It’s been less than a month since Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett repealed a state fire-sprinkler requirement for new one- and two-family houses. But the issue will get a fresh hearing in the Centre Region — and soon.
The Public Safety Committee of the regional Council of Governments agreed Wednesday to ask the COG’s General Forum to bring up the matter anew on May 23.
General Forum members, in turn, are expected to ask the region’s six municipal governments to weigh the sprinkler question — specifically, whether local ordinances should reinstate the residential sprinkler requirement for the State College area.
A variety of regional safety officials have advocated for the mandate, including Public Safety Committee Chairman David Koll. Fire-protection expenses in the Centre Region amount to about $12.50 per capita each year — roughly a tenth of the national average, Koll said.
That ultra-low expense has been made possible in large part by the region’s volunteer firefighting companies, safety officials said. Regional Fire Director Steve Bair said the sprinkler requirement ‘will allow us to continue to provide fire protection at a very affordable rate.’
‘It’s a business decision that communities have to make,’ Bair said. ‘My job is to try to keep the volunteer fire department (as a) volunteer’ entity.
‘ … The data we have so far suggest that residential fire sprinklers will have a very large positive impact on that,’ he went on.
Bair said a greater volume of residential fire sprinklers would reduce the overall major-fire risk in the region, thereby helping to temper the the long-term expenses of maintaining and growing the local firefighting forces.
Putting the sprinkler requirement into effect won’t prevent the region from ever needing a paid firefighter, but it would help keep a lid on costs, he said.
Several local business people at the Wednesday committee meeting expressed reservations, though. Tommy Songer, a project engineer at the Torron Group, questioned the rationale of putting the cost burden essentially on new-home buyers.
An across-the-board tax proposal for increased fire protection, Songer suggested, could more evenly spread the burden and could be put to all local residents for approval.
Thadd Wendt, general manager at Fine Line Homes, said he hasn’t seen any new-home customers recently request in-home sprinkler systems. Their concern, he said, is the systems’ cost.
Wendt estimated that sprinklers add something on the order of $2 per square foot to a new home’s price. Another resident voiced concern Wednesday that sprinkler plumbing might increase the risk of indoor leaks and inadvertent water damage.
Ferguson Township supervisor Bill Keough said he once opposed the idea ‘of another imposition on homeowners.’
But now, said Keough, who sits on the regional Public Safety Committee, he sees ‘a bigger-picture issue.’
‘For the Centre Region, were we to have to move to a paid fire-protection program … the costs are astronomical,’ he said. ‘It certainly made me pause to say: ‘OK. What are the priorities of our tax dollars?”
Keough suggested the mandating sprinklers in new one- and two-family homes could help ‘extend the life of the volunteer system.’
Already, new apartment buildings in the regional generally are expected to include sprinkler systems, code rules show.
COG Executive Director Jim Steff said he expects that the region’s six municipalities — State College borough and College, Halfmoon, Harris, Ferguson and Patton townships — will bring their views on sprinkler issue to the General Forum by July or August. Any regional discussions will go from there.
Part of the municipalities’ charge, Steff said, is to develop ideas for how best to engage the public in dialogue should the area move toward new sprinkler requirements. If such requirements gain support, each municipality’s governing body would need to vote on them before the standards could take effect. They also would need approval from the state Department of Labor and Industry.
