Quality Manager ABCs for ABC—Part 2

City Conversation #95 Part 2: Approved Building Consultants could dramatically shorten all permitting times—here's how

December 30th 2022—ABC Vancouver has much on its plate as it moves into governance. Our recent Conversation #92 discussed how Vancouver could establish its own Affordable Building Code to make housing better and more affordable. Conversation #94, Part 1 outlined the current permitting maze in Vancouver and sets the stage for Part 2’s suggested solutions. 

Part 2 picks up with my son’s questions about BC’s letters of assurance, unique in Canada to BC and Alberta:

This 1988 roof collapse in a Vancouver suburb led to our first quality management efforts—time to up our game again?

“Seems like a lot of belts and suspenders,” my son retorted.

“Well, the letters of assurance arose in BC because in 1988, a new shopping centre roof used for parking collapsed just minutes before the grand opening. Nobody was killed (there were injuries) but investigation showed that the Designers’ work had not been coordinated or cross checked—there was not enough quality management of the design and construction processes. There was a commission of inquiry, whose recommendations included the creation of letters of assurance that commit the Designers to protecting the public—and they work. There’s been no building collapse in BC since. 

And when another shopping centre rooftop parking lot collapsed in Elliot Lake, Ontario, in 2013, the Commissioner of the Ontario report arising identified that letters of assurance such as BC has would likely have prevented that disaster—which did result in deaths.”

I continued. “Designers also have substantial insurance in case they inadvertently make a mistake and, for example, condo owners have to pony up money for repairs to a leaky building.”

He frowned as he interrupted. “But there were thousands of leaky condos in the 1980s and 90s. I know you helped fix many of them, as well as preventing issues in new construction, but isn’t that an example of Designers failing to do their job?”

“You would be correct in part, although there was plenty of blame for builders and municipal authorities,” I answered. “Many of those projects were designed before letters of assurance—no excuse, but a factor. But on the bright side of the leaky condo mess, the professions and city staff responded by creating the Building Envelope Professional (BEP) who is, in fact, a quality manager for their work!”

“How so?” he asked skeptically.

“Each time a project team engages a BEP, they are adding a building envelope quality manager—a professional tasked with reviewing the Designers’ design work and the builder’s construction work—a second set of knowledgeable eyes. Successful BEPs have checklists of what they need to review, both during design and during construction. Similarly, CPs, the code consultants, have checklists of all the bits of building codes they have to check during the design and construction processes. And more recently to the quality management party, green building consultants have additional checklists to determine if a building is as environmentally appropriate as possible—or as specified.”

“And all these folks are independent professionals with insurance, experience and specialized training?” he interjected.

“Yes and no,” I responded to his frown. “BEPs and CPs need to be Architects or Engineers, hence insured and with responsibility to the public mandated by law. Many but not all green building consultants are Architects or Engineers, so the support network is maybe a bit weaker there.”

He had been waiting patiently for his chance. “So how can all this lead to improvements in design and construction efficiency?”

“Well,” I answered, “let’s think about what we’ve got now versus what we could have. Currently at every step of the design and construction process for most buildings larger than a fourplex, we have trained professionals responsible directly to the public who do their design work, then deliver it to city staff who have never seen the project and likely have much less training and experience than the Designers.” He nodded hesitantly.

“So for every project, we have people checking our work who know much less about it than us. And unlike us, if they make a mistake in their review, they have zero responsibility—just read the fine print on any permit application. And all this double checking takes a lot of time” He looked a bit incredulous at that. I continued.

“My simple mind says: If a professional team brings to a municipality signed, sealed design and/or construction documents, with letters of assurance that comply with a recognized quality management system, why don’t the municipalities simply hand the requested permit over the counter at a dramatic savings in time and fees? If, let’s say, a design complies with existing zoning and the professionals so certify, why is anything else required?”

“Is that enough of a constraint?” he asked.

“Yes, when the team takes a quality management approach such as partly occurs with CPs and BEPs—at least, I think it’s enough. The Engineers in BC already have a quality management system in place, largely driven by the importance of robust building structures, although it’s not as robust as I think it should be for the ABC approach I’m proposing. Architects don’t have a comprehensive quality management system, but that could be quickly created. It would probably need to be more integrated than the separate CP, BEP and green building bits, but with the incentive of much faster and cheaper permitting, I’m confident the development and construction industries would help make a robust quality management system happen. It would be different from what we have now, although many architects, engineers, code, building envelope and green building consultants would easily qualify.  But time and costs would dramatically reduce. That’s why I call its adherents Affordable Building Consultants.”

He paused for a moment, then asked: “What about really small projects and a project where the owner does not want the expense of Designers, CPs, BEPs, etc?”

“There will always need to be a non-professional stream, where a citizen can walk in off the street with their design, or design wish list, and engage with city staff in a traditional fashion. But if more complex submissions are mostly managed by the design professionals, city staff will have much more time to deal efficiently with citizen requests.”

“You’ve told me,” he interjected, “that the large majority of houses in the city are not designed by Architects. Do they all need to get in the citizen queue?”

“Perhaps not,” I answered. “Building Designers, as non-Architects usually style themselves, have their own associations. Those could create a quality-managed system for home design or smaller commercial structures, reviewed and approved by city staff. That process would be for them to design—I don’t pretend to speak for them, although the applicable quality management principles are pretty universal.”

“Is this ABC approach limited to buildings in Vancouver?” he asked hesitantly.

“Not at all,” I responded. “ The provincial government controls the BC Building Code, so could amend it to create and manage a similar program for the rest of the province. And it needn’t be limited to buildings. Any construction, such as roads and bridges, that is designed by registered professionals such as Engineers and Architects, could be similarly managed with associated time and cost savings. The key is a simple but robust quality-managed process.”

“Isn’t the new Vancouver Council committed to reducing permitting times?” he asked. I smiled at his following of recent news reporting.

“That was certainly one of their election promises,” I answered. “But a promise of reduced permitting times is actually dangerous if not accompanied by reviewing the permitting processes themselves. It’s quite conceivable that city staff might issue permits with little or no oversight.”

He interrupted. “Isn’t that what you’re suggesting?”

“No,” I replied. “I’m suggesting a joint registered professional/city staff process review and rationalization. Leading up to the leaky condo crisis, there were municipalities (not Vancouver) that stopped doing any inspections of work in progress because of the sheer volume of work under construction, for example—much like the high volume of work we have now. Some building trades took advantage of this lack of inspection to cover their mistakes, which then became a major cause of leaky buildings. Building codes revised in the 80s and 90s caused significant changes in how walls interacted with our rainy climate, which designers and builders did not all understand or build into their work. Professionals failed to supplement omitted municipal inspections with more of their own field review (that’s what the insurers of registered professionals insist they call inspections). As I have said before, there was fault all around the design and construction table.”

I continued. “More recently, BC and Vancouver building code revisions, such as the energy step code and passive house construction, threaten to overwhelm designers, builders and city staff much as the code revisions did just before leaky condos. If provincial and municipal authorities want to speed permitting while adding (needed) complex energy and environmental improvements, they need to insert deliberate quality management systems, else we will simply build another generation of failed buildings—different causes, same result.

Some design professionals and builders already get this—a leading architect in passive house insists that on their projects there is a full time construction superintendent focused solely on the construction and integrity of the building envelope—there are just too many opportunities for projects run in conventional fashion to not only fail at energy conservation but also to leak energy and water, and deteriorate.”

“What are the downsides of this approach?” he asked after a few moments.

“I don’t think there are many downsides to a faster, cheaper process, which would make all new homes for sale or rent more affordable. Professionals would need to charge more for implementing a comprehensive quality management system, but it would be a pittance compared to time and permit fee savings. While the city might need a modest quality management system for larger projects, essentially checking the professionals’ checking on a random basis, many city staff in planning, design and construction would need to retrain for other jobs and other approaches. 

If the process of spot rezoning as contemplated by the Broadway Plan and the Vancouver Plan were to continue—and I would hope it would not—there would be additional staff available to expedite the rezoning process. But I expect there would be staff redundancies. Some of those staff could apply their process knowledge in the private sector. But given that city taxes have increased at rates way higher than inflation for many years, a reduced staff count might allow some tax roll backs, which would improve affordability for all citizens, both owners and renters of commercial and residential properties.”

“Isn’t redundancy a bit harsh?” he asked plaintively.

“I’m semi-retired, so can express my opinions with little fear of reprisal, unlike most folks who interact with city staff. I know not a single Designer or Builder—although they may exist—who does not privately anguish over the continually declining performance of city staff and management, at the same time as time frames and costs seem to only ever rise. 

There is a rising tide of citizen resentment for city management and staff who appear unaccountable yet protected from the economic realities that affect the rest of us. Dramatic change is needed. The Affordable Building Consultant approach is a modest proposal to address one element—affordability—that affects all of us.”

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Today’s question: What do you think of the concept of Approved Building Consultants?

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Brian Palmquist is a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). He is semi-retired for the moment, still teaching and writing, so not beholden to any client or city hall. These conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on a 40+ year career including the planning, design and construction of almost every type and scale of project. He is the author of the Amazon best seller “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.” and working the first 88 City Conversations into a book about how we’ve come to where we are.