County Updates Building Codes; HBA Endorses Page, Dunaway Opponents
Date Posted: July 7, 2020
Posted In: News, Organizations, People,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: After a long-delayed update to St. Louis County’s building codes late last year, environmental groups and the home building industry are lining up behind different candidates in the August primary election that will determine the balance of power in St. Louis County.
On one side, the Home Builders Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri is endorsing retired marketing executive Mark Mantovani for St. Louis County executive and Creve Coeur Mayor Barry Glantz in his bid to unseat County Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway, D-2nd District.
The Home Builders Association is putting big money behind its endorsements, contributing $250,000 to the Change STL political action committee supporting Mantovani — a sum that dwarfs the amounts the group typically contributes to candidates. The HBA also contributed $25,000 to the Accountability Matters PAC supporting Glantz, an architect who is a member of the association.
On the other side, the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsed St. Louis County Executive Sam Page along with County Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway in the 2nd District Democratic primary, in part for their support of updated energy efficiency requirements in the new building codes that took effect Wednesday. The Sierra Club’s PAC has not yet made any donations to those candidates.
Mantovani and the HBA say they never discussed the building code issue. But Dunaway and the Sierra Club say their push for updated energy efficiency requirements — and the Page administration’s tacit approval of their involvement — has drawn the ire of an interest group not used to having to negotiate with environmentalists.
The issue arose late last year when Dunaway, elected in August to fill Page’s seat after he became county executive, sought to advance the 2018 version of building codes. That version was the most current released by the International Code Council, which updates the codes every three years.
St. Louis County was still working from the 2009 codes. A version of the 2015 codes, amended by the St. Louis County commissions that review the International Code Council updates, was never enacted despite being sent to former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger in 2017.