The City Council on Monday adopted committee amendments to City Council Bill 25-0062, which alters the building code’s rules for single-stair residential construction and adds expanded sprinkler requirements. Chair Dorsey, sponsor of the Land Use and Transportation Committee measure, said the amendments were recommended by the fire department and the committee.

Dorsey described four amendments: Amendment 1 corrects a numbering error; Amendment 2 narrows the allowable residential stories for Type 3A construction to five stories; Amendment 3 expands sprinkler requirements beyond current local standards to anticipate forthcoming International Code Council changes; and Amendment 4 copies the building-code changes into the city’s fire code “word for word” so both codes match.

Dorsey said, in part, that Amendment 2 “clarifies the type of building, Type 3A. So the bill allows for a single stair construction building to be up to a certain height... What Amendment 2 says is that in Type 3A construction, you can only have 5 stories of occupancy for residential use.” He also described Amendment 3 as updating local sprinkler requirements to reflect expected changes in the International Fire Code.

Councilmembers adopted the committee amendments by voice vote and then moved the bill favorably with those amendments. The council instructed that the bill be printed for third reading. The recorded debate was limited to technical questions and no roll-call tally for the amendment vote was provided in the transcript.