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AIA headlines this week include:

• AIA Members Ready, Able to Help Following Outbreak of Midwest Tornados

• Inspiring a Special Waterfront: The Philadelphia Experience

• Tax Reform: What Does it Mean for You?

• AIA Working with Partners to Improve CBECs Tool

• Pivotal Week for Protecting Preservation Programs

“In the News” – links to other news sources:

• Texas Community’s Progress Began with R/UDAT’s ’92 Goals

• Massachusetts Town Encourages Broad SDAT Participation

• 32 Years Later, Maryland R/UDAT Still Offers Guidance

A large storm system tore through several Midwestern states in the last two days, with tornados of varying strength confirmed in Kansas, Illinois, and Missouri. In each state, it took just a few minutes to create problems that could last for years, but trained AIA members are ready to be part of the solution.

Missouri has been the first to act after a moderate tornado struck areas in and around the tourist hub of Branson. Although initial reports were somewhat alarming, the main strip has reopened to tourists and one theatre owner has predicted, “Within a month or two, we’ll be back to 100%.” Missouri is also fortunate that it is a state that has a Structural Assessment and Visual Evaluation (SAVE) Coalition of architects and engineers ready to respond. AIA Springfield President Jeffrey Smith, AIA, indicated that 10 volunteers, including at least two architects, would be deployed on Saturday to survey damage to homes and businesses in the area.

Harrisburg, Illinois seemed to bear the brunt of the storm system. A powerful tornado damaged a significant portion of the town of 9,000. There, no formal coalition exists to organize professional volunteers or provide building damage assessments, but AIA leaders such as Mike Waldinger, Executive Vice President of AIA Illinois, and David Bradley, AIA, maintain a relationship with emergency managers through the Business Emergency Operations Center. There has been no indication whether the state will request any voluntary assistance.

Another tornado struck the small town of Harveyville, Kansas, damaging much of the southern half of the city. Stan Peterson, FAIA, a member of the AIA Disaster Assistance Committee, has been assisting Kansas emergency managers for over 20 years. It is unlikely that the state will request assistance in this case, but sometimes the best way to help is to let emergency managers do their jobs. After rare February tornados and predictions of another storm system sweeping through the region on Friday, Peterson fears it could be a bad season this year.

For more updates, please visit www.aia.org/disasterresponse.

This week, the Center for Communities by Design was in Austin, Texas, to hold meetings associated for the city’s Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) project. The team is led by Harris Steinberg, FAIA, who serves as Executive Director of PennPraxis in Philadelphia. On Monday night, AIA Austin hosted a public reception and talk by Steinberg called “Inspiring a Special Waterfront.” Over 120 people turned out to learn more about the principles involved in creation of a Civic Vision for Philadelphia’s waterfront, and how they might apply to Austin. The key themes included transparency, accountability, and integrity. According to Steinberg, “An honest and ongoing relationship among the public, the press, and elected officials can create a place for seeking excellence in the built environment.”

Austin has recently undergone its first citywide planning process in over 20 years. Through Imagine Austin, over 18,000 contributions from citizens helped inform a draft comprehensive plan for the city. City officials are hoping that the SDAT process can build on that civic enterprise and create a platform for a robust dialogue about the future of the Austin waterfront. The SDAT event has been scheduled for June 4-6, 2012.

To learn more about the Philadelphia waterfront planning process, you can read Steinberg’s article in the National Civic Review, or go to the Penn Praxis website. A video of the presentation will be online soon.

Rising above the din of political partisanship and discord on Capitol Hill has been a recurring call for comprehensive reform of the mind-bogglingly complex federal tax code. Echoed by the leaders of both parties and the chairmen of the tax-writing committees, this call for reform appears to have the bipartisan support needed to move forward – if not before the election, then very soon after.

But what would tax reform mean to architects, their firms, and their clients? The current tax code affects the design and construction industry in myriad ways, from the direct – like the taxes that architecture firms pay every year – to the indirect – the many tax breaks that spur clients to build. With a tax code as complex as ours, one small change could have big impacts on a firm’s bottom line; a massive reform could mean major changes in how and when clients decide to hire architects.

The AIA is working with its allies in the design and construction industry to assess some of the possible impacts of reform and how they will affect the profession.

Reasons for Reform

Many policymakers support reform of the tax code for a combination of reasons including economic competitiveness, simplification, and fairness.

Many businesses argue that American companies, seeking to expand in markets at home and abroad, are working with one of the least competitive tax systems among developed countries in the world.

Also, businesses are not the only ones affected by the current tax code, or so argues the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent office within the IRS that helps individual taxpayers. According to the Taxpayer Advocate, individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours a year complying with the filing requirements of the tax code, not including the millions of additional hours that taxpayers must spend when they are required to respond to IRS notices or audits.

The Taxpayer Advocate argues that overall, the complexity of the tax code leads to perverse results. It argues that the playing field is uneven at best, causing doubt, mistrust, and disdain for the system among individual taxpayers. It argues that the only way to address these inadequacies is to implement a simpler code.

How will tax reform affect you?

Given the support and reasons cited by both business and individual advocates, the consensus in Congress and at the White House (and among the GOP presidential contenders) is that tax reform is needed. President Obama, in his 2012 State of the Union address, implored Congress to act on tax reform

However, bipartisan support for tax reform ends where the details begin. Democrats and Republicans have differing views on the approach reform should take. For example, President Obama has recently introduced his plan for corporate-only tax reform, an approach Republicans argue is impossible given the millions of businesses that pay taxes through individual rates as pass-through entities (including a large number of architecture firms).

In addition, although most reform advocates envision a tax code with fewer tax breaks, agreement ends on which if any programs to keep or jettison. Some want to eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction completely. Others want to see the many tax incentives for energy – including for green buildings – disappear. But each tax incentive has its defenders who will fight to protect it.

Through relatively simple disputes as these, it has become apparent that Congress faces a daunting task of coming to a consensus -- not about if reform should happen, but about how.

That is why the AIA is working to educate policymakers on the impact of the current tax code on the design profession and the built environment.

But we need your help. Email us and tell us what would be the best approach to tax reform for the architecture profession. Are there specific incentives your business could not survive without? Would a lower corporate tax rate be more beneficial than any combination of incentives? Would corporate-only reform hurt your partnership? We want to hear from you; this is your chance to have your voice heard as the momentum for tax reform builds.

Back in 2005, the AIA aligned with other building industry organizations and established a goal for carbon neutral buildings by 2030.  But when we say we want to cut energy consumption by 50 percent (and more), the first question we ask ourselves is “compared to what?” The “what” is the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, or “CBECS,”    developed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to track the energy use in the country’s commercial building stock.

In its original incarnation, CBECS was to be updated every four years. However in 2007, the survey was cancelled. Given the importance of the survey as a “baseline” for the 2030 goals and the major source of building data, the building community has been extremely concerned about the fate of the important survey. The EIA reported that the 2007 survey would not be released due to statistical issues. The 2011 survey was initially suspended due to a lack of funding. However, following a push by the AIA and other groups, funds recently became available, and the EIA is proceeding on development of the next survey.

Many building community representatives still have questions, and to address those questions, the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) has scheduled a roundtable for March 8 at 3:00 PM to provide an update on the next survey, budget stability, avoiding past issues, and outreach efforts by the EIA to improve the survey. The AIA will attend the roundtable to learn from industry peers the latest information and to provide insight on behalf of the architecture community.

In the weeks following this initial roundtable, the EIA will be reaching out to individual organizations for input on the actual content of the next survey. The AIA intends to be ready to provide guidance and insight for improvements to this critical tool.

Congress returns to Washington this week, looking to continue debate over transportation legislation that could shape how communities are designed for years to come.

Late last week, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) indicated he would scale back the transportation bill he was forced to pull from the floor earlier in the month because it encountered fierce opposition from both sides. Among the changes the Speaker suggested were to reduce the cost and duration of the bill and to restore dedicated funding for transit programs. Although details have yet to be released of the new version of the bill, however, it appears the legislation would still end the Transportation Enhancement program.

This program, first created in 1991, enables states and communities to use a small portion of their federal transportation dollars on projects like the preservation of historic transportation facilities, rehabilitation and operation of historic transportation buildings, and the preservation of abandoned railway corridors for use as pedestrian or bicycle trails. Although the cost of this program is miniscule compared to the entire federal transportation budget, its positive impact on economic development, historic preservation, job creation and community development is huge.

When the bill was debated in committee in early February, the AIA and its allies worked to advance an amendment to restore these programs. Despite a strong push, the amendment failed by just two votes. When the bill comes to the House floor, Reps. Tom Petri (R-WI) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) are planning to offer an amendment to restore most of the Transportation Enhancement provisions.

AIA members can contact their member of the House and ask him/her to support the Petri-Blumenauer amendment to protect this important program.