84th Recap: Fire sprinklers

The good news regarding residential fire sprinklers is that despite several bills that either sought to change or exposed the current legal prohibition on cities from being able to mandate residential fire sprinklers, no changes were made and the prohibition remains.

The most direct threat was HB 4051 filed on the final day that a bill can be filed in the session. As the caption summarized, the bill targeted the current city prohibition reading: "Relating to the authority of a municipality to adopt requirements for the installation of fire protection sprinkler systems." Fortunately, working with the bill's author and joining a coalition of other trades groups, most notably the Texas Association of Builders, the bill filing was as far as this bill got. It never received a hearing and therefore thankfully died early on the vine this session.

A less obvious bill we tracked carefully throughout session was HB 2465. The caption of this bill had nothing to do with residential fire sprinklers, and read: "Relating to the licensing and regulation of plumbers." Some might ask why on earth that caught our attention. This is the benefit of institutional knowledge. Any bill dealing with plumbing regulation goes under the microscope because it is within that portion of the law dealing with plumbers that the city prohibition on mandating residential fire sprinklers resides. This was a result of a late-session 2009 amendment to a bill dealing with plumbers where the restriction came to be in the first place. The 15 pages of content of HB 2465 never addressed the fire sprinkler prohibition, but it did touch the section of the law, meaning it would be exposed to possible amendments throughout session.

In working with other trades groups and with the bill author we operated this session with a strong hope that the bill would not be altered. The bill was a large plumbers' reform bill that primarily sought to open up additional avenues for people to become plumbers in the state to address the shortage and expected shortage based on average age of existing plumbers, as well as a general modernization of the plumbers' code based on technological advancements.

However, HB 2465 made it as far as the House floor before it was killed by a procedural action. On May 12 when it came to the floor there was clearly opposition to the bill. This opposition was evidenced by the fact that the bill was postponed to be heard until July 4, 2015. Seeing as how the session ends June 1 a postponement to a month later marked the end of the line for the plumbing reform bill, and with it any opportunities to adversely amend the bill.

Regarding fire sprinklers there was another bill addressing sprinklers, but only in an ancillary way to single-family residential housing. HB 3089 made it all the way to the governor's desk this session and awaits his signature or veto. HB 3089 addresses fire sprinklers in high-rise residential multi-family buildings. The bill as finally passed only applies to residential buildings that exceed 74 feet in height, therefore it ultimately does not apply to any single-family or even smaller residential buildings. The bill went on to further bracket its applicability to only Bexar County, and only for buildings where at least half of the residents are elderly or disabled. For those limited buildings the bill requires sprinkler retrofitting prior to September 1, 2027.

We watched this bill throughout concerned about changes that would have made it apply more broadly and/or a lowering of the height limit. Fortunately, no such changes were made, and as a result 2015 was another session preserving the rights of residential home owners and buyers to choose, but not be forced, if they do or do not want to have fire sprinklers in their homes.

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