MINNEAPOLIS — Everywhere you look, it almost seems like there's a new apartment building or a whole bunch of condos.
It is construction season after all. Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry's Building Codes division assistant director Scott McKown said, we are in good hands when it comes to the rules in the state.
"We have building codes and since 2008 the building code is the construction standard that applies statewide," McKown said. "We have a level playing field that we try to encourage compliance for the building code."
That state building code, according to this map from DLI is enforced in 21 Minnesota counties.
Some construction elements are enforced statewide such as electrical, plumbing and elevators.
Out of the 87 total Minnesota counties, 21 feels like a handful. That's because according to DLI, "legislation provided that a non-metropolitan county may by negative referendum rescind enforcement of the State Building Code (except provisions for accessibility)."
The building code in other counties is enforced by certain cities and townships.
"We actually do have another statute that requires buildings to be designed by design professionals so we use the term design professionals – in a case like this, structural engineers and architects – people designing the building to be compliant with the code and structurally sound," McKown said.
Currently there is no state or local law that requires existing buildings to be re-inspected at certain intervals. However, the state does adopt new building codes every six years. They say that way, they can promote cost-effective ways of ensuring building safety and efficiency.
"I think in MN in general the building departments are pretty staffed up to do inspections and you know certain inspections have to be made on every building," McKown said. "And they are doing those inspections at critical buildings, and so I believe that buildings are built to the code in our state."
McKown added that the Surfside condo collapse is a tragedy and hopefully our state's safeguard measures will prevent something like that from happening here.
"Important thing to note is that buildings in Minnesota are built to the building code, and so there is a minimum construction standard that is required statewide," he said. "And that there are required inspections in code enforced areas where inspectors are going out and looking at critical components of the building while it is being constructed. So I think for the most part in Minnesota, we have done a good job adopting the codes and we adopt the new codes every six years, to kind of keep up with new codes and practices in there. So for us we're in a pretty good place."