Introduction
The purpose of this guide is to communicate our expectations of referred performance solutions to facilitate effective stakeholder engagement with us and encourage desirable referral agency advice response outcomes.
A building development application that is Assessable Development1 will necessitate the referral to us for the referral agency advice of the “Fire safety systems generally”. This referral is detailed in Schedule 9 Division 3 of the Building Regulation 2017 (Qld).
Performance solutions as defined by the Building Act 1975 and the National Construction Code (NCC) volume 1, that involve fire safety systems are referrable to us.
Of critical importance to us is that a fire event in a building may rely on some of, or all of the building's fire safety systems to withstand, or respond to, and to act in combination to all the effects and impacts of the fire event and to facilitate fire brigade intervention. Therefore, we request that designers and those with certifying functions consider the holistic operation of the fire safety systems. For the NCC 2022, the performance-based fire safety designs must consider all the relevant sections and parts within the holistic design for the building.
1 Planning Act 2016
Abbreviations
| ABCB | Australian Building Codes Board, publisher of the National Construction Code |
| AFAC | AFAC is the Australian and New Zealand National Council for fire and emergency services |
| AVPS | Automated vehicle parking systems, and also referred to as ‘car stackers’ |
| BAO | Building approval officer responsible for the referral advice of building development applications |
| BCA | Building Code of Australia, volume 1 and 2 are the building code volumes of the National Construction Code |
| FSI | Fire safety installations are defined in the Building Act 1975 schedule 2 |
| FSS | Fire safety system is defined in Schedule 1 of the National Construction Code. However, the FSS may also overlap with defined terms for Fire Safety Installation and Special Fire Service |
| NCC | National Construction Code, synonymous term for the BCA |
| PBDB | Performance-based design brief, mandatory compliance requirement for performance solutions |
| QDC | Queensland Development Code |
| QFES | Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, former name of the Queensland Fire Department |
| QFD | Queensland Fire Department |
| SFS | Special fire service, are defined in the Building Act 1975 schedule 2 |