Building regulations for housing quality in Europe

Most West-European countries call their regulations 'performance based' and the goals and major subjects are quite similar. A more detailed look at the formulation and content of the sets of requirements, however shows quite fundamental differences. The existence of the Construction Products Directive of the European Union and the development of Euro Codes did not have much impact on the harmonization of the technical building regulations at the level of buildings until now. Research into the differences in formulations is a first and important step towards better mutual understanding of national sets of building regulations which is essential to start a discussion of the possibilities of further harmonisation of the systems of the various countries. This paper presents the results and conclusions of a comparative study of the building regulations in Belgium,

All papers submitted to COBRA were assessed by expert panel, drawn from the construction and building research community, The conference organisers wish to extend their appreciation to the members of the panel for their work, which is invaluable to the success of COBRA.

There is still a broad variety of systems of technical requirements for buildings in the various European countries, despite the existence of the Construction Products Directive of the European Union and the development of Euro Codes. The goals and mayor subjects are quite similar, and most countries call their regulations 'performance based'. A more detailed look at the formulation and content of the sets of requirements, however shows quite fundamental differences. This paper presents the results and conclusions of a comparative study of the building regulations in Belgium,

2010

The purpose of this paper is to compare technical building regulations in European Union (EU) countries. Three research questions are addressed: what are the main differences and similarities? what are the main types of organization and formulation? what are the main trends and developments? The following tasks were carried out in order to provide an answer to these questions: preparing a questionnaire and obtaining answers from experts of EU countries, collecting and analysing main building regulations, and comparing results. The results are that, in the majority of the EU countries, central authorities are involved in setting technical building regulations, however the involvement of regional and local authorities varies. Technical building regulations can be set in one main document, a coordinated group of documents or separated legal documents. The formulation adopted for most subjects is performance based, combined with functional or prescriptive requirements for specific subje...

The paper compares the building codes for residential buildings in four European countries: England & Wales, Netherlands, France and Italy. The influence of the different standards on design has been analysed: a series of case studies helps understand the different approaches.

International Journal of Law in the Built …, 2009

"Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a tool for the international comparative analysis of regulatory regimes in the field of building regulation. Design/methodology/approach – On the basis of a heuristic model drawn from regulatory literature, a typology of building regulatory regimes is introduced. Each type is illustrated with a number of real-life examples from North America, Europe, and Australia. Findings – Governments worldwide have introduced building regulatory regimes with a variety of designs. On an abstract level, these designs are shown to have a comparable pattern. This pattern is utilised to draw up a typology of regime-designs that can be placed on a sliding scale, with a “pure public regime” at the one end and a “pure private regime” at the other. Intermediate regimes display characteristics of both. Originality/value – The comparative analysis of different regimes assists policy makers by demonstrating which combinations of regulatory characteristics can provide the best results in particular instances. The typology introduced by the paper assists this process by providing a tool for systematic analysis of complex real-life cases."

Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, 2015

In 2008, two governmental committees presented their conclusions on strengthening the role of the private building sector in building control. In 2011, three new studies were commissioned by the government to address perceived problems. One of them was an integral study, executed by ERB (Foundation Expertcentre Regulations in Building), RIGO (Research Institute for Real Estate) and TNO (Research Institute for Applied Technologies), to innovate the whole building regulations system. It led to proposals to redefine responsibility and liability for all parties. This study states that by an effort of yearly €100 million, unnecessary costs up to €1 billion can be avoided and a real quality push will take place in the building and real estate markets. The goals to reach are to minimize the administrative burden for the building owner and to enforce the construction industry to build conforming to the regulations. This paper discusses the ERB study and the given proposals. The ERB study demonstrated that a quality push is needed which potential will lead to less costs for building owners. It also shows that proven solutions, part of the regulations, might be of help for all parties involved.

2017

Requirements on the sustainable quality (e.g. energy performance) of new and existing buildings are one of the pillars building regulatory systems of European countries are founded on. The influence of EU policy goals and contents of EU Directives in the energy regulations of the Member States is clearly noticeable. The European Union has set the ambitious goal that all newly built constructions must have a zero energy level by 2020. The total building stock must furthermore be energy neutral by 2050. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive have given Member States the tools and direction to develop and strengthen their regulations. There are doubts if the current requirements are sufficient to realise these goals. There is common agreement that the goals only can be reached by more strict and supportive policy instruments. This does not necessarily mean that the technical requirements must be formulated in more severe terms. Probably the bi...

This paper describes the dynamics of European building regulatory systems and places them within the context of general trends in the regulatory sciences, particularly with reference to Europeanisation studies. Within the regulatory sciences, there is broad consensus about the trend towards deregulation and privatisation in recent decades. Studies conducted under the rubric of 'Europeanisation' analyse the effects of European policies on the policy frameworks of the member states in more detail. Are the systems converging or diverging? Although the history of this kind of research is short, most authors agree that European policies have had a profound impact on the policies of the member states, but that this impact has not been uniform. In this paper, we analyse privatisation and deregulation trends within the building regulatory systems of eight European countries, and we consider whether the systems appear to be converging or diverging. We focus on three elements: the sco...