Safety Master Plan

It is not uncommon during the rehabilitation of existing buildings for the landlord or tenant to find it difficult and even impossible to implement all the requirements imposed by the latest regulations. In such cases it is necessary to define a safety master plan, which, without fully meeting the new regulations, will still achieve a level of safety deemed equivalent by the competent administrative authorities (safety committee, inspectors of the Regional Authority for Industry, Research and the Environment (DRIRE), etc.).

For example, a building's compliance is governed by the French Town Planning Code in the building permit. For this reason, in order to be declared compliant, the construction must be carried out in accordance with the requirements of the building permit depending on its location, purpose, nature, outside appearance, dimensions, and the layout of its surroundings. For example, for establishments open to the public (ERP), the French Building and Housing Code requires the safety committee to give its opinion on issuing the compliance certificate before it is opened to the public. As long as the building is not changed, there is no requirement (other than in exceptional cases), to comply with new regulatory texts, based on the principle of the non-retroactive nature of rules and regulations. The latter are applicable to new buildings or the rehabilitated sections of old buildings.

In situations such as these, the CNPP supports companies in drafting the safety master plan, based on the following approach:

• A complete diagnostic of the building to identify and assess the problems involved in implementing the new regulation,
• A risk analysis with the possible scenarios, to serve as a basis for defining the measures to be incorporated into the master plan in order to attain an equivalent level of safety (exceptions, compensatory measures), ,
• One or more meetings with the appropriate administrative authorities in order to present the draft master plan and obtain their opinion on the possible solutions [safety committee, DRIRE, French Building Architects, Departmental Fire and Emergency Service (SDIS), etc.],

• Drafting the final safety master plan.