The Board of Building Inspection met 01/06/2022 and took up the variance request from a tenant at 101 W. Edison Avenue.
Per the agenda, “The applicant is requesting a variance be granted to not install automatic sprinklers as required in the SPS 362.0903(2) (as adopted by Section 4-136 of the Municipal Code) for a space that will be used as an A-2 use group, where alcohol will be consumed and the occupant load is limited to 200 persons.”
Inspections Supervisor Kurt Craanen gave some background. The applicant submitted a plan to the city to do an alteration to a space and turn it into a banquet hall. Because of this use, it would be considered an A-2 use which is “assembly with alcohol sales”. A-2 spaces are required by municipal code to have a sprinkler system. With a sprinkler system installed, the property would have enough spaced and bathrooms to have an occupancy of 300. Without a sprinkler system, the occupancy load would be 99 no matter the size of the space. The applicant was seeking a variance to allow them to not install sprinklers but to have an occupancy limit of 200.
He finished up by saying that often in these meetings when someone doesn’t want to provide sprinklers, they look at what alternatives they were going to provide to comparably meet the life safety needs of the occupants.
[For some contrast, back in April of 2021, the Board of Building Inspection granted a variance allowing a renovation project to move forward without a sprinkler system being installed, but right off the bat the situation before the Board this time seemed very different from that previous instance because it was dealing with a venue that would potentially be filled with a large crowd of people, an unknown number of which would potentially be inebriated.]
Mayor Woodford invited the applicants to introduce themselves and share some more information with the board about the project.
Ben Ament was the owner of the project and Mark Keating from Gries Architectural Group was the senior architect on the project. Ben was leasing the space in a building owned by his father. He wanted to renovate that section of the building and turn it into an event space primarily to hold weddings and business seminars. Functions like the weddings would include alcohol being served, but, obviously, functions like the business seminars probably wouldn’t. They started the project not knowing that having sprinklers would be a requirement for that use of the space and only learned that fact as they got further along in the process.
Per Ben, “Basically the reason that we’re proposing an alternative to the sprinkler system is just because the water to get it to the space is on the opposite end of the building and there’s a lot of different tenants throughout the building, so to get the water to come in through the building would take a lot of work and there’s existing tenants in those spaces and so it would just kind of be fairly impractical to run it to the space. And so that’s kind of why we’re here looking to see if maybe, perhaps, we could propose an alternative alarm system to put in place.”
The space itself was roughly 4,000 square feet large. The water line to the building came in on the west side of the building but the space Ben was leasing that would need to have sprinklers installed was on the east side of the building, and to get the water over to the area they would need to run a pipe through the existing tenant space which they didn’t want to do, so they were trying to figure out alternatives.
As already noted, the space was 4,000 square feet. It was going to be a wide-open space with exits at each of the 4 corners as well as 2 overhead garage doors. Although 4 exits were available only 2 were required by code, and the maximum exit distance in the space would be only 76 feet whereas by code they could have up to 200 feet. Per Ben, everything would be open for events, all the exits would be within view, and there would be no big walls or anything, so if there was a fire people would certainly be able to see it.
They also planned to install a monitored, automatic, fire protection detection system. Mark explicitly identified this as the life safety equivalency they wanted to utilize as a substitute for installing a sprinkler system. He said that their logic was that if there were 200 occupants in a building with a detection system and exit distances far below the allowable exit distance, then they have met an equivalency of having the building sprinkled.
Mark also noted that there was a 2-hour fire barrier on either side of the building and that a fire from one of those other tenant spaces was not going to get into the event space. He then spent some time talking up the fire barriers and suggesting that the walls were actually 4-hour fire barriers not 2-hour fire barriers but that for reasons that weren’t clear to me he had calculated them only at 2 hours. [Honestly, he really lost me at that point. He came off sounding a little like a used car salesman who was talking things up without having any actual evidence to back up his assertions. If he wanted these walls to be considered 4-hour fire barriers then he should have done the tests and calculations that would have permitted him to label them 4-hour walls instead of just asking the Board, essentially, to trust him on that.]
Inspections Supervisor Craanen clarified what they were proposing. By code, if the space had a sprinkler system, it would have an occupancy of 300, and, without a sprinkler system, the occupancy would be limited to 99. The applicants wanted to get a variance to have an occupancy of 200 and not install a sprinkler system but instead rely on a fire monitoring system that would automatically notify the fire department if smoke was detected.
Mayor Woodford asked if there was anything else the applicant wanted to share before they moved on to board discussion.
Ben reiterated that there was a firewall and noted that the building was brick and concrete with steel beams and a concrete ceiling. “So, if a fire were to occur, it’s definitely not going to burn quick, but it’s all wide open, like I said, the exits are all plain sight. With 200 people, I would think we’d be able to have everybody out under 2 minutes.” [That struck me as a very bold statement to make when he offered no evidence that any of it was true. To quote Agent K, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.” I’d like a little evidence that 200 partying people who have been consuming alcohol will be able to clear an event space in 2 minutes.]
Mark also noted that this area would have its own dedicated air handler and furnaces. They would not be crossing the firewalls with duct, and if they would do so they would have fire dampers. This area would basically be its own self-contained event center inside another building.
Ben added that the overhead doors didn’t technically count as exits, but if they were still operable, they would help get everyone out even more quickly.
At that point Mayor Woodford opened things up for discussion by the board. He said that, procedurally, he wanted to have a motion in order to get the item on the table, then they could start the discussion. They would, of course, be able to amend and make changes to the motion as the discussion progressed.
Battalion Fire Chief Derek Henson made a motion to deny the request for a variance. This was seconded by Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15).
Battalion Fire Chief Henson explained that there was a common thread in the fire code that a monitored smoke detection system is typically not considered an equivalency for fire sprinklers. There was really no replacement for the direct application of water to the initial stage of a fire in terms of life safety. He mentioned The Station nightclub fire from 2003 and said there were some interesting parallels between the facility before the Board of Building Inspection and The Station nightclub. Both were about 4,000 square feet, had more exits than they were required to have, and had monitoring systems.
He noted that the monitoring system at The Station activated the occupant notification system about 15-20 seconds into the actual fire, but it wasn’t enough to get people out of the building and they lost 100 people.
He also pointed out that, although they had talked a lot about the construction of the facility, it’s not actually the construction that burns anymore. Rather it’s the decorations and interior combustibles that people put inside of buildings that burn now, and that’s what actually kills people.
He stated, “One of the concerns I have here is the decorations—so weddings are heavily decorated, there’s something that we’re gonna add a lot of light combustibles that probably aren’t gonna meet the interior decorations for–that are required by the international fire code. And it’s gonna change on a weekly basis, so it’s gonna be a one-time use for a venue. They’re gonna bring in decorations; they’re gonna go away, and they’re gonna be light, easily combustible materials.
“With that, I also have some concerns about who will be checking the occupant load. Is there gonna be somebody from the venue and the facility there that’s gonna check the occupant load on this weekly basis, or are they gonna rent it out as a 200-person space and then that weekend there’s 400 people in there? So, this is a constant concern that we do with occupant load checking throughout the city, and this adds another venue for us to continuously check on.
“By providing a sprinkler system, it eliminates a lot of these concerns. So, the light combustibles are mitigated by a sprinkler system. Chapter 8 of the international fire code is much more lenient with the interior materials based on having a sprinkler system in the building.
“I also don’t believe that they have to bring their water in across the building. I think that there’s water available on Edison, and that it’s actually on their side of the road on Edison where they would be able to bring another feed into the building from there. There’s a hydrant directly in front of their space across the parking lot, so I think there’s some different options that they could consider as far as sprinklers go that would help mitigate some of the cost and some of the hardship available bringing it through those different tenant spaces.”
Mayor Woodford spoke. “In terms of understanding the impediments to installing a system, you mentioned a potential concern of the water feed[…]Just for the record, I’ll describe this for anyone who watches this after the fact. The space is on the east end of the building, or on the eastern side of the property, and you indicated that it was your belief that the water feed would come from the west end of the building and have to cut across multiple properties to be feasible. Feasibility aside, is cost also a consideration as you’re thinking about the issue of installing sprinklers?”
Ben answered, “More so was just the impracticality of running it through the building from the west side to the space itself.” He said that to come off of the road, they would have to tap into the main which would have to all be dug up, so that had not been something that had been particularly considered. Rather, they had been trying to figure out how they could run it from where the water already fed into the building.
One of the board members asked if there were any code issues that would preclude them from having a separate water service to feed strictly into that portion of the building.
A staff member thought it probably wouldn’t be an issue but couldn’t give a definitive answer and said it was probably a question for the water utility. He said that sometimes the water utility was reluctant to have a building even with multiple tenants, to have more than one service. number or something.
Mayor Woodford asked Battalion Chief Henson for his thoughts, and he answered that there were a few buildings in the city similar to this one that had separate water feeds where one tenant space had sprinklers and they wanted to install sprinklers in another space but that second space was on the other end of the building. He noted that sometimes it was easier and more economically feasible to bring the water from the road again and have a separate fee for it. It was not unheard of. In this particular situation, Olde Oneida Street had a water main on the east side of the street and Edison Avenue had one on the south side of the street. [I took that to mean that water was pretty accessible.]
Mayor Woodford had a procedural question and wanted to know if anything would preclude the applicant from bringing back another application for a variance if the application currently being considered was denied.
The answer was no.
Mayor Woodford further clarified that if the application was denied and the applicant, after further research and planning still felt he needed a variance, he could come back and the Board could entertain that request for a variance.
The answer was affirmative.
Mayor Woodford said, “Given that information and the discussion we’re having now, I’d like to speak in support of the motion to deny this request for variance if only on the basis of the fact that it seems like there’s a little bit more research and study that could go into this prior to us entertaining this motion for variance–this request for variance. So, again, I’ll speak in support of the motion. I’ll be voting to support the motion to deny.”
Alderperson Doran also voiced his support of denying the variance at this point. He wondered if, procedurally, it was better to deny the application or to hold it and bring it back.
Mayor Woodford thought that was a good question and said he would defer to Inspections Supervisor Craanen. He also wanted to know if there was a fee for the application.
Inspections Supervisor Craanen said there was a $45 application fee. He thought they would ask for another application fee if they came back with another application. He said that they typically don’t put cases on hold, and he had never done that with the Board of Building Inspection. He noted that the Board of Zoning Appeals hears more cases and they don’t typically do that either. He wasn’t saying that something couldn’t be held, but typically they vote during the meeting. If a different application comes in, then it would all be separate from the first application.
Mayor Woodford, possibly responding to a motion by Ben, asked if Ben wanted to share something.
Ben answered, “Well, they were putting in a new water main on Edison Ave at one point over last summer–and this was before we realized it was kind of going to be something we would end up needing to do. And had talked to the city water guy that was out there working with the contractor and we asked him about it because we said, ‘if we ever do go to sprinkle the building (and when I say ‘we’ I mean my dad, the owner of the building) as a whole would we have to run another pipe into the building?’ and he said, ‘well, no because you have 6-inch line coming in on the west end of the building.’ And so, he said ‘you’d be good to tap off of that.’ So, but yeah, I don’t know if it would be okay for us to pull off of the road like he had mentioned or if, kind of like we were wondering, if he would say, ‘okay, you have 6 already, you’re good to go.’ So yeah, to that point I just wanted to share that, but, um, so I guess that’s what’s being proposed as our only option at this point is trying to find an alternative space to pull water from? Or is there any other options that we would have outside of a sprinkler? Or is that pretty much it at this point?”
Mayor Woodford said that the city would be happy to have those conversations with him and they would get him connected with the right people to answer those questions. For the purposes of today’s discussion is what the board was reviewing was the application for a variance. “From my perspective it seems that all of the options for meeting the code have not been exhausted and so, for that reason again, I’ll support the motion to deny, but we’re happy to work with you and wanna try and find a way to make this happen and do further research and if you do need to bring another application for variance forward, we will entertain that again. But at this time, is there any other discussion on the motion on the floor?”
There was no further discussion and the Board voted unanimously to deny the variance request.
[In my opinion, that was the right decision. The reasons for the variance request seemed pretty tenuous to me. Not wanting to inconvenience the other tenants doesn’t seem like a solid reason to not have to meet safety standards when the absence of those safety protocols could result in the potential death or injury of hundreds of people.
Beyond that, they just didn’t argue very persuasively. I think if they really wanted the variance granted, they should have possibly brought in some kind of safety expert who could back up the basic claims they made, some of which were, a fire in that space wouldn’t burn very quickly, the room could be cleared in 2 minutes, and a fire monitoring system was an effective substitute for a sprinkler system.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=920420&GUID=ED7E1AA4-A6D8-4E6E-88C8-DFC03C3C8021
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