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AIA headlines this week include:

• Design Assistance Featured as Resource for Local Governments

• California Interior Design Practice Act Held Up in Committee

• One Month for Disaster Assistance Grant Applications

• Top 5 Ways the AIA Makes Tax Day Easier for You

This week at the American Planning Association’s national conference in Los Angeles, the AIA’s design assistance program was highlighted as a unique process for communities to create context-appropriate responses to the sustainability challenge. The panel included AIA’s Design Assistance Director Erin Simmons and Wayne Feiden, FAICP as well as Dory Reeve, who presented her work on creating sustainable communities in New Zealand. Feiden serves as planning director for Northampton, Massachusetts, which received an SDAT project in 2006. He has since served on over a dozen SDAT efforts in other communities across the country.

As Feiden explained, “Do a web search for sustainable development and you get millions of hits. Everyone wants sustainability. Green is the new black. The word is so overused it means everything and nothing.” The panelists highlighted the need for context-specific approaches to sustainability, emphasizing the importance to adapt processes and measurements to local conditions in order to achieve real results. The AIA’s work in Port Angeles, Washington, and Newport, Vermont was highlighted to demonstrate how communities are finding local responses to sustainability challenges.

The panelists authored a report last year called Assessing Sustainability. As an introduction to the report explains, “Assessing Sustainability tackles two of the biggest questions facing planners today: What is sustainable development, and how do we know when it's working? Does it benefit the environment? Build community equity? Boost the economy? This report strips away the rhetoric to show how local communities can benchmark sustainability and make it a measurable goal.”

For more information on Assessing Sustainability, you can find the report here: http://www.planning.org/newsreleases/2011/aug19.htm

Yesterday, California AB 2482, an interior design practice act suffered a setback when it was suspended in the Assembly Committee on Business, Professions, and Consumer Protection. The bill would introduce particularly restrictive licensing requirements that would bar many California interior designers from working in any commercial spaces. Opposition from the AIA, Interior Design Protection Consulting, the National Kitchen and Bath Association, and the California Legislative Coalition for Interior Design succeeded in raising concerns among committee members that the bill is anti-competitive and unnecessary. Despite this blow, AB 2482 is not dead yet. Committee Chair Mary Hayashi gave Assembly Member Fiona Ma, the bill’s sponsor, time to address these concerns before the last meeting of the Committee on Business, Professions, and Consumer Protection on April 24, the last day that bills can move out of committee.

How will architects in your community respond to disaster?

AIA members interested in disaster preparedness, mitigation, and response issues have until May 14 to apply for the Disaster Plan Grant Program, a collaborative effort of AIA National and Architecture for Humanity. Local AIA Components and Architecture for Humanity Chapters are encouraged to apply and coordinate efforts for grant awards of $1000 to $2000 to support training, host symposia, or engage in other activities related to disaster assistance.

States around the country vary widely regarding laws and needs for professional volunteers. While some state governments have well-developed programs to train and deploy architects following a serious disaster, others do not even have the “Good Samaritan” laws necessary to limit liability and protect volunteers. But whatever state an applicant may be in, the grant program is designed to help architects take the next step to mitigate potential damage or prepare to respond.

The program strives to establish architects as resources within state and local emergency management communities. In addition to the grant awards, staff from Architecture for Humanity and AIA National will be dedicated to advising and promoting the work grantees undertake.

AIA National and Architecture for Humanity recently began a strategic partnership to better represent architects involved in disaster assistance work. The two organizations are coordinating programming and communications efforts to enable architects to use their skills in post-disaster environments and better serve as leaders in their communities.

For more information and to apply, visit http://aia.org/disasterresponse or contact AIA Community Resilience

Take a break from those receipts and calculators to read about five ways the AIA may have made tax day a little less, well, taxing on you and your firm.

1. If your firm is an S corporation, you can breathe a sigh of relief. The AIA, along with thousands of other stakeholders, killed a provision before Congress in 2010 that would have raised taxes on your firm. The provision was aimed at collecting taxes from individuals who form as S corporations to avoid paying payroll taxes. It would have unfairly penalized legitimate S corporations who follow the law, by raising taxes on businesses at a time when architecture firms can least afford it.

2. If you own your firm, you won’t have to file hundreds of 1099 forms for nearly every expense next year. After thousands of letters and calls from AIA members across the nation, Congress eliminated the 1099 paperwork law that would have dramatically increased paperwork burdens on businesses. The provision would have forced all businesses to file a Form 1099 for all business payments or purchases over $600. Thanks to the work of AIA members like you, the law was repealed.

3. If your firm does work for local, state or federal agencies, you will receive your contract payments on time, regardless of your tax liability. Thanks to the outcry by AIA members and others who do contracting work with the government, Congress repealed a law that would have forced local, state, and federal agencies to withhold three percent of your payments in order to ensure your federal tax liability was paid.

4. If you have designed energy efficient buildings for the government, congratulations! You may qualify for a deduction of up to $1.80 per square foot. Under the 179D energy efficient commercial building tax deduction, which the AIA strongly supported when it was enacted in 2005, government clients can allocate the tax benefit directly to the designer. The AIA formed a partnership with other concerned stakeholders and through this partnership, developed implementation recommendations for building owners to obtain this tax deduction. The AIA also helped pass legislation to extend the life of the deduction so that it covers property placed in service by December 31, 2013.

5. If you have employees, then you are eligible for a tax deduction, codified in section 199, which allows taxpayers engaged in certain businesses to deduct up to 9 percent of their qualified receipts. When Congress debated this proposal in 2004, the AIA fought to ensure that architecture firms were included.

Last, but not least, if you plan on paying taxes again in the future, you can rest assured that the AIA will work to address your interests despite any changes that may come on the horizon. In fact, Congressional leaders are calling for major changes to the federal tax laws that could have major impacts on architecture firms. In exchange for lower overall tax rates, they may eliminate many popular tax incentives that owners use to finance projects.

Does your firm rely on popular tax incentives like the historic preservation tax credit and the low income housing tax credit that may be swept away? Would you be willing to give up popular tax incentives like the mortgage interest deduction for a lower overall tax rate? Are you unsure what would be the best bet for you or your firm?

We want to hear from you! We want to know what tax incentives are most important to your firm, how tax laws affect you, and how the AIA can best represent you as the debate moves forward. Feel free to leave a comment on our AIA group Linked In discussion or send your remarks privately to christinafinkenhofer@aia.org. Join the discussion today!