Hello, my name is John…

Hello, my name is John Khajadourian and I am the owner and Managing Principal of Straticom Planning Associates Inc. - a corporate interior design business with 25 employees that was established in 1991. I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments here.

Firstly, I would like to say that although the Interior Design industry is a very large portion of the building and construction industry, too often our role has been overlooked, or minimized in favour of Architects or Engineers. I would be surprised if the vast majority of commercial construction permits (though not necessarily dollar value) are not for interior renovations, and as such, an understanding of these projects and their risks should be considered when proposing changes to the permitting regime.

There is a large difference between interiors and structural building work. To my knowledge, there have been no cases of public harm due to interior design. I feel that if streamlining of the permit process is one of the goals of this review, I would suggest segregating building permit applications into structural vs. non-structural to begin with - and perhaps even new build vs. renovation. This would eliminate the need for as detailed of a review as interiors and renovations are generally not as critical for life safety as structural projects, save for fire suppression which is already undertaken by specialists.

In addition, there is a large difference between residential construction and commercial / office . industrial construction. While often individuals who may or may not have construction or development knowledge can undertake to manage their own residential construction projects and then sell their project, this is much less of a concern in the commercial space. Though the general concerns and risks are similar, the two types of projects are different enough to warrant segregation in terms of regulation and review.

Regarding the BCIN examination, pass rates and attracting candidates - many have confided in me that often the material covered is not relevant to a specific individual or subsector - for example, "tents" are a section of Large Building exam - something that we have never undertaken. The amount of material to cover is large and only growing with each Building Code release. Keeping the material that is tested relevant for a particular industry or sub sector of the construction industry would help to attract BCIN candidates by also further reducing the time and cost to qualification.

As far as transfer to an administrative authority, I think it would only add cost and time to the whole process as another body would have to fund its work, administration and insurance. I really don't see how the existing permit costs could ever possibly cover these additional costs. It would likely add in the range of $1,000 per permit to make it worthwhile for any third party to undertake the effort and liability for a such reviews. In addition, this proposed model would make obsolete the time and costs of those who have invested in BCIN licenses in the past, such as our organization and practitioners. If anything, we would like to see more opportunities for us to stamp drawings ourselves and take on the liability, rather than having yet another layer of regulations, review, time and costs. I would also suggest input from the largest players in the construction insurance / bonding industry if that has not yet been explicitly solicited.

Sincerely,

John Khajadourian
Managing Principal
416.931.7400
john@strati.com