancy, historic buildings, tenant improvements, and other projects can trigger substantially different requirements depending on how adopted codes and local amendments interact.
SCA’s work with Golden focuses on aligning policy intent with a regulatory structure that can be clearly administered by the City’s building department and understood by the development community. The work draws on SCA’s combined expertise in the International Energy Conservation Code, International Existing Building Code, Colorado energy legislation, local amendments, and day-to-day code administration.
This type of engagement reflects an important component of SCA’s adoption practice: examining not only what a community wants to adopt, but also how multiple adopted codes will work together once the policy reaches an actual project.
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Regional Building Codes for Factory-Built and Modular Construction
SCA has supported the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and Division of Housing in the development of a new regional approach to the regulation of factory-built construction.
Colorado’s SB 25-002 directed the State Housing Board to establish regional building code standards that account for climatic and geographic conditions and fire protection considerations affecting factory-built residential and nonresidential structures. The legislation represents an effort to create greater consistency for factory-built construction while continuing to address the substantial variation in conditions found across Colorado. Rather than examining an individual building or jurisdiction, this project required considering how a regulatory framework can function across communities with dramatically different environmental conditions while creating greater predictability for manufacturers, local governments, and the construction industry.
SCA’s technical work has supported the translation of that policy direction into practical regional criteria, including evaluation of snow, wind, seismic, frost, energy, wildfire, radon, and fire-suppression considerations. Because of Colorado’s unique home-rule regulatory framework for building codes, the team developed and organized a state-wide survey of jurisdictions based on adopted codes and regulatory practices and analyzed the survey data to assist the development of a clear series of recommendations. The team also attended state Technical Advisory Committee meetings to assist with project updates and stake holding, leveraged relationships with key professionals to provide input on the finished rulemaking product, while also performing research and developing reports on multiple technical questions. The project illustrates SCA’s ability to work at the intersection of model codes, state legislation, local conditions, construction practice, and regulatory implementation.
Denver Regional Council of Governments
Building Policy Collaborative
SCA is currently supporting the Denver Regional Council of Governments’ Building Policy Collaborative, a regional initiative designed to help local governments coordinate the development, adoption, and implementation of building codes and policies affecting new and existing buildings.
The Building Policy Collaborative brings together jurisdictions across the Denver metropolitan region to develop more consistent approaches to building energy codes, transparency policies, and future building performance policies while providing research, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and peer-to-peer problem solving.
SCA provides technical code and implementation expertise to help connect regional policy objectives with the realities faced by local building departments. This includes evaluating code provisions, developing adoption and implementation resources, supporting regional policy frameworks, and helping translate complex building regulations for policymakers, sustainability professionals, code officials, and other stakeholders. SCA works on a team of experts including the Public Health Law Center, Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) and Lotus Engineering and Sustainability.
The project demonstrates SCA’s ability to work beyond an individual jurisdiction and helps multiple communities examine where regional consistency is beneficial while recognizing differences in local authority, staffing, development patterns, and implementation capacity.
Wildfire-Resilient Building Codes
Technical Leadership and Local Adoption Support
As wildfire risk increasingly influences building regulation throughout the West, communities are evaluating new requirements addressing construction in wildfire-prone areas, defensible space, ignition-resistant construction, site conditions, and the relationship between building and fire codes.
SCA provides jurisdictions with technical assistance in evaluating and implementing wildfire-related construction requirements while recognizing that wildfire regulation must respond to local risk, geography, fire-service capacity, existing development, and state regulatory requirements.
SCA Arizona Regional Manager Barbara Rice brings more than two decades of municipal experience spanning building and fire inspection, plan review, fire investigation, fire marshal and building official responsibilities in Oregon and Arizona. Her experience allows SCA to approach wildfire codes from both the building safety and community risk-reduction perspectives. She currently serves as part of the Arizona Governor’s Task Force of Wildfire Resilient Building Codes.
SCA can assist communities with wildfire code evaluation, adoption strategy, technical amendments, coordination between building and fire requirements, staff and stakeholder education, and implementation planning.
Policy Informed by Practice
The common thread across SCA’s government services work is implementation.
Our professionals include former and current building officials, fire officials, inspectors, plans examiners, permit professionals, architects, engineers, educators, and building department administrators. That experience provides a practical lens for evaluating proposed regulatory changes. As more policy makers leverage codes as a tool to assist addressing their community needs, governments move beyond adopting codes toward adaptive building regulatory systems that can work effectively in practice.
From statewide regulatory frameworks and regional policy initiatives to an individual community’s next code adoption, SCA provides the technical knowledge, governmental experience, and implementation perspective needed to turn building policy into practice.