Did you know the city of Salisbury is about to pass new codes requiring fire sprinklers in new single-family homes?
Included in the new codes will be a requirement for updates to an entire home when additions are built on existing homes.
I implore the city not to adopt requirements for automatic sprinkler systems in the middle of the most horrific recession we have been in during 62 years of my living on this Earth. We cannot sell homes now of a rate of more than a couple per year. We cannot compete with foreclosure home sales.
The banks have tightened lending practices -- at the Fed's insistence -- to a point where few qualify for $150,000-$175,000 units. This, by the way, is a price the city of Salisbury approved as affordable housing.
With existing codes in place and fees (to the tune of $20,000 per housing unit), builders and housing development in the city of Salisbury are on the brink of extinction.
Paul W. Elliott Sr.
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10 comments:
Between the city's fees and the county's septic 'mound' requirements - you almost can't build around here any more. But then why would someone want to conform to these silly rules when they can purchase existing inventory grandfathered to the older reasonable requirements.
Just another cost to doing business in Salisbury that drives people away.
There are no new homes hardly being built in Salisbury as it stands and this will make it worse creating more unemployment and less retail sales of construction materials. This will cause less tax base also costing the city lost potential revenue.
How often do we see newer homes (built after 1980)catch of fire?
It seems so rare that I honestly cant think of one instance.
Without home building here in and around Salisbury, shes dead.
Builders are already extinct, they just cant admit it to themselves yet. Were all getting ready to face some harsh reality. Keep your head up and keep punchin is all you can do.
Well since no one will be building any new homes in the city I guess the college and hospital can buy the property cheap. I wonder who will pay the taxes since they dont pay taxes. hmmmm
While it can be burdonsome to the builder...here is a PRO for them.
The cost of the sprinklers can be added to the purchase price of the home....take out a fancy grantie counter top and add and sprinkler system that could save your property...your family, your pets and the lives of those first responders coming to put the fire out.
If a sprinkler can douse the fire while the fire department is in route...isnt that a PLUS?
I live in another County in MD that does require sprinklers in new homes...and my home has them.
My homeowners insurance is significantly lower, my peace of mind for my pets and my property when I am not home is greater and I honestly did not feel much impact in the cost when we went to settlement.
Everyone has their opinions...just thought I would share the good points to it.
As a Fire Service Professional, as well as a Building Code Official, I have to say that Mr. Elliott Sr. is sadly misinformed (I assume by the Home Builders Associations and their lobbyists) or he is outright pushing their propaganda all in the name of profit over lives. It has been proven, with documentation, that the average cost of adding an NFPA13D compliant sprinkler system into any newly constructed home is $1.10 per square foot. So for any 3000 square foot home, that's a cost of $3300 dollars- or roughly the same us upgrading your standard kitchen counter top to marble, or upgrading the master bath to a double vanity with a shower and a tub..... The Home Builders insist on using lightweight construction methods and materials, and have successfully lobbied to get rid of methods of protecting these materials from the building codes- There has to be some give and take. Do they want to continue to use unprotected lightweight construction, or install sprinklers???? Perhaps if these dwellings had sprinklers, this would not have happened:
http://networkedblogs.com/6oNyF
And for anyone who thinks sprinklers are a waste, I encourage you to witness the autopsy of a badly burned body recovered from a building fire. The smell of the burned hair alone will make you toss your cookies, let alone cracking what is left of the chest.
It isn't about the fact that sprinklers are a good thing to have. They are available to anyone that wants to install them in their home. The problem is the government REQUIRING the builder to include them in every new house. In the current economic conditions, the few people that ARE buying new homes, are buying the least expensive houses on the market, with the option of upgrading and adding more amenities later when it is financially feasible.
10:01, Building Codes are Government-Mandated....With your train of thought, why have them, either? Let anyone build any old shoddy thing without any minimum standards! Heck, don't install Code-mandated interconnected/hard wired smoke detectors either, let's really let people die in style!!!!!
BTW, I don't know how the State of Maryland adopts their building codes, but if they adopt and enforce the International Code Council series of codes (like much the rest of the United States) residential sprinklers will be mandatory effective January 1, 2011; unless if the Home Builders Associations lobby individual states to politic them out of statewide codes.
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