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Court: Fire departments can't just order residential building owners to install sprinklers when they renovate their properties

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that owners of apartment buildings have the right to a hearing to decide whether they should be forced to install sprinklers if they make major renovations.

The ruling comes in the case of a Holyoke man who objected to his local fire chief ordering him to install sprinklers in buildings he bought and planned to renovate, because he didn't feel the renovations were extensive enough to trigger the need for sprinklers under the state fire code., but never had the chance to make that case.

The court agreed that while the state law on sprinklers has no appeal mechanism, the property owner should have had a hearing to show the chief why the buildings would not be "substantially rehabilitated so as to constitute the equivalent of new construction." It reversed the chief's ruling and ordered him to give the man a hearing at which to make his case.

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Comments

The two vacant apartment buildings at issue here were built in the late 1800s, of wood frame construction with brick facade.

IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/holyoke-1.jpg)

One, a three- story building on the corner of Essex and Chestnut Streets, has a total of twenty apartments on three floors and two commercial spaces on the ground floor:

IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/holyoke-2.jpg)

The other, a four-story building on the corner of Main and Spring Streets, has a total of thirteen apartments on four floors and two commercial spaces on the ground floor:

So that's 33 apartments between the two buildings — there could be more than a hundred people living there. Sprinkler systems save lives — especially in old, wood-frame buildings such as these!

To not include sprinklers as a matter of course is despicable enough; to fight in court against installing them is totally vile.

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Sprinklers were created to save buildings. A side effect is that lives are saved.

I believe there is a cost consideration (some percentage of the overall construction cost) in the Uniform Fire Code as to installing sprinklers. If not, then there used to be.

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The SJC decision is about process -- given that the mandatory installation of sprinklers is triggered by a somewhat ambiguous standard, it's entirely reasonable to give the owner of the building an opportunity to make the case that he hasn't triggered the standard with his particular action.

Sprinklers: I'm a fan. Due process: I'm a fan.

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That's so cute that you care about something!

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Sprinklers make some building projects financially untenable. Do you not think insurance premiums would rise due to the possibility of the damage that a falsely triggered sprinkler system would cause?

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Premiums go down when you install a sprinkler system.

https://www.nahb.org/en/research/housing-economics/special-studies/archi...

The potentiality of false triggers is likely baked into the discount, but it's still a net positive for the building owner.

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True on this topic:

Sprinklers make some building projects financially untenable.

Invoice #1: flow test at closest fire hydrant.
Invoice #2: If Fire Dept Inspector does not allow owner to tap off of existing water line inside the building, owner must pay for either a) split off of existing water line on property but outside the building; or b) complete new line from street.
Invoice #3: Dependent upon decision or code review: standpipe inside stairwell (or inside all stairwells)
Invoice #4a: Engineer to provide basic layout plus Fire Narrative, stamped drawings + specifications
Invoice 4b: cost of all piping and install. This is an existing building, the cost goes up for that and then multiplied by escalation.
Invoice #5: Fire Protection Contractor to provide a designed layout, stamped by a PE in the state.
Invoice #6: Testing by Fire Dept.

I know I've missed something. But the point is, it's not cheap and I don't think 'Man on the Street' knows the level of detail or dollar amount required

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Gee I wonder? It must be those nimbys and 1%ers!

It can't be me! It can't have anything to do with me!!

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I had to get a permit to change a window in my own house, $20. Faucet as well. Where does it stop?

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Can't possibly be all those regulations that make buildings safer, health care available, etc.

Oh no - not that.

I hear Great White is playing nearby, EM ...

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