Real Estate Industry Comments on EPA Guidance, March 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

TO: Elissa Feldman Indoor Environments Division FR: National Association of REALTORS® Institute of Real Estate Management DATE; March 22, 2002 RE: Building Air Quality Workgroup

On behalf of the 800,000 members of the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) and its affiliate, the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), we welcome this opportunity to provide comments and feedback on the proposed “Guidance for Protecting Building Environments from Airborne Chemical, Biological, or Radiological Attacks”. Because many of our members also develop and sell commercial property, which may be subject to these guidelines, NAR and IREM have an interest in ensuring that any government policy addressing building security does not unduly burden the ability of our members to conduct their business. NAR and IREM a^ee with the principal that reducing a building’s vulnerability to an airborne chemical, biological or radiological terrorist attack requires a comprehensive approach. However, each building environment is different and those variables must be taken into account when developing a plan to prevent a CBR incident. We have four general areas of concern regarding these proposed Guidelines: Owners Have Already Taken Action Even before the events of September 11, owners and developers of commercial property were required to develop a variety of comprehensive safety plans, which incorporated some of the emergency response elements of these guidelines. After the terrorist attacks, many commercial property owners took it upon themselves to assess the adequacy of these plans and update and improve them where necessary. This was done because the tenants were demanding these improvements, not because of federal guidance or regulatory pressure. In addition, many planning, construction and other building codes require many of the elements included in the guidelines. Guidelines Should Remain Voluntary These proposed Guidelines, while a comprehensive compendium of actions an owner may take to protect a property, should remain voluntary and flexible in nature. Mandating these types of guidelines would impose a needlessly uniform regulatory scheme over an extremely heterogeneous universe of properties. Guidelines Should Only Apply to New Construction, Where Appropriate These proposed Guidelines should only apply to new construction and development activities; extensive retrofitting of existing properties should be minimized. For example, on page six of the proposed Guidelines, there is a discussion on relocating the outdoor air intake vents. The relocation of these vents, while possibly feasible, may be prohibitively expensive, depending upon the physical location of the vents and the layout of the building. The Guidelines should allow property owners the flexibility to implement actions or strategies that can accomplish the same goal without requiring extensive physical changes to the building.

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