Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 283 amends the Occupations Code to continue the Texas Board of Architectural Examiners until September 1, 2015, to include and update standard sunset provisions, and to conform elements of the board's licensing and regulatory functions to commonly applied licensing practices. The bill raises the maximum for administrative penalties from $1,000 to $5,000 and requires the board to take certain steps to help ensure the fair and consistent application of administrative fines. It adds warehouses with limited public access to the list of structures for which an architect is not required.

            The bill authorizes the board to recommend a rehabilitation code and prescriptive provisions for rehabilitation to municipalities, and it amends the Local Government Code to require a municipality that adopts a building code other than the International Residential Code to adopt either prescriptive provisions for rehabilitation as part of the municipality's building code or the rehabilitation code that accompanies the building code adopted by the municipality.

            The bill also establishes a Joint Advisory Committee on the Practices of Engineering, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture as an advisory committee to the board and the Texas Board of Professional Engineers.