Local authority over standards comes in two distinct forms, and confusing them is how a firm ends up arguing the wrong point at a plan review. The first is a SUBSTITUTION the state rule itself offers. 28 TAC § 34.607 adopts NFPA 101-2021, the Life Safety Code, or — in the alternative — a local jurisdiction may adopt one set of the model codes the same rule lists. Those acceptable alternative sets are the International Building Code of 2003 or later editions together with the International Fire Code of 2003 or later editions, or the International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings of 2003 or later editions. This is not a local body overriding the state; it is the state rule naming an alternative and leaving the choice locally.

The second form is an ADDITION, and it comes from the statute rather than the rule. Chapter 2 set out Insurance Code § 6002.003 in full; what matters here is one of the powers it preserves. A municipality or county may require a better type of alarm or detection system, or an otherwise safer condition, than the minimum required by state law. That is a power to raise the floor, not to move it — it does not let a jurisdiction relax an adopted standard, and it does not let one write requirements inconsistent with the chapter, which the same section makes void. Between the substitution and the addition, everything a local jurisdiction lawfully does to standards is either choosing from a list the state provided or asking for something safer than the state’s minimum.

Both interact with the backward allowance from § 7.4, and the interaction is easier to hold as one picture. A political subdivision that has previously adopted an edition of a standard opens the door for licensed work to comply with that edition under 28 TAC § 34.616. A political subdivision may separately adopt a model code set in place of NFPA 101 under 28 TAC § 34.607. And it may require something safer than the state minimum under Insurance Code § 6002.003. Three different local acts, three different rules, and the practical consequence is the same one every time: for standards questions, the jurisdiction is part of the answer, and a firm working across county lines is working across variations it has to check rather than assume.