Residential Fire Sprinklers Put Texas Governor In The Hot Seat
June 7th, 2009 by Residential Fire Sprinklers .com
By Rick Casey – Houston Chronicle
The city of West University Place is hot under the collar over an amendment slipped into an innocuous bill on plumbing standards during the last days of the Legislature.
The amendment prohibits municipalities from requiring fire protection sprinkler systems in any single-family home or duplex.
The law would not take effect until Sept. 1, but it retroactively voids all local ordinances passed since Jan. 1, including one that West U. passed last month mandating sprinkler systems in all new homes.
The amendment was attached to a Senate bill by Rep. John Otto of Dayton, a small town northeast of Houston, who had failed to get his own bill on the subject to the House floor.
West U. Mayor Bob Kelly this week sent Gov. Rick Perry a letter asking him to veto the bill.
Mayor Kelly told the governor the issue wasn’t so much the ordinance itself, but the “assault on local control.”
Dayton is in a rural area “with entirely different dynamics than our urban community,” Kelly wrote. He said West U. building codes should not be made in Otto’s Liberty County.
“Local control has always been a fundamental tenet of your philosophy of government,” the mayor wrote the governor. “The amended Senate Bill 1410 attacks that philosophy. We strongly urge your veto.”
This puts Perry in an interesting position.
As his strong support of “states’ rights” indicates, he does favor local control.
But Perry also favors homebuilders, who average more than $200,000 a year in contributions to him.
Homebuilders don’t like the sprinkler requirement and lobbied for Otto’s bill.
They argue that the requirement prices low-income buyers out of the housing market, and that home buyers should be free to choose whether they want the system.
The arguments may make some sense in places like Dayton, where land is cheap and many houses are small.
But neither is the case in West University Place. A check of www.har.com, the Web site carrying listings by the Houston Association of Realtors, shows 17 vacant lots for sale in West U.
The cheapest one, 50 by 100 feet, is $300,000. The median one, not much larger, is $579,000.
The cheapest new house is listed at $850,000. Almost all the new ones are considerably more.
West U. Fire Chief Steve Ralls said he checked with installers, and state-of-the-art fire systems cost between $1 and $2 per square foot. So that would add at most $10,000 to a 5,000-square-foot house selling at more than $1 million. That’s not a big hit to the mortgage payments, and Ralls noted that insurers discount rates for homes with such systems.
Ralls said safety considerations are more important, especially in West U. where the huge new houses stand as little as 6 feet from neighboring houses.
A fire not only threatens the homeowner, but neighbors on both sides.
And, of course, fires endanger firefighters, which is why firefighters from around the state are letting the governor know how they feel about this bill.
Perry could express concern about vetoing the underlying bill to which the amendment is attached. But its author, Sen. Mike Jackson of Pasadena, says passage of the bill is not exactly an emergency. It mainly updates training criteria for various categories of plumbers.
So the governor is on the hot seat.
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June 10th, 2009 at 12:24 am
I wonder if Perry will use some excuse like it is up to the homeowner to choose whether they wish to have such an expense. Home builders should have a voice in such matters, but looking at the situation with the TRCC we can see that home builders are having their way far too often.
West University should have the right to place such a rule in their building code, and I feel that they have a legitimate concern. Drive through the city,and you will find two to three story homes built quite close to one another on all sides. Considering the streets in the neighborhoods, it would appear that firefighters would also have a hard time getting to the alarm quickly.
Maybe know is the time for builders to think about options to reduce the cost of installation, so this equipment can be installed on affordable homes too. I am sure Perry will not veto it, and that is a shame.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Yes! I also wonder if Mr. Perry realizes or even cares that the State of Texas CAN SAVE MORE LIVES! with the mandation of residential sprinkler systems? I personally have since the 2007 legislative session have worked on this “issue” of residential sprinkler systems in ALL “new” residential home construction and what I have learned over the last couple of years while working with the legislative body and my senators is that Texas is a state that not only is slow to “progress” in with the rest of the “real world”, but as one senator had told me that Texan’s are too “lazy” to replace a battery in a smoke detector and “test” it along with “hard-wired” ones when it “chirps” to let them know the battery needs replacing, which most Texan’s ignore and in most cases remove or disable the smoke alarm, than what would the “benifits” be.
Texan’s are there own “worst nightmare” and when it comes to the issue of fire safety Texan’s are “nieve”,arrogant” and just plain ignorant when it come to this issue. I live in San Antonio and I see this “attitude” all the time and I see it in Austin,Dallas, Houston the “we do not want government in our homes” attitude, plus the attitude is that “I prey for the family, or I do not care as long as it is not my home!.
But it is amazing that 16 states in the United States mandate or require residential sprinkler systems in there “new” home construction and have seen a “dramatic” saving in lives and “property”, but Texas wants and continues to ignorant, arrogant and nieve on this issue.and until Texan’s “wake-up” and realize that even in other southren “good ol’e boy” states that mandate or require them in residential construction than and only than will this happen.
Plus! if Mr. Perry looks at the facts residential sprinkler systems CAN and not only SAVE LIVES ,but can also save and make the “homeowner” money as well in lower taxes and insurance costs as well.
No body is going to buy a home built here in the good ole “Lone Star State” that is unsafe or unfit especially if the family has children, elderly parents, etc, living with them and residential sprinkler systems can make “Texas” homes more safer and more “marketable”.Funny the state where I am from mandated them in 2004 as state law. The “problem” also is that Texas has no “b@lls” when it come to “reinforcment” in there residential construction “codes”.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:39 am
Part 2
You would also think to that since Mr. Perry’s mansion had been “torched” Mr. Perry would be more “pro-active” on fire safety?
I have been in touch with every state department including the state fire marshall’s office as well on this issue,but as you typical “Texas politics” as usual.Just to let YOU know the only thing mandated and required in Texas home construction is smoke detectors and that has been Texas law since 1981, but on homes built AFTER September 1, 1981. Mayby residential sprinkler systems will be “anniversarized” i.e Sepember 1, 2011. 30 years later since smoke detectors.How many more homes and “bodies” will there be before than?
It is “sad” that Mr. Perry is more interested in his “image” and “status” of himself and Austin than protecting 24 million people, some of whom who are too young or old or can not protect themselves. And another thing Texas DOES NOT have any laws that require the “state” to “update” or “modify” there residential building, fire codes as “law”.Sad but very true. It is my sincere hope that “my work” has made an “impact” and is educating as well.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Yeah, well, if firefighters do not want to be “in danger” when carrying our their duties, then quit.
The self-determination of Texans concerning what we install in our homes, such as sprinklers, should not be affected by issues as firefighters “feeling to be in danger”.
I am a U.S. Coast Guard veteran.
WE never whine about being in harm’s way when doing search and rescue. It’s our job.