Legislature(2009 - 2010)BELTZ 105 (TSBldg)
03/09/2010 01:30 PM Senate LABOR & COMMERCE
Audio | Topic |
---|---|
Start | |
SB153 | |
SB302 | |
SB129 | |
Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+= | SB 129 | TELECONFERENCED | |
*+ | SB 302 | TELECONFERENCED | |
+= | SB 153 | TELECONFERENCED | |
+ | TELECONFERENCED |
SB 129-RESIDENTIAL SPRINKLER SYSTEMS 2:38:16 PM CHAIR PASKVAN announced SB 129 to be up for consideration. [CSSB 129 (L&C), labeled 26-LS0679\M, was before the committee.] He said he was contacted earlier today and was offered a building code adoption procedure for all of the relevant jurisdictions around Alaska, and he would distribute it to the committee so they could see what procedures are in place currently. 2:39:34 PM PAUL MICHELSOHN, Jr., Alaska State Homebuilder's Association, said he has been a builder in Anchorage for 34 years. He belongs to National Association of Homebuilders, is a member of the Construction, Codes and Standards (CCNS) Committee, and has served on the Municipality of Anchorage's Building Code Committee for 17 years where his primary purpose is to decide which code to go with if there is an argument. He added that he sat on the International Code Conference (ICC), its Fire and Life Safety Code for two years and the International Residential Code (IRC) for four years. He had been involved with code review in Anchorage for seven code cycles. He said he had heard how the code process today is fair and equitable to all concerned, but he disagreed with that, because "being involved for seven code cycles, the public has never been notified." He said that notices are posted, but the average home owner doesn't care about code until it directly affects them. He said he has been involved with the sprinkler issue on a national level for 10 years. 2:42:40 PM MR. MICHELSOHN explained that at the ICC level, the way a code is developed and adopted is that one is appointed to a committee and the codes then are submitted and proposed and the committee votes on them. After that they are passed on to the mother committee that is made up of fire and building officials throughout America. Again, he said, there is no public involvement, and these individual decide which codes will be in the code book and which ones won't. If it was a true public awareness and a true public process, he didn't think they would be here today. In the fall ICC board meeting, he stated, the Fire Coalition shipped in an additional 1800 people for one vote, the vote on this issue. Ten minutes before the vote was taken 385 people were in audience; when this vote came up there were 1890. When this vote was over seven minutes later 402 remained. MR. MICHELSOHN said he has heard a lot about cost, but the issue of cost is not relevant. Costs will be what they are; once sprinklers are mandated they will have the potential to rise immediately. MR. MICHELSOHN said he was asking for transparency in terms of preparing a cost analysis and other listed items for any jurisdiction that chose to mandate installation of fire sprinklers in one and two family dwellings. He estimated that installing sprinklers in 800,000 units in the United States for a year would cost $1.7 million - and "to save one life." 2:45:29 PM MR. MICHELSOHN said the Homebuilders are asking to have three public hearings, and the reason is that the public is not notified and they are not aware of the process. This will give the homebuilders, industry and real estate agents time to educate and bring people forward for a chance to decide whether they want sprinklers or not. He asked if the process was so transparent why so many organizations are against it. 2:46:41 PM SENATOR BUNDE said Arizona was quoted on how using sprinklers reduced property damage and saved lives, and it occurred to him that a potential downside is if the power goes out in your house and your pipes freeze and you have a sprinkler system. MR. MICHELSOHN answered that installing fire sprinklers has a lot of downside. The size of the water line would have to be increased from the state's requirement of .75 inches to 1.5 inches, and right now Anchorage has a 1-inch minimum. Sometimes pumps will be needed, he said, and the Fire Coalition states that most fires are electrical. If you have an electrical fire and the power shuts off, you don't have power to pump the system. The first thing the fire department does when they approach a house or fire is shut the power off so no one gets electrocuted. He said the Alaska Homebuilders have supported using smoke detectors and educating people on how to use them. Sprinkler systems save buildings and fire sprinklers aren't necessarily lifesaving issues. 2:48:58 PM Another downside is the needed increase in the service lines in jurisdictions that already don't have adequate service to supply the houses with the water they might need. SENATOR BUNDE asked about people with onsite water systems instead of continuous services like in town. MR. MICHELSOHN replied that he had installed six sprinkler systems in houses in the last 10 years and the cost has ranged from $25,000 to $38,000. On one project he was asked to bring in and eight-inch water main; that alone cost $12,000. Another project with an off-site well needed two 350-gallon storage tanks for water to operate the fire system. He also pointed out that these systems need to be inspected, but of all the ones he had installed, he asked, and none of them have had their systems inspected. They range from 7 years to 2.5 years old. 2:51:03 PM CHARLES EDWARDSON, Project Manager, Ketchikan Indian Community Housing Authority, Ketchikan, said he teaches construction technology at UAA and is a treasurer for the Alaska State Homebuilders Association. He said he supported SB 129. He said the rural challenges are too numerous to list in both cost and logistics. He agreed with Mr. Michelson that most people don't know what their local community is adopting. He said they have learned there are two sides to an issue. When the Fire Marshall tried to get this adopted by the City Council, the issue went away altogether because the Homebuilders Association brought in some facts and figures of their own. CHAIR PASKVAN remarked that it sounds like the process in Ketchikan worked. MR. EDWARDSON said it wouldn't have worked if the Homebuilders hadn't intervened. They maintain that the science hasn't been proven yet and that smoke detectors save more lives. CHAIR PASKVAN encouraged him to focus on the CS that talked about the process. MR. EDWARDSON encouraged preparing the cost benefit analysis for new residential fire sprinkler systems so that the process has transparency. Another point he raised is that the housing authority he works for provides low income housing for many people. They just completed a 24-unit housing project in Ketchikan and that wouldn't have been possible with the additional cost of sprinkler installation. 2:56:22 PM DAVID OWENS, Building Inspector, Owens Inspection Services, Palmer, requested that his email become part of the record. He said he didn't think it was unreasonable to ask for numerous public meetings on big ticket items like sprinkler systems. Providing a cost analysis on something that will cost a lot of money is also not unreasonable. As a building inspector, he said, he gets the brunt of things when they get "railroaded through." For example, the last electrical code - it had one public hearing over the holiday period and the next thing they know, its law. Now they have to put arch-weld circuit breakers in all of their houses; they had something to say about it, but didn't get the opportunity. 2:58:33 PM ART CLARK, Alaska Association of Realtors, said using the safety issue as a way to get something passed quickly is very seductive especially when people don't get a chance to understand all the implications. He supported SB 129, because it would allow time for a better understanding of things. SENATOR BUNDE asked if he could speculate on the value of homes with sprinkler systems versus and those without. Would it have an impact on resale value of the non sprinkler homes or would the cost of the new homes be so high it wouldn't make any difference? MR. CLARK said it might be a little bit of both. Perhaps the resale value of homes without sprinklers would be impacted, but on the other hand he couldn't see new buyers paying that much more for it. So the people who paid for the initial sprinkler system possibly wouldn't be able to get those dollars out of it down the road. 3:00:51 PM DAVID MILLER, Fire Chief, Sitka, opposed SB 129 and said let the communities decide for themselves. He said that most local communities have the process established already. 3:02:17 PM KELLY NICOLELLO, Deputy Director, Alaska State Fire Marshall's Office, Division of Fire and Life Safety, Department of Public Safety (DPS), said he did not have a position on SB 129, because as written it has no effect on the state. He offered to answer questions. 3:02:53 PM DAVE HOE, Fire Chief, North Tongass Volunteer Fire Department, Ketchikan, opposed SB 129. He said the idea that the sprinkler system saves lives is irrefutable. For instance, numerous studies have shown that kids don't wake up to the normal smoke detectors; they have also shown that by the time the smoke detector goes off late at night, the disorientation of coming out of a deep sleep to the sound of an alarm going off is disorienting at best. A lot of times the heat and smoke by then can make escape a significant challenge. MR. HOE explained that years ago fire fighters could wear an air pack and could get inside houses with six or eight minutes before "flashover" occurred, but now, because of new construction techniques and the use of synthetic fibers, houses are much tighter and the flashover time has dropped to less than three minutes - not a lot of time. Fire sprinklers will give people more time to get out. He didn't think the state should become involved in the debate about whether to make it more difficult of the local municipalities to decide whether they should be able to enact an ordinance or not. He stated that all SB 129 does is add cost and bureaucratic challenges to communities that may not have the ability to do deal with them to the point that they won't even try. 3:05:52 PM CROSBY GRINDEL, Northwest Regional Manager, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), said the Association opposed SB 129. He said the Association had worked to advance life and safety issues for more than 100 year through research, education and development of consensus codes and standards. The most recent advances in residential sprinkler technology bring in a new era of home fire safety. He explained that several factors have conspired to cause the greatest risk of fire death and injury to be in the home. In fact, 83 percent of fire deaths and 89 percent of fire injuries occur in the home as per their 2008 fire loss report. He said the NFPA believes that residential sprinklers are the solution. They support the desire of the fire service to have the option to utilize this national standard life safety device in their efforts to protect their communities from the devastating effects of fire. He also pointed out that residential fire sprinklers are significantly different than those found in commercial buildings, and they are now in all national codes. 3:08:31 PM MICHAEL TILLY, Fire Chief, City of Kenai, said he opposed SB 129. He said he would be negligent not to consider adding or utilizing a technology that would make his community safer, but this bill is not about a technology that is already recognized, accepted and proven in many communities across the United States. SB 129 attempts to alter the way a community does business and targets a single idea or technology that his city may want to use by adding unnecessary cost and stumbling blocks. He said that communities are deferred for particular reasons - one being that they know their community and the best processes to educate their populace of potential changes in law. MR. TILLY said that Kenai has adopted many fire codes and the standing process the City Council uses has been in place and seems to have worked well over the years. He failed to see why this topic needed additional legislation from the State of Alaska. The 2006 IBC Codes have hundreds of fire and building codes that a deferred municipality either adopts or excludes from their municipal codes. Not once have they been burdened with doing a cost benefit analysis for any other codes. He said these codes are adopted for their community with local input from city building officials, fire officials, city management, city council, and the State Fire Marshall's Office through an already established procedure that includes public input and adheres to AS 29.25. Feasibility, enforceability and applicability to the community are all considered prior to adoption. 3:11:08 PM LARRY FLOYD, Building Official, City of Kenai, said he opposed SB 129. He didn't see the issue as being sprinklers, but rather that they, as building officials, know the needs of their community and they should have the authority to determine what is reasonable and necessary within it. 3:11:53 PM JEFF TUCKER, President, Alaska Fire Chiefs Association, Fairbanks, who opposed SB 129, said he would stand by for questions. 3:12:16 PM DENNIS BRAUDIGAN, Director, Emergency Services, MatSu Borough, said he opposed SB 129. They strongly believe in the public process, and their board strives to be transparent in enacting every borough code. An enhanced public process already exists for those codes carrying greater. In fact, their selection process for the new Goose Creek Correctional Center resulted in a national award because of its transparency and active involvement by the public. Mandating local government to enhance the public hearing process for a single issue is onerous and unnecessary. MR. BRAUDIGAN said currently if the Matsu Borough were to mandate residential fire sprinkler systems the proposed code would be required to go through the borough's planning process by virtue of the Matsu Borough's second class municipality status as dictated by the 2008 Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. City of Homer. He said this proposed code would be thoroughly reviewed by the borough's planning commission as well as by all borough community councils and all fire service area boards of supervisors, all commissions, councils and boards giving adequate public notice and allowing for public hearings. Once the comments are heard the commissions, councils and boards forward their respective recommendations to the Assembly prior to public hearings. This represents a very thorough and transparent public hearing process. He said the Matsu Borough believes that SB 129 is not necessary and is trying to address a process that already takes place on an ongoing basis; therefore they oppose it. SENATOR BUNDE remarked that they already go through the hoops that SB 129 would make them go through, and yet he is opposed to it. MR. BRAUTIGAN replied that the hearing process is already addressed at a local level. SENATOR BUNDE retorted that they already go through these processes, but they want the option to not go through the process if they choose to. MR. BRAUTIGAN replied certainly nothing less than what is in state statute. If this is a process that should be done, maybe it should be done for every public notice they have had. He noted that they have had many multi-million dollar projects throughout the borough recently, and their process was transparent and had sufficiently engaged the public. 3:16:09 PM JEREMY DILLARD, representing himself, said he lived in the MatSu Valley and supported SB 129. 3:16:36 PM DAVE DILLARD, Alaska State Building Association, asked why the fire department is against having more public testimony. He said sometimes the public doesn't know what is going on; requiring sprinklers is a new thing that will be thrown on to the builders and the cost has to be recognized. He said builders in Alaska build better than most everybody else in the United States. He has a budget when he builds a house and this would be a line item in it. He said maybe people can only afford $250,000 and wouldn't be able to buy anything with the additional cost of a sprinkler system. The Building Association wants to have more time to teach their clients about what they are getting. CHAIR PASKVAN asked how this would affect what is currently in place in Interior Alaska. MR. DILLARD answered that Mr. Tilly represents the Homebuilders through the commission at the city now. Since Alaska is usually a few years behind on issues, this probably won't become an issue until maybe 2011. The difference with the other codes is that Alaskan builders already build beyond them, so people don't need to be concerned. CHAIR PASKVAN remarked that the issue for the committee members is what the local municipal control is. The CS is a procedural requirement. MR. DILLARD said he thought the public needed more time to become educated about this issue. Word has to get out. 3:22:20 PM JEFF TWAIT, Director, Alaska State Homebuilding Association, City of Kenai, said he supported SB 129. He said for some reason or another, some people don't get a chance to voice their opinions with only three meetings. Transparency is really important. 3:24:20 PM CHAIR PASKVAN asked how this process would modify the current process, if at all. MR. TWAIT said he wasn't sure what the current process is and didn't know if any public testimony was taken from building officials on the current code. But this bill would at least allow public testimony to be heard. 3:25:10 PM CHAIR PASKVAN, finding no further comments, closed public testimony on CSSB 129(). 3:25:50 PM SENATOR MEYER said the previous bill had to do with mobile homes and knew that in Anchorage a large percent of fires were in mobile homes. If mobile homes are going to be treated the same as residential homes and new ones were getting built, he said he assumed they would have to meet the same requirements with the sprinkler systems. 3:27:43 PM CHAIR PASKVAN said given the fact that people wanted to present more information to them, he would hold SB 129 and adjourned the meeting at 3:27 p.m.
Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
---|---|---|
CS SB 129 Bill Packet.pdf |
SL&C 3/2/2010 1:30:00 PM SL&C 3/9/2010 1:30:00 PM |
SB 129 |
SB 153 Bill Packet.pdf |
SL&C 3/9/2010 1:30:00 PM |
SB 153 |
SB 302 Bill Packet.pdf |
SFIN 3/23/2010 9:00:00 AM SL&C 3/9/2010 1:30:00 PM |
SB 302 |
CS for SB 129 Side-by-Side.pdf |
SL&C 3/9/2010 1:30:00 PM |
SB 129 |