What is the FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program?
The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program is a FEMA initiative designed to support states, local governments, tribes, and territories in reducing their hazard risk through proactive investment in community resilience.
Building Codes and BRIC
One of the four priorities of BRIC is to support the adoption and enforcement of building codes. This is an important hazard mitigation activity that delivers high impact resilience benefits at a relatively low cost.
In their 2020 ‘Building Codes Save: A Nationwide Study’ publication (https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-11/fema_building-codes-save_study.pdf), FEMA cited a 2019 Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves study by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), which found that implementing the latest building codes saves $11 per $1 invested (detailed background can be found here https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-11/fema_building-codes-save_study.pdf). Updating to the latest building codes could avoid total cumulative losses of $132 billion by 2040.
Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) & Building Code Plus-Up
2024 is the 4th year of the BRIC program. In 2023, the program introduced a special initiative called Building Code Plus-Up. This is similar to the original BRIC State/Territory Allocation and Trial Set-Aside funding (which can still be used) but is limited to building code activities.
Building Code Plus-Up Objective
The initiative aims to incentivize the adoption and enforcement of the latest editions of the building codes to ensure that buildings and infrastructure are better prepared to withstand natural disasters, reducing potential damage and enhancing community resilience.
Funding Available
Funding includes up to $2 million per state and territory, and up to $25 million for tribal governments. Federal cost share is at least 75%. Building Code Plus-Ups funds may only be applied to eligible building code activities and may not be used for other BRIC eligible projects or activities (funds not allocated to eligible building code activities will result in loss of funds.
Eligible Building Code Activities covered by Building Code Plus-Up
Eligible building code activities covered under Building Code Plus-Up include:
- Adoption and implementation of building codes that reduce risk.
- Enhancing existing codes to incorporate more current requirements or higher standards.
- Purchasing print or online codes/publications to support building code activities.
- Engaging consulting services to support activities related to building codes, including adoptions and updates.
- Building department accreditation.
- Training and certification of code officials.
- Develop or acquire software and hardware, as well as associated training, to assist with plan reviews (Plan Analyst), permitting, inspections, and records retention. Capitalize on the use of virtual/electronic submission methods.
- Develop activities related to improving code enforcement. Examples:
- Evaluate processes
- Implement an inspection program
- Improve BCEGS score (https://www.isomitigation.com/bcegs/)
- Improve FEMA Community Rating System (CRS) rating Community Rating System | FEMA.gov
Eligible Building Code Activities – Plan Analyst Plan Review / Code Study Software
Plan Analyst software is the perfect accompaniment to the building code books, and aligns with the BRIC code activity eligibility guidelines, “Develop or acquire software and hardware, as well as associated training, to assist with plan reviews …”.
Since 1986, thousands of building officials and designers have found Plan Analyst software to be the fastest, easiest and most cost-effective way to generate complete and accurate code studies, plan checks and correction reports for the International Building Code IBC) and International Residential Code (IRC).
Plan Analyst software eliminates the need for building officials or designers to wade through the code manually to identify the relevant sections for a project, instead providing a streamlined, form driven approach that ensures all potential issues are considered.
The auto-generated compliance report for a project provides a comprehensive list of the code requirements specifically for the building being reviewed, as well as compliance status and all code references. The report is clearly laid out and easy to understand and can be shared with colleagues and building designers.
The Benefits of Plan Analyst
Plan review staff will produce accurate, consistent reviews project after project. Intelligent form driven navigation of the code and automated calculations:
- performs consistent, accurate, high quality plan reviews
- reduces the time it takes to do plan reviews by hours improving productivity
- eliminates errors
- identifies and reports specific areas of code non-conformance
- easy to use
- ideal for less tenured or experienced plan review staff
- helps improve communication with clients
How Plan Analyst Works
- Building official identifies information from the building plans as guided by Plan Analyst, entering the values needed to complete the building description into the form driven software.
- Plan Analyst then searches through the code, completing all required time-consuming calculations and creates a code study that includes only the code requirements that apply to the project.
- A correction report can be created by reviewing the questions in the correction report section. The questions are customized to include only what is specific to the project. When the prompted questions have been answered a correction report is created complete with all verifying code references.