Your reference on the Scottsdale public comment piece is misleading. Moving public comment to the very end of the council meeting is a means to cut it off - as we all know with the council that those meetings can last for three to four hours, depending on agendas or other things.
Many interesting building sites/building materials in Cochise County. There is a local (Graham County) Rastra-Block outfit that will ship down to Cochise. Only about 100 miles away. Amazing stuff. Made from recycled plastic products and cement. R-factor is almost off the chart. I would buy one of your headline shirts.
I smell another Rio Verde Foothills coming to Cochise County. One way or another it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Adobe, straw bail and other alternative building can be a wonderful alternative but there’s wiring, sewer, water, internet, that need to be to code or bad things can happen.
Your concerns are the kind of reasonable pushback I heard during the state-wide opt out campaign. If I wasn’t intimately with the situation, it’s history, I’d probably raise the same questions. Some relevant info: This is only for 4 or more acre parcels, not dense developments. Septic, wells, and smoke detector regulations come from state law and cannot be opted-out of. Bad things are statistically more likely to happen with code-compliant stick frame houses, especially considering that code-compliance on paper does not translate to actual code-compliance, and contractors (especially rural contractors) often fail to meet standards - owner-builders do higher quality work with DIY. Apparently this is true in suburban areas to, where developers rush through construction and doors are literally falling off homes, etc. Then consider, after inspections, homeowners have every opportunity to mess with their electric wiring and infrastructure, no matter how code complaint they may have originally been. So at the end of the day, safety mostly comes down to homeowners being responsible, informed and smart. Fortunately, not a single opt-out build has ever had a catastrophic problem with infrastructure or fire. Groundwater availability (if that’s what you’re referring to in Rio Verde) has nothing to do with residential building codes, but (imo) that’s where it’s better to be more active with regulations, to protect the water supplies that everyone relies on. Luckily, the locals here have successfully pushed for groundwater regulations. In the end, regulations and codes are always tricky, pros and cons, and sometimes erring on the side of restrictions can create more problems than it solves. Basing conclusions on abstract associations and guess-work will not suffice when it comes to complex policy considerations. My three cents :)
Your reference on the Scottsdale public comment piece is misleading. Moving public comment to the very end of the council meeting is a means to cut it off - as we all know with the council that those meetings can last for three to four hours, depending on agendas or other things.
Many interesting building sites/building materials in Cochise County. There is a local (Graham County) Rastra-Block outfit that will ship down to Cochise. Only about 100 miles away. Amazing stuff. Made from recycled plastic products and cement. R-factor is almost off the chart. I would buy one of your headline shirts.
I smell another Rio Verde Foothills coming to Cochise County. One way or another it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Adobe, straw bail and other alternative building can be a wonderful alternative but there’s wiring, sewer, water, internet, that need to be to code or bad things can happen.
Your concerns are the kind of reasonable pushback I heard during the state-wide opt out campaign. If I wasn’t intimately with the situation, it’s history, I’d probably raise the same questions. Some relevant info: This is only for 4 or more acre parcels, not dense developments. Septic, wells, and smoke detector regulations come from state law and cannot be opted-out of. Bad things are statistically more likely to happen with code-compliant stick frame houses, especially considering that code-compliance on paper does not translate to actual code-compliance, and contractors (especially rural contractors) often fail to meet standards - owner-builders do higher quality work with DIY. Apparently this is true in suburban areas to, where developers rush through construction and doors are literally falling off homes, etc. Then consider, after inspections, homeowners have every opportunity to mess with their electric wiring and infrastructure, no matter how code complaint they may have originally been. So at the end of the day, safety mostly comes down to homeowners being responsible, informed and smart. Fortunately, not a single opt-out build has ever had a catastrophic problem with infrastructure or fire. Groundwater availability (if that’s what you’re referring to in Rio Verde) has nothing to do with residential building codes, but (imo) that’s where it’s better to be more active with regulations, to protect the water supplies that everyone relies on. Luckily, the locals here have successfully pushed for groundwater regulations. In the end, regulations and codes are always tricky, pros and cons, and sometimes erring on the side of restrictions can create more problems than it solves. Basing conclusions on abstract associations and guess-work will not suffice when it comes to complex policy considerations. My three cents :)