MINUTES OF A PUBLIC HEARING HELD BY THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF         THE TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL, MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1996 AT 7:00 P.M.

 

Meeting Agenda:

                                                                                                                                                Page

1.          Filling vacant seat on the Town Council………………………………………….         1

2.           Paving part of Lone Pine Road……………………………………………………       3

3.           Potential requirements for fire sprinklers in fraternities and sororities……………       4

4.           Potential requirements for fire sprinklers in new construction and

             non-residential buildings and in residential buildings of four or more units………     17

 5.            Potential changes in the Town’s requirements for home occupations…………….      26

 

Mayor Waldorf called the proceedings to order.  Council Members in attendance were Julie Andresen, Joyce Brown, Joe Capowski, Mark Chilton, Pat Evans, Richard Franck and Lee Pavao.  Also in attendance were Town Manager Cal Horton, Assistant Town Managers Sonna Loewenthal and Florentine Miller, Planning Director Roger Waldon and Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos.

 

                                    Item  1  Filling Vacant Seat on the Town Council

 

Mayor Waldorf     Good Evening, welcome to this public hearing of the Chapel Hill Town Council. This is both a special meeting and a public hearing. The first item on the agenda tonight is the discussion of filling the vacant seat on the town council. We have a vacancy on the Town Council because of the death of a former council member, Barbara Powell and tonight the Town Council will continue and, I hope, will conclude the process for filling that vacancy. On August the 26th the Council established September 16th as the deadline for applying to fill that seat. We had two candidates apply on September 24th we heard from both those candidates and we’re having this special part of the meeting tonight to give ourselves the opportunity to decide whether to fill that vacancy. Tonight we may continue our discussion and make the appointment. If the council so chooses we have ballots in front of us and can proceed. Is there any discussion or any indication of how we shoe proceed here? What’s the Council’s pleasure? Julie?

 

Council Member Andresen     I think we should just proceed and I’m just glad to say that we have two good candidates to choose from and we could have always had more. I’m grateful we had two good ones.

 

Mayor Waldorf   I think that that’s the will of the Council. We’ll go ahead and cast our ballots and put them forward here for the clerk to collect. For my own part, I would just say that both Louise Stone and Edith Wiggins are excellent candidates and I think the community is very fortunate to have people of your caliber who are willing to serve.

 

 

 

Council Member  Andresen    Madam Mayor, before the results are announced I had a thought and that was, since we only have two candidates and one will be appointed, it might be good to just observe, or pick up on something you had said earlier about the interest of these two competent women in government and our wish to use their skills in other capacities if that’s possible so the one that isn’t selected, we would certainly want to find a place in Town government, on one of our boards or in some other way so that that person could serve the Town.

 

Mayor Waldorf    I feel that way. I don’t know if the rest of the Council does but¼. I’ll be glad to follow up on that.

 

Town Clerk Peter Richardson   Madam Mayor and Council Members, Mrs. Wiggins is unanimously appointed to the vacant Council seat.

 

Mayor Waldorf    All right, very good. Is it the pleasure of the Council then that we go ahead and swear Mrs. Wiggins in? Edith would you please come forward and we’ll do this? Congratulations. I hope it’s okay for me to administer the oath of office. This is a simple but serious oath so what I’ll do is I’ll read a phrase and then if you could repeat after me. I Edith Wiggins do solemnly swear that I will support and maintain the constitution and laws of the United States and the laws of the State of North Carolina not inconsistent therewith and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office as town council member of the Town of Chapel Hill so help me God. So congratulations. It’s great to have you with us. A standing ovation is always nice. I’d like to encourage you if you would to say anything that you would like to say to the council and the public and then to go around and to shake all the hands of the people you’re going to be working with a lot over the next year and I will take this over to the clerk and have it ready for you to sign.

 

Council Member Wiggins    I would like to say something. I’d first like to thank all of the council members and I really do pledge to work with each of you in a way that will help all of us together reach our vision and goals for the town of Chapel Hill and make it the place that we all enjoy. I’d also like to that the members of the public who supported me and called on my behalf. Thank you all very much

 

Mayor Waldorf    Come have a seat. Well, welcome Edith, from everyone and we look forward to serving with you. Before we move on to the first public hearing item I’d like to recognize guests in our audience tonight. Are Peter and Bridget Hinkle here? Did they come? I was expecting Peter and Burget Hinkle from Namibia and Bridget is the chief planner of the town of Winhook but I guess they haven’t arrived yet. Maybe if they arrive later we can recognize them. Let’s move on then to the first public hearing item which is the public hearing on the paving of Lone Pine Rd. This is in response to a petition of residences of Lone Pine Rd. Mister Manager.

 

 

 

 

                                                Item 2  Paving Part of Lone Pine Road

 

Town Manager Horton  Madam Mayor, George Small will make a brief presentation on this item.

 

Town Engineer George Small    Thank you. Tonight we’re having a hearing on a petition to pave a portion of Lone Pine Rd. We’ve receive a valid petition for the paving of about 524 feet of currently unpaved road which extends north from Tenney Circle. There’s a map attached to the agenda item that shows that portion of the roadway. We estimate that this project will cost approximately $13,000.00 to complete. The funds for this improvement would be available from the town’s capitol improvement fund and if we proceeded it the town, under the way the laws work on this, the town would pay for the improvements initially and then if approved by the council, the assessments for 50% of the costs of this improvement would be place against the property owners adjacent to these improvements. The map attached that shows those owners. We have advised them of the process and this hearing tonight is a portion of that process. After we have the hearing tonight, we would go ahead based on the comments we receive and ask you to approve the assessment resolution a subsequent meeting. We would then probably take, if it’s approved, to proceed we would probably try to do this as a part of next summer’s resurfacing program which we’ve done in the past on other petitions. Then we would come back to you in the fall and have you approve a final assessment role at which time we would set assessments against the property owners and they can either pay those at one time or pay them over a period of time which is outlined in this agenda. With that I’ll take any questions. Or if there are any people to speak they can speak now.

 

Mayor Waldorf

Thank you George. To my knowledge there’s no one who signed up with the Clerk to speak on this item. Is there anyone in the audience who want to speak on the paving of Lone Pine Rd? If not are there questions or comments from council members? Joe?

 

Council Member Capowski

George, what is the cost per foot of the assessment?

 

Town Engineer Small

I wish I would have brought that with me. I guess I could calculate that pretty quickly. It’s 524 feet of roadway and we’re estimating it at $13,000.00. Can you do your math pretty quickly on that?

 

Mayor Waldorf

Are there any other questions or comments from Council?

 

THE MOTION TO RECESS THE HEARING AND REFER THE MATTER TO  THE MANAGER WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY.

 

 

     Item 4  Potential Requirements for Fire Sprinklers in Fraternity and Sorority Houses

 

 Mayor Waldorf    Let’s move on to the second public hearing item tonight which is a public hearing on proposed requirements for fire sprinkler systems in fraternity and sorority houses. This is something that the council initiated with the legislature as a result of the Phi Gamma Delta fire in May. Mister Manager.

 

Town Manager Horton    Madam Mayor, Chief Jones will make a presentation and answer any questions that the council might have.

 

Fire Chief Jones     Mayor and Council I appreciate you coming back to this issue again and allowing us to bring this initiative back before you. I’d like to take a moment to point out  that it’s probably very appropriate that we’re having this discussion in that this week is National Fire Prevention Week and this is the beginning, so it’s a very appropriate night to have this discussion. As all of us are well aware on May 12th we had a terrible tragedy here in Chapel Hill when we had a fire in the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house on graduation day with the loss of five young lives and the disruption of many other lives.

 

On May 20th, following that fire, the Council passed a resolution requesting that the local legislative delegation put in a bill authorizing a local authority to enact sprinklers retroactively in fraternity and sorority houses. That legislation was approved in the short session on June 19th. We basically find that there’s three prime reasons to enact sprinkler legislation or to look at this.

 

 The first and most important is that sprinklers suppress or extinguish fires before they can grow to the kind of rapid expansion and size that threaten the lives of occupants of a structure like we saw at Phi Gamma Delta. The second is not often mentioned but it’s very important but it reduces the risk to firefighters lives. In non-sprinkler buildings that are on fire, fire fighters must enter those buildings to suppress those fires and attack the fire. In a sprinkler building it does not require the fire fighters take those kind of risks and take those kind of action so fire in sprinklered buildings are significantly safer for fire fighters to deal with. The third is that sprinkler systems in and of themselves reduce property damage. The comparison of fires of sprinklered versus non-sprinklered buildings, the amount of damage is significant in every case.

 

Fraternity and sorority houses, we think are special case even beyond the basic principles of fire suppression in that the represent several threats that we believe constitute one of our most serious fire hazards in Chapel Hill. They represent large living occupancies with multiple people living in them, they frequently have limited supervision. In many cases, they are older buildings that don’t meet modern fire safety and building codes. They are in frequent and active use by many people, not only the occupants but guests who may not be familiar with the buildings. There’s a social atmosphere in the fraternity houses that lead to a lot of activities where some of the occupants may be impaired and may not react properly in the event of a fire or other emergency and may not be able to aggress appropriately from the building. And the building contents themselves, because of the multiple living situation contributes to a fire in that we have multiple ignition sources. Many of the sleeping rooms have multiple small appliances, a lot of times the electrical systems are overloaded, the electrical systems are older. There’s frequent use of candles. In many of the houses, there’s smoking in the rooms. Multiple sources of ignition and it only takes a small source as we’ve seen from our experience here.

 

Also as we’ve discussed before in this chamber young folks have a very limited sense of their own risk. They have a sense of immortality and they just do not comprehend the amount of risk that some of the activities expose them to. Sprinklers are unquestionably the most effective method of fire protection in our technology today. We know of at least one other community who has taken this step and that’s Lawrence, Kansas at the University of Kansas. They enacted a retroactive sprinkler law that comes to term in the year 2000. By that time all of their fraternity and sorority houses will have to be sprinklered.

 

What we are presenting to Council tonight is some options based on our earlier discussions with you. Option A which is the manager’s recommendation which was the original council consideration is that all fraternity and sorority houses be sprinklered within five years. That is the most stringent of the options. It is the option that the legislative authority gives us and it’s the manager’s recommendation. Option B is one that we offered in response to some questions from council and also inquiries from some of the University officials about taking into consideration other elements of fire protection. Under this option, which is an alternate to A, we would extend to seven years the retrofit requirement for sprinkler system if within the very next two years, three things are accomplished in that house. One; a monitored nation fire protection alarm system with pull stations on each level of the house is installed, two; there are two exterior fire escapes from every level of the house and #3; there’s a permanently wired 10 volt smoke detector in each sleeping room. Option C and D represent add-on options that the council may wish to consider also. Option C we developed as a result of a council inquiry about smaller houses. This would exempt houses that are under 2500 square feet, have less than six accommodations for sleeping, have exterior escape from each level and have permanently installed smoke detectors in each sleeping room and each common area of the house. Option D would exempt secondary detached structures on the property that may be used for other purposes such as chapter meeting, party houses, gathering rooms and that sort of thing. These would be structures of less that 1000 feet with no sleeping facilities and they would be connected to the alarm system of the main house where the sleeping facilities are so that if there were a fire there it would alert the occupants in the main house.

 

Option A or B are considered to be alternatives to each other. Option C and D are add-ins and can either or both be added in. We identified costs as the key issue to the addition of sprinklers. Council has asked us to research this and looking at local issues and talking with local contractors and looking at local recent projects we’ve been able to identify a range of $2.50 per square foot to $5.50 per square foot. That’s a little higher than what some of the national statistics show but that’s based on surveys of local situations here by our staff. The Kappa Kappa Gamma house which was sprinklered last summer cost $2.87 per square foot. So that’s a definite experience level we have there. The manager’s recommendation is for Option A in that that’s the council’s original recommendation to us. I’d like to say that right now we have a very fire safety conscious student body and fraternity and sorority system. That’s based on their experience this last year. They’ve been exposed in a very painful way to the tragedy of this type of fire. What we’re concerned about is what will happen in four or five years when the student body turns over, there’s a complete new student body who has not had the personal experience of this fire, has not learned the lessons of fire safety that the current student body has and doesn’t recall what kind of experience this can be both in the community and the University. So we would encourage you to give us this tool to protect those students in this particular setting and at this particular risk, not only now but in the future for future student bodies which pass through this community. Either I will be available for questions or Fire Marshall Roberson is also available for questions.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Thank you very much. We have several members of the public who have come to speak on this and we look forward to hearing from you. I’m going to call on you two at a time. The first one please come forward and the second one be ready. We have a practice here of asking people to try to confine their comments, if possible, to a three minute limit. So we’ll use that timer. Aaron Nelson and Brett Perry.

 

Aaron Nelson    Thank you for holding this public hearing and for postponing from the summer to allow students to speak on the issue requiring sprinklers in fraternities and sororities. I come before you this evening in support of B with the addition of C and D. Let me tell you why. B is important because what B does is it shows, one that the town is flexible and giving credit to fraternities and sororities that in the past few years or would in the next few years make their houses fire-safe. For example, I believe it is Sigma Chi is the house that had a fire after the Phi Gamma Delta fire and what the renovations that they had done made their house fire-safe. It had fire walls, it had all the systems that it should have, a central alarm and that was very successful.. To give them a longer time. As well as it allows those fraternities and sororities to get things in place quicker. C I think is important because it annexes¼ If what our desire is, is that fraternities and sororities need this because they have higher risk behavior and the annexes are in the smaller houses, there’s less likely to be that higher risk behavior and houses that sleep only six people and houses that are under 2500 square feet and houses that have two places to exit, I do not think they need to have fire sprinklers installed and D as well because if there is a house, an addition, I believe behind the Tri-Sigma house that right now is a kind of computer room, that it need not be fire sprinklered. If what our desire is is to protect the safety of the students that there is no need to sprinkler buildings of that size.

 

Almost every student that we have surveyed in the Greek Community and the Greek Presidents have said, “Sure, we ought to install fire sprinkler systems.” I mean that’s something that we would have to be fools not to. We understand it’s important and we have to have fire-safe houses and that we protect our membership. The worry though is the cost and whether or not the town ought to require such a thing. There’s fear of the town going down a road of requiring fraternities/sororities specific legislation and what that means for the future. As well as the fear of what it’s going to cost. We recently received a fax from the treasurer of the State of North Carolina that seems to say that no longer is it going to be as we thought an interest free $1million. I can give you that fax if you want but it says that only ten percent of each loan will be interest free for fraternities and sororities in both public and private fraternities across the state of North Carolina. And they will give Chapel Hill no special treatment. How will we pay for something that is $50,000.00 for people that live in fraternities and sororities? They’re just like anybody else and I think that there’s a misperception that they are more wealthy than other people. Well can’t you just go to your alumni and find the money.  It would not be that simple.

 

What I encourage, if I may conclude, and would hope the Mayor’s indulgence to  just let me finish this thought and that is that what I ask the Town to do is to support B, C and D and I think that those are the most responsible. But to actively assist fraternities and sororities in the financing of this. To go to people in the town, to go to businesses and look for way themselves. That is the most important thing. If we really believe in fire safety as we say that we do and as the town has shown that it does through an amazing fire safety department, let alone Chief Jones and their interest in this. That instead of just legislating this but get involved in other ways. To just legislate it would be to legislate organizations that have a lot of community involvement, have a lot of service involvement, you’d legislate them out of existence. As so what I would ask is that in supporting B, C and D that the council also get involved in the financing and assisting member of this community, the citizen students of this community in paying for that. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Okay, Aaron, thank you. I want to publicly thank you for all your time and personal effort that you’ve put into trying to coordinate this enhanced safety effort. You’ve put in a lot of work and I think it’s going to matter to a lot of people.

 

Brett Perry     Thank you Madam Mayor. Much of what I’m going to say is going to reiterate what Aaron said but I’m going to put a few points in there that he didn’t get to. We are for the proposal B. One of the reasons is that it gives more flexibility to fraternities to install these sprinkler systems. But one advantage proposal B has over proposal A is that it make it so that the first two years, the fraternities and sororities have to have a fire protection system installed. Once that fire detection system is installed they have up to five years, if it’s done within two years to have a water sprinkler system installed. That flexibility allows fraternities to have more time to do any other renovations. There are several fraternities in Chapel Hill and surrounding areas that need to complete some renovations that they currently have ongoing and are planning for the future. But the major concern that students, members of the Greek community have is the funding and the money needed for this expensive project. The major concern is where this funding will come from. Fraternities can do fund-raisers, can get funds from alumni but it’s hard to do because it is such a large chunk of money needed. The State has allocated a $1million fund to assist but in no way fully cover the money needed to install these water sprinkler systems and 10% of the loan for fraternities/sororities who qualify for it will be interest free. But if you do the math and you consider that the 26 fraternities here at UNC and that’s just at UNC, it’s only a fraction of the cost needed for the water sprinklers.

 

The ballpark cost for the installation of the this sort could be anywhere from $50,000 to plus $20,000. Many fraternities will need time to locate and receive these funds. It will take fraternities and sororities a few years to get these funds together either from alumni or from current members. There is some agreement or new state funding for water sprinkler installation costs needs to be made to make it easier on fraternities and sororities to accomplish the goal of fire prevention systems. This mandate by local and state governments for fraternities and sororities for such an expensive fire prevention system is a big step and the Greek community should not have to go it alone. I can also speak from personal experience. I was a house manager for Tao Epsilon Phi, my fraternity, in the year 1995. I know I did everything I could to make my house fire safe. However, it’s a big task. Steps need to be made so that there is more cooperation in this instance between the Greek community, the town of Chapel Hill and the fire department. More collaboration on fire prevention will result in a safer community. In addition to the installation of water sprinkler systems, I would like to see a more hands-on approach to fire safety. If the fire department could find the time to meet with fraternity and sorority members during their chapter meeting to go over fire safety, I think the word about fire prevention would be communicated more effectively and expediently.

 

Fred Schroeder     Madam Mayor, other members of the council and the newest member of the council, my former boss, Congratulations to you. My name is Fred Schroeder. I serve as Dean of Students at the University and I am here tonight to speak in favor of your adoption of one of the two primary options presented already in the agenda and described by the Fire Chief. I would also like at this moment to introduce to you Dr. and Mrs. Leon Woodruff from Raleigh North Carolina. Dr. and Mrs. Woodruff are the parents of Ben Woodruff who was one of the victims of the tragic fire of May the 12th and they have asked to be here in support of the proposed ordinance and we thank you very much for being here tonight.

 

The Chief has described the ordinances as proposed and I would like to speak in favor of either A or B but primarily B. It does appear to me that option B carries a more potential positive effect than option A. As I understand it, under option A, an organization could literally wait for 4 ½ years before even beginning to make any significant improvements in the fire safety equipment in the house. Under option B, should the house choose that option, a house would have the choice of beginning to upgrade the safety equipment within the first two years following the adoption of the ordinance. To be followed with a complete sprinkler installation to be completed within seven years of the passage of the ordinance. I favor option B then, not to postpone the application of this ordinance but rather to insure the adoption of as complete a fire protection system on as early a date as is possible. Option C would appear to me to exempt structures of less than 2500 square feet housing six persons or fewer from the implementation of this ordinance. While I’m willing to support it, I have some reluctance in deference to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 persons that might be residents in such facilities. Option D, exempting non-residential space makes very good sense to me. I thank you for the opportunity of being present and in support of these very important protection fire safety ordinances. Thank you.

 

 

Mayor Waldorf     I want to thank the Woodruffs for coming. Without knowing you we have thought about you a lot and you’re certainly welcome to speak tonight if you would like to.

 

Randy Cox     My name is Randy Cox. I’m the chair person of the Greek Affairs committee.  We have put out our recommendations and have been working hard since the tragedy this summer on what we would call our recommendations for the Greek Community. The first and biggest recommendation we made was for houses to be sprinklered. We also have added 12 other recommendations with the help of the Chief and his staff and they have done a wonderful job on adding a lot of different things that we would never think of to help insure the safety of our members. We are here to recommend option B. We think it’s imperative that the houses be sprinklered. Once again, I seem to be like a broken record. Our biggest concern is the expense. I know for my fraternity our prices have been coming in at $50,000 and that does not include the hook-up pricing for OWASA which could add considerably more. These are enormous amounts of money to be raised by fraternities. I also know from personal experience that raising money is not as easy as it sounds. I know that we do have a lot of concern on the alumni side and we will install sprinklers. I think it’s imperative that it is a mandatory situation but I also think it’s an excellent idea to give them the extra two years if they do put in an electronic system which I think should be an adjunct to the sprinklers and to give complete system so from our community we would be in favor of option B. Thank you.

 

Daryl Moser     Thank you for allowing me to speak Madam Mayor and council. My name is Daryl Moser. I’m with Crawford Sprinkler Company and I thought it may be a good idea if you had a bit more concise information about the actual cost of the sprinkler systems that are going in. My company installed two systems this summer. The interior parts of the systems cost right at $2.00 a foot. One was the A D Phi house, one was the ?. The exterior costs with these houses were in the $20,000 range. Most of what my customers have been talking about is the actual cost. They agree that we need to put sprinkler systems in their house and they understand the importance. What their main concern is, is the hook-up fees that are associated with that water supply. In that regard, we need some help from council or the owners need some help from council to help facilitate that and I think that would be greatly appreciated on their part. Other costs that are involved that possibly have not been taken into account. When you talk about the long term effects of the sprinkler system is that you need to have it inspected yearly which is about a $200.00 cost and after that you get about a 5 to 7% break on your insurance. So that’s a deduct cost that hasn’t been taken into account that I’ve heard of. Other than the cost OWASA’s fine to work with but we need to find some way to get that fire protection hook-up fee down to a reasonable level. Thank you

 

Bob Reese      Madam Mayor and council. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I’m going to be very brief. There are several sprinkler people here tonight and we wanted to let the council know that sprinklers are not something that can’t be done. We’ve been doing it for years and have a good success rate and are increasingly recognized as the best means to protect lives and we just wanted you to know that it is feasible and if we can help we’ll answer any questions. We’re here to help.

 

Patrick Coughlin     Madam Mayor and members of the council, my name is Patrick Coughlin. I am here tonight on behalf of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. I am a former fire chief having spent 27 years in the fire service. My job with the International is to provide technical assistance to cities that are considering built-in fire protection and help manage their risks. I, like many people on the national scene have been following the story since it began. In the interest of time, I have just a few remarks I’d like to make. When you look at the options and you’re considering the choice of perhaps some exemptions, there’s one thing I’d like to add to what the city staff had put in the need. One thing they did not mention, modern contents and furnishing these days, because they are basically synthetics, the burn about twice as hot and they go to flash-over about twice as quickly so the challenge in fires we’re facing today is a lot more significant than it was before.

 

When a room goes to flash-over in 3 to 5 minutes, your fire department cannot get enough people there in time to save anybody that’s in the room of origin or even perhaps outside the room of origin. I just recently completed a 10 ½ minute video to be an informative piece for policy makers and I’d like to take the liberty to send 10 copies to the city manager for distribution. It’s very short, it stays right to the subject. It explains how sprinklers work, how effective they are and it also answers some myths and misinformation.

 

Unfortunately, for comic relief, in TV sitcoms you usually see every sprinkler in the room go off and that’s not the way they operate so I would like to provide that for you in a few days. On the cost issue, I worked with city councils for several years. It comes down to the fact that you have the responsibility of looking at the long-term impact on your tax payers and on your fire fighters and there’s always a conflict between the short-term costs of getting fire protection built in and the long-term. In closing, I just urge you to please consider very seriously the long-term impact. If you start building fire protection now you’re going to benefit from that forever. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf     We’d love to have the videos and we’ll make some of them available to the public if they’re interested.

 

Mr. Shermer     Madam Mayor and council, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity of speaking here. I’ll be very brief because about 95% of what I was going to say has been said already. I would like to call attention to one very basic and very important point. That is the fact that residential sprinklers have been designed to maintain a survivable environment in the room of the fire origin. In other words, if we have a fire in our living room or in our bedroom that’s protected by residential sprinklers, we are protected from that fire. Those sprinklers have been tested by Underwriters Laboratories and Factory Mutual to look at the temperature level at sitting, sleeping and standing elevations, to look at the toxic gases and to look at the temperature at the ceiling so that flash-over does not occur. It was the intent of those sprinklers and in over 400 cases that have been reported so far, the operation of them. That intent has been fulfilled that we are not having fatalities nor are we have serious injuries in building that are so protected. Thank you.

 

Mr. McLeod     I’m Robert  McLeod with the National Fire Sprinkler Association  We represent the sprinkler industry nationwide and we attend many of these meetings every year and I would like to start my presentation by saying that Chief Jones and his staff has made one of the best presentations I have seen nation-wide. Many of the things covered in that presentation usually have to be established by speakers or technical experts and my hat’s off to Chief Jones and his staff. The National Fire Sprinkler Assoc. has followed your tragedy in this community as we do in communities across the nation. And what I’d like to state is that recently across our TV sets, across our newspapers and in our magazines and periodicals, we’ve heard TWA, we’ve heard the Peruvian airliner crash but last year we had 3,640 burned to death in residential occupancies. And that would be the same as if we took 15 head on airline crashes in this nation and yet there’s public empathy. Your action here tonight on this problem, the National would never think of how to tell you people to react to your situation but we would like to say that you’re addressing a problem that needs addressing nation-wide not only here and we commend you for it. Thank you.

 

Mr. Nathan     Thank you Madam Mayor and members of the Council. I’m one of the students that worked this summer on the committee under Mr. Cox involving students, faculty, staff and professionals from the town. The sub-committee that I worked on was the warning and protection sub-committee which involves the interim measures that we are addressing under option B.  I strongly stand in support of option B. First of all, interim measure is somewhat of a misnomer. The was the number two priority on the fire department’s wish list as presented by Deputy Larry Johnson who I thank for his hard work in conjunction with our committee. These detection systems have been proved to do a great deal and also their costs are significantly less. We took the liberty to meet with a local company representative, a name that was provided to us by the fire department. We spoke with that representative, we looked at the issue of cost, we saw how feasible putting in these interim measures would be and also the fact that the flexibility of all the different houses is very desirable. First of all, a lot of these houses are technically right now worried about other safety concerns, not just about fire safety. We’re able to combine the two of them quite effectively in joint alarm systems so they are able to kill two birds with one stone. It’s a good idea for a lot of the fraternity houses to try and they are very excited about doing that.

 

Another thing I wanted to add in addition to just supporting option B in regards to those interim measures is that we know that the issue of cost is going to be a big issue and there’s a lot of things and a lot of different places we’re going to have to go for money. One place, however, that the town can certainly help out with in addition to all the help you’ve already done is with the OWASA charges. I don’t have the exact figures in front of me but I believe the charges for Orange County and Chapel Hill are higher than any other area in the state. I think second place was Charlotte and we were well ahead of Charlotte. If such things have changed, I’m so corrected but I think the issue of the OWASA charges is something this council certainly has power over and that’s one way¼ We’ve already heard how the OWASA charges are a major issue for all of us and they are going to be recurring charges. We’d like to see the issue of us lowering those charges if possible. It’s certainly something the town has privy over. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Thank you sir. Is there anyone else who wanted to speak on this issue? There are just a couple things that came up as people were speaking that I’d like to clarify if I could. One is, I just want to make sure that everybody who’s here tonight understands that this a public hearing and that the council will not act on the proposed ordinances that are before us tonight. We will most likely refer them to the manager and decide them, I believe it’s on Oct. 21st. So this is not a night on which we’re expected to act on any of these ordinances. The second point I want to address is Mr. Coughlin ‘s point about the OWASA fees. It’s something that’s been on everybody’s mind and I took the opportunity to check with the OWASA dirtier and the chairman of the board today. OWASA is aware of the concern that you expressed and the council has expressed that concern. OWASA is in the process of doing a major study of all its rate and fee charges and they are about to hire a consultant to help them with that. They expect to have conclusions and decisions in about six months and certainly I think that they are very sensitive to the desire of many people in the community to have their sprinkler fees not be a disincentive for people to sprinkler their buildings. Are there questions from council members?

 

Council Member Brown    Just to follow up on a question in regard to what you are saying. Could anybody explain the process that OWASA is going through and will there be public hearings? Will there be committees that are formed, if you know anything about that, if anybody on the staff knows?

 

Mayor Waldorf      I know a little bit. They are embarking on a study of all their rates, all the up-front capitol charges, all their usage charges. They are going to be looking at things like life-line rates to give elderly people a break. They are looking at things like conservation rates and there is a fairly extensive process, which I can’t quote you in detail, to involve the public and all the elected officials.

 

Council Member Brown     I thought the public would be interested in knowing we have some information. We could certainly get that and then have it at our next meeting, when this comes back to us.

 

Council Member Andresen      Could I just speak to that point Madam Mayor? I know that we’ve indicated the OWASA board on several occasions that we’re interested in seeing these charges become more reasonable or done away with and as soon by the rate base. I’m wondering if this is all folded into the general rate study which it apparently it’s going to be. Whether the initiative and the impetus for this is going to be lost. When it gets down to the decision making time for the OWASA board, it will be looking at a whole bunch of very complicated rate structures, availability fees, meter sizes, residential, commercial¼. I’m a little bit concerned about having this issue lost. I’m wondering if the OWASA board really thinks this is important why they couldn’t take action earlier. Then once they took that action, they would then have to adjust their other rates in order to make up for the difference because obviously somebody’s going to have to pay for the reduction in fees. I’m just wondering if as a council we ought to consider asking the OWASA board to treat this as a special case.

 

 

Mayor Waldorf     I think it’s a good point and why don’t we talk about it when we get around to adopting the ordinances. That gives us a couple weeks to think about how we’d like to handle it.

 

Council  Member Chilton      I just have one quick question for the staff. If you will look at the first page of ordinance A, page 8 of our packet, section 7-40 provides a definition of what a fraternity and sorority house is and it’s a good definition for something that might be a little hard to define such as a non-Greek fraternity that we have in town. I wonder whether it reaches anything further than what was originally intended.. I know that there are two social honorary professional organizations in town that are associated with the University and which own property in town. One of them, I believe, is a resident. The Gimghoul Castle is occupied by at least one person. I don’t know about the Gorgonshead House. Naturally, those who know do not say and those who say do not know about such things. Maybe if we could get an answer. I don’t think it’s necessary for either of these two buildings to be sprinklered. I just want to know whether these two sights would be covered as it’s written.

 

Mayor Waldorf     That’s a good question for the attorney.

 

Council Member Evans     I’d like to ask Chief Jones. During the time of the storm, we experienced power failure and then in my neighborhood just the other night we experienced power failure. In either option how would power failure effect what we’re suggesting being installed.

 

Fire Chief Jones      A complete power failure would take the alarm systems down unless they were backed up with some sort of battery system. But normally they are affected by power.

 

Council Member Evans      So for a long-term power failure like we’ve had when people often go to candles or whatever there would not be any system.

 

Chief Jones     That’s correct.

 

Council Member Chilton     That’s not true of sprinklers though, right?

 

Fire Chief Jones     No, sprinklers operate mechanically, on the water pressure in the system.

 

Council Member Capowski      On that battery business¼ But statistically, you’re still way better off with a 110 volt powered system even with occasional power outages than people who have to remember to put batteries in them.

 

Fire Chief Jones      Certainly. There’s been a number of studies that indicate that over a period of time battery operated fall into disrepair and people forget to keep the batteries or they take the batteries out if the system’s alarm has been a nuisance factor.

 

 

Council Member Capowski       I have two questions. If you can’t answer them now please answer them for October 24th.

 

Fire Chief Jones     Let me correct that. I believe that is slated on the council’s agenda to come back November 11th.

 

Council Member Capowski     First, the University spokesmen have all suggested option B and yet the manger’s recommendation is option A. Have you heard anything tonight that would cause you to change your mind?

 

Fire Chief Jones     I think the options that we wrote are acceptable to us. The manager and I discussed it and the manager recommended option A because it was first and foremost, the most stringent and it was  the council’s original consideration. What the council asked us to obtain authorization from the legislature for. So that was or initial direction from the council. Option B is workable. It has advantages and disadvantages like any of the others.

 

Council Member Capowski       My last question has to do with confusion over cost. You cited a per square foot figure of $2.50 to $5.50. If you take a large fraternity house of say 5000 square feet, even $5.00 a square foot, that’s $25,000.00 and yet we’ve been hearing numbers like $50,000 to $75,000. Where is this money being spent?

 

Fire Chief Jones     The actual system cost is the $2.50 to $5.50 per square foot.  Then you have to add the OWASA hook-up fees and so forth to that which one speaker tonight related tonight was $20,000.000. That varies also depending on how much pipeline has to be laid. But those figures are very flexible and the reason is depending upon the occupancy, the size of the structure, there’s several different options of systems as we’ve discussed in the past that could be applied under the standards. Those systems have different water requirements and so the occupant of the building has to make some decisions also about how they want the system to look. Do they want the system to be completely hidden from view? Are they willing to have some exposed portions of the system? There are so many variables that it’s hard to say across the board that this is what it costs. You almost have to look at it case by case. That’s we try to give you a range.

 

Council Member Capowski      Then, I guess, I’m disappointed, not particularly in you, but I’m generally disappointed that no one has come up and shown us the price quote from the contractor with all the fees involved and said, “Oh my God, if we put this in it’s going to cost us $67,000.00. It would seem to me that before we legislate a substantial fee on someone.. I guess I would like to have the cost pinned down a little better rather than quite so vague.

 

Fire Chief Jones    It’s just that there’s so many variables in the system for the occupant choice. The $2.87 a square foot that Kappa Kappa Gamma experienced, that’s a hard figure.

 

Council Member Capowski     But what was their total bill?

 

Fire Chief Jones      Chief Robertson, do you remember what the total bill for the Kappa house was?

 

Mayor Waldorf   Let’s go on to the next question while they’re looking around for that.

 

Council Member Andresen     On the cost question, my understanding is that any retro-fitting of this nature could be a capital expense, like a new roof and you could get financing if you weren’t able to get hold of some of this money from the state legislature as a loan and have it be paid over many years. I guess I want to follow up on something you said Joe and ask you Fire Chief Jones ¼ Maybe the way the options were laid out is more a product of where we started and so option A was more like where we started and as these various committees met there were some more ideas and B sort of evolved. What I want to do is get a sense of what you’re professional evaluation is of the value of these secondary measures and if you could it all over again would you try to build those into option A because, you know, you’ve got five years where nothing’s going to happen theoretically, many fraternity houses may wait quite a number of years before they decided to make this kind expense.

 

Fire Chief Jones    I believe, and this is base on 23 years of professional experience, observing sprinklered fires, I believe that the single most effective way to protect people in a structure is with a sprinkler system. There is no second best choice. There are other things that make buildings more fire-safe, an alarm system, plenty of free egress fire escapes from every level, pull station alarms and back-up single station smoke detectors, interior finishes that are less flammable. All of those things contribute to a more fire-safe building. There’s no such thing as an absolutely fire-safe building but a sprinkler system gives us that. Obviously, I believe sprinkler systems are the most important. If they had a sprinkler system in the Phi Gamma Delta fire, I don’t believe we would have had any deaths. I think it was that dramatic. So five years to get sprinkler systems in? That’s five years of keeping our fingers crossed to get all these houses protected. It’s unrealistic to say, “Let’s put the sprinklers in and have them in in six months.” I’d like to have the sprinkler systems. I think, if a house shows good faith effort and some of them are doing that as we speak. They’re installing the alarm systems, they’re renovating the insides of the houses. They’re adding fire escapes.

 

I think for those houses that are making that effort, I think it’s reasonable to extend the period on the fire sprinkler system to give them a little more time to develop the funding and so forth to do that because they’ve already spent some capital up front to do these initial things. We’ve observed in some of the houses is the sprinkler system is a more involved process of design installation. It involves tearing up part of the house in some cases. They’ve put those decisions off, not only for funding purposes but just for logistics purposes. I mean, the house is full of students now. It’s difficult to get contractors in. So what some of them have done is to put the alarm systems in and I think giving them credit for those steps and encouraging through the chancellor’s Greek committee that’s working on this and through the student body government, I think we can achieve fire safety on a different level and still obtain what our objective is.

 

Council Member Andresen     In your professional view, how important is it for this non-residential space not to have sprinklers?

 

Fire Chief Jones     If they’re small and detached from the main part of the house and no one sleeps in them, it’s not too much of a life safety issue. Any fire in a structure is the life safety issue, if not for the occupant, for the fire fighters. But again, we’re trying to look at this from a standpoint of giving some flexibility to council to make a decision about achieving the objective of life safety for the houses where the students sleep and giving some flexibility to the council to be able to assist them with the overall cost of it.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I just want to make one comment as a follow up. The way I perceive these 5 year deadlines or 7 year deadlines is not¼ Well 5 years is the deadline you have and you’ve got to rush in a barely beat the deadline but 5 years is the time period that you have in order to get this safety improvement done and it’s 5 years long or 7 years long if you have an extraordinarily difficult circumstance like you’ve just described. It’s not set with the anticipation that everyone would wait until the last minute to try to beat the deadline.

 

Fire Chief Jones      Based on our experience so far, what we’ve seen this summer, we’ve already seen a number of installations occur. There’s a number planned. I think over the period of 5 years or 7 years which ever it is, we would see over that period of time the houses would come into compliance and when we got up to that 5 year window or 7 year window, hopefully, we would only see a couple of houses that were left to accomplish that objective that might need some additional assistance with funding or whatever.

 

Council Member Wiggins     I was concerned about what would happen during that 5 year period. I do know that before I left my office that lots of parents were calling, very concerned about whether or not the sorority or fraternity houses had protection and alarm systems, knowing it would take a while to get sprinkler systems in. So I think there is an incentive because a lot of parents were going to insist that their students live elsewhere. So there was a real incentive and I think the houses will work real hard to get the alarms and the detection systems in during the 5 year period.

 

A MOTION TO REFER THE MATTER TO THE MANAGER AND ATTORNEY WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY.

 

 

 

Item 4  Potential Requirements for Fire Sprinkler in New Construction of non-residential Buildings and in Residential Buildings of four or more units  

 

Mayor Waldorf      Thank you all for coming tonight and I appreciate the good staff work on this too. Let’s move on to item 4 which is a similar public hearing. This is a public hearing on potential sprinkler requirements for new construction of non-residential buildings and for multi-family residential housing. Oh before we go on to that, our guests from Namibia are here. Can we introduce you now? We have tonight’s special guests in Chapel Hill, Peter and Bridget Hinkle from Winhook, Namibia. Bridget is the Chief Planner of the Town of Winhook which is a Town of 180,000. It’s great to have you here. All right, Madam Manager, public hearing on sprinkler requirement for new construction.

 

Town Manager Horton      Chief Jones is ready to continue discussions on this issue.

 

Fire Chief Jones      Madam Mayor and council, this comes to you at the request of Council in an earlier discussion this summer on the previous ordinance for fraternities and sororities.  In 1993, following several major fires that we had in the community, the Council sought and received legislative authority from the state legislature to enact local sprinkler requirements in new construction and renovation in both non-residential and multi-family residential housing, specifically multi-family housing with 3 attached or more units.  Again, we bring this back to you with options.  The rationale behind sprinklers is the same as it was for fraternities and sororities. Number one, it reduces the threat to occupants of a structure because a sprinkler system is capable of reacting quickly when a fire is in its incipient or beginning stages and either suppress or extinguish that fire entirely before it’s able to spread to the type of life-threatening speed and proportions that we have seen at times in some structures. It also reduces the threat to fire fighters because fire fighters are not required to enter a hazardous structure and encounter things like structural collapse, zero visibility, toxic smoke in either an effort to extinguish the fire or an effort to search and rescue that occupants that still may be in the building. Number 3, it significantly reduces the property damage from fire. Without looking at the national experience of fire sprinklers but just looking here locally, we have had some fairly dramatic experience with sprinklered and non-sprinklered buildings in Chapel Hill. I would offer two scenarios with opposing outcomes.

 

Just recently in the last couple of years, we had a kitchen fire in Dobbins Hills apartments, a fairly typical fire for Chapel Hill. A grease pan was left on the stove, occupant left the structure for what they believed to be a very short period of time, the grease ignited, set the cabinets on fire and fire began to spread in the kitchen. The sprinkler head activated in the kitchen. Dobbins Hills is fully sprinklered. The sprinkler head confined the damage to the stove top and the cabinets directly above the stove and the resident was able to continue to occupy that structure that very night. During the same time, we had a fire in the South Estes Apartments that was started by a small child with a lighter in clothing. Again a very small fire in the beginning and before that fire could be detected or reported, the fire department began extinguishment, three complete housing units were lost to that fire. Same kind of scenario, multi-family housing, apartment structures, similar construction methods and so forth. In a commercial experience that we had that was very dramatic and everyone in the community will remember. On the same night we had fires in Cameron’s gift shop at the mall and that fire started in the back stock room in class A common combustible materials. A single sprinkler head activated, put the fire out, Cameron’s did not even have to stop business that night. They were able to continue their business until normal closing. The employees had a clean-up situation in the back store room. The same night we had fires in the Intimate Bookshop on Franklin St. and Food Lion at Eastgate. Those fires started in much the same fashion as the fire at Cameron’s, in a back store room in common class A combustible materials and both of those structures were nearly completely lost. The Intimate was totally destroyed, the Food Lion was about eighty percent destroyed.

 

Fire spreads and expands exponentially.  The speed of it is unbelievable if you have not experienced it. What sprinklers do is they are able to stop or suppress that fire in the early stages before it reaches that point. What we have done is we have taken a number of options again to give council a range to examine and tried to break them down. We’ve broken it down for purposes of this discussion, make it easier to look at the actual application of this, into residential and non-residential. In residential option A is that we would require sprinklers in new construction or significant renovation to new construction, that is defined as more than 50% of value, in three or more attached multi-family units. That’s what the original legislation authorizes us to do. It is the most stringent of the residential requirements offered here. Option B would be for six or more attached units. It’s just a multiplication of the first option. Option C has some criteria attached to it. We base this criteria on what our local experience and our local capability is. Option C is for three or more attached housing units totaling no more that 6000 square feet.

 

We arrived at this 6000 square feet figure based on an NFPA standard that requires municipal fire departments to be able to generate at least 300 gallons per minute on an initial fire attack. That is, for lay purposes, what a fire department is able to do when it first arrives on the scene. In practical terms, the Chapel Hill fire department initial attack with a first alarm assignment is able to generate 600 gallons per minute. So we believe as municipal fire departments go, we are able to initiate a fairly significant initial attack based on that standard. There’s a very complicated formula that’s used in fire protection to determine extinguishing and it’s called the Iowa fire flow formula and it’s based on the dimensions of a building and what it contains, the air space that’s in that building¼ with out going into a whole physics lecture on it, basically that translates into 6000 square feet which is our initial attack capability is to deal with in most cases. That’s how we arrived at the 6000 square feet.

 

The other two criteria that you see there is if more than 20% of the floor space is beyond 200 feet of access of the fire truck. That’s based on our ability to deploy a fire hose. The Chapel Hill Fire Department has preconnected hoses, hoses that are used for this initial attack of 200 feet. One of the problems we’ve run into a lot of times is access. How far we can get into a building or around a building based on where our fire trucks can reasonable access the building. So that’s where that criteria comes from. That gives us a reasonable chance to get an initial fire attack hose to within at least 80% of the structure. The last, no more than 24 feet to the windows in the top most occupied floor is based on that we carry on all of our units at least 28 to 24 foot ladder and so that would be the maximum that we could reach from the ground to either rescue an occupant who was at that window or to gain access into that window for fire fighting purposes. Option D is for 6 or more attached units. It still has the 6000 square foot floor space and it still has the height access standards that I have described based on those standards. That’s the residential. Non-residential involves basically what we would describe as commercial structure.

 

We offer five options here. Option E is the original proposal, is all new construction. It was the proposal that the council considered in 1993 and it would basically require that any new commercial construction regardless of what size, occupancy, application, location, whatever, would be required to be sprinklered. The council turned down that original proposal in 1993 based on the economics of that consideration. Option F again utilizes our 6000 square foot floor space criteria and the 20% of floor space not be beyond 200 feet of an access point for the fire truck and the 24 foot to the windows of the top most occupied floor. SO we apply that same criteria based on our local capability t the construction of a building criteria for application of a sprinkler system. Option G expands the size of the building to 12,000 square feet to give council an opportunity to consider going with larger structures. If the 6000 square feet is considered by council to be too restrictive, 12,000 square feet, which doubles but is beyond the capability of our department to deal with a major fire in an initial attack. That is what that option would offer to you. Option H and I are basically application of the square footage criteria but it eliminates the access 20%, 200 feet rule and it eliminates the 24 foot to the windows of the top most occupied floor.

 

The Manager recommends, in the residential, option C which is the option of the three or more attached units with the 6000 square foot floor space and height and access standards and under the non-residential or commercial, the manager’s recommendation is for F which is again the 6000 square feet and the height and access standards apply. As the community develops one of the elements of quality of life in that community is fire protection and we believe fire sprinklers are the most effective methodology and technology available to date to insure fire protection in growth and development of a community. The University recognizes the value of these fire protection systems a few years ago and made policy decision that they have stuck with through today that they install sprinkler systems in all new construction and they install sprinkler systems in every building when it is significantly renovated on the campus. So they have recognized the risk management value of fire sprinkler systems and have been applying that for years. We believe that the application of sprinkler systems, this code requirement, this technology could be probably the single most significant fire protection step that the council could take for the future of this community. I’ll be available for questions.

 

Mayor Waldorf     We have a few people that have signed up to speak on this item. Nick Tennyson?

 

Nick Tennyson      Good Evening, I’m Nick Tennyson. I’m the Executive Vice President for the Home Builders Association in Durham and Orange Counties. We appreciate Fire Chief Jones getting us the information which was very helpful in trying to get an initial reading of this. Unfortunately, we got it last week and our next board meeting is tomorrow so I am not able to deliver to you the official position of the Home Builder’s Association. We will be evaluating it tomorrow. But in our initial reading of it what we hope is that it will be a very precise use of language that effects building so that people in building will be alerted where they stand. Specifically, there is some confusion on our side as to whether a town house is actually multi-family unit. I just hope that as you adopt this and that we all get clear on what makes a building a building. Specifically, we’ve talked to the chief about the fire wall between buildings and what an impact that would have on where the clock would start. In the example of some of the developments affected there are town house units. We just would like to make sure that that’s all straight when the ordinance is adopted and hope that that would cut down on some confusion as people dealt with it later. We also continue to be concerned about the cost impact, in particular on small units. Certainly this step towards a 6000 square foot floor is a positive move in our view in terms of taking into account the small uses. We look forward to being able to work to make this a successful ordinance and we’ll report to you when we adopt an official position.

 

Mayor Waldorf     We will be glad to hear from you when your board does adopt an official position and any questions that you have, we’re glad to get those.

 

Chet Shermer      Madam Mayor, I’m Chet Shermer. I’m chairman emeritus of Shermer Engineering Corp. which is an internationally known fire protection engineering design building firm. I’m a registered professional engineer in North Carolina as well as a number of other states and I’ve been practicing this profession for over 45 years and I’m here representing no one but myself. I heard of what was coming here and with my background, I felt that I had an obligation to come and speak. I’m the former Chairman of the Board of the National Fire Protection Assoc. which is an organization which I’m sure many of you are familiar with. Through their technical committees, the National Fire Protection Assoc. develops codes and standards many of which are adopted by the various model codes as well as the NC State Building Code. That includes that standard for the installation of automatic sprinklers. I have chaired the committee on automatic sprinklers for 23 years and served on that committee for 30 years so I’ve been quite involved in that particular area.

 

In looking at quick response residential sprinklers, which would be applicable to one or two family dwellings as well as to a multi-family and also to all residential occupancies including fraternity and sorority houses as well as hotels, I spoke to you a few minutes ago about some of the research. This research started in 1975 or the early ‘70s and involved a considerable effort on the part of the federal emergency management agency, US fire administration as well as the various bodies that are involved in sprinkler technology. It involved extensive testing and extensive research and resulted in the first NFPA13D which applied to one or two family dwellings and mobile homes as early as 1975. The goal of this when we started it was to attack the fire problem in the U.S. which was the loss, at that time, in excess of 4500 lives a year in residential occupancies. That hasn’t gotten appreciably better in the 20 years since that started.

 

The overall application of residential sprinklers has not gained that much impetus to have a major effect on the loss of life and dwelling. The survivability of people in the room of origin is extremely important. It was demonstrated in a trailer at the National Fire Protection Assoc. annual meeting out in California a few years ago. We had Chief Casper and Mayor Einstein at that time sitting in the trailer. Lit the fire in the corner, it went up the combustible walls, hit the combustible ceiling started out across the combustible ceiling, got out about two feet, the first sprinkler went off and the was the end of the ball game. When they came out the Mayor looked at Chief Casper and said, “I wish you would have told me all about this. I wouldn’t have worn my good shoes.” These sprinklers are designed and tested so not more than two operate. As I mentioned earlier, in over 400 cases, we have only one operating and operating successfully. There’s been some concern expressed in various areas about accidental discharge, about the horrendous water damage if we have an accidental discharge. Statistically, in both residential and standard sprinklers, the likelihood of an accidental operation is less than 1 in 6,000,000. That’s pretty good odds. When we move over to commercial building, and I might say that I’m giving you the background and I hope Madam Mayor that you’ll allow me to ramble on for just a couple more minutes¼. This is some of the background that you’re looking at as you’re looking at multi-family and your ability to control the loss of life and injury in these buildings. If you go to commercial buildings, once again, we’re interested in life safety.

 

We’re also extremely interested in property damage and as the Chief is very well outlined in his examples, if we have an unsprinklered building, the probable maximum loss estimate is 100%. Whereas in a sprinklered building typically you look at somewhere between 5 and 15%. This is also one of the most effective fire protection tools that you can apply to your community. If you consider some examples, Fresno, California; Scottsdale, Arizona and one that we’re all kind of familiar with which is Disneyland down in Florida. When Disneyland was built, Epcot was put together, experimental prototype city of the future, which allowed them to operate under their own building code. That building code provided that what was built in Disney World would be sprinklered. I was at a meeting about 8 weeks ago where discussions took place about fire department manning and it triggered a memory that one of the fellows down at Epcot had mentioned when we were down there in the early 70’s just before Disney World opened. He said, “You know our closest paid fire department is 15 miles away. So our first response is two men in a pick up truck.” We asked him whether his first response was still two men in a pick up truck and he said, “Yes, the pick up truck is a little fancier.” And one of the fellows said, “Well, what are your losses?” He said, “somewhere around $185,000.00, less than $200,000.00” They said, “Per year?” “No, since we opened” Thank you very much.

 

Sonny Aldridge     Madam Mayor, council members, my name is Sonny Aldridge. I’m from High Point. I am president of Carolina’s Chapter of the American Fire Sprinkler Assoc. and President of High Point Sprinkler. I’m here to speak in support of the ordinance to require the installation of f ire sprinklers in multi-family residential occupancies and non-residential buildings. Yes, I am a fire sprinkler contractor and I do make my livelihood by installing these systems and in doing so we provide the only means of control and suppression of fire in the early stages. As Chief Jones indicated to you, no other single intervention, if it’s smoke detectors, alarm systems, whatever, cannot provide control and suppression of the fire. They cannot provide that same life safety that fire sprinkler systems can provide when installed and operated properly. In areas where similar ordinances have been enacted, such as Cobb County Georgia, they report not a single fire fatality in a residence with a sprinkler system. Prince George’s County Maryland has not had a single fatality in a sprinklered building. In Scottsdale Arizona a similar ordinance was enacted in 1987 and since that time they have documented 52 saves by fire sprinkler systems in residences.

 

These statistics may not be totally accurate in that there are a lot of fire incidences that go unreported which means that there may be many other saves or minor injuries that were never reported by fire because an occupant. It was controlled and the fire department was never even called to the scene. NFPA, just this month, in their bi-monthly fire journal released the statistics on fires for 1995 and their statistics showed that fire decreased 4.3%. Of that number, there were 573,500 structure fires. A reduction of 6.6% over 1994. Others might have been automobiles, brush, whatever. 425,500 of those fires were in residential occupancies. So that’s showing you that 74% of the fires occur in residential occupancies. The South led the nation with 9.3 fires per 1000 population and lead the death rate of 22.1 per 1million population. Civilian deaths increased 7.3% over 1994 even though fires decrease 4.3%. 79% of all fire deaths occur in residential occupancies. As has been indicated previously by other speakers, although we may build buildings now with so called fire-proof construction, it’s not necessarily that structure that’s burning. It’s the upholstered sofa, the curtains, you wall coverings, your carpets, clothing. There is not completely fire proof building. Commercial property loss totaled 8.9 billion dollars. That’s a 4% increase over 1994. 57% percent of that loss occurred in residential occupancies. Fire sprinklers can greatly reduce property loss and the risk of life and I ask that you support this ordinance and hopefully we’ll have a safer environment for everyone.

 

Charles Sandlin     Madam Mayor and Members of the Council. I had come prepared here with lots of paragraph numbers and stuff out of the NC Building Code but after seeing your lighting system I decided to be a little more brief. I’m sure you won’t mind. My name is Charles Sandlin and I’m a registered fire protection engineer in North Carolina. I reside in Greensboro, North Carolina. I wanted to speak to you tonight about the other side of the sprinkler question from the builder’s point which is the cost of sprinklers which you’ve heard right much about tonight. The NC Building Code has an ad hoc committee which was appointed in the early 90’s to study what could actually be done by providing sprinkler systems in multi-family housing. Came up with a list of options that could be allowed in multi-family housing if sprinklers were installed. I am not going to go by paragraph but all these do exist in the NC building code. Fire walls, which are a major expense, are no longer required for tenant separation in multi-family housing when sprinklers are installed. Exit distances are allowed to be farther when sprinkler systems are installed. Requirements for non-combustible construction materials are lessened or done away with entirely and thus they allow the builder and the developer more freedom of choice of materials. Also provision for emergency exits are lessened and again this allows more freedom in the design of the building. The intent of these trade-offs is simply to provide buyers with a very fire safe house at prices which would be competitive with what was out there and not sprinklered.

 

Some other incentives you might want to consider and some of these may be a part of life already here in Chapel Hill for sprinklers in multi-family housing that fire hydrants on water systems may be spaced further apart because the sprinkler systems, in effect, actually do take place of the fire department in some instances. The length of roads into cul-de-sacs and dead ends can be allowed to be lengthened thus more housing can be built in an area. Building set-backs may be decreased because of the lack of need for fire department access. Building separations may be decreased. All this allows more development in less space and ultimately rather than more cost, less cost to the developer and an opportunity to make more money. It also help the owner by lowering his insurance premiums anywhere from 10 to 15% annually.

 

Pat Coughlin     Madam Mayor, members of the council, Chief Pat Coughlin representing the International Association of Fire Chiefs. I think I can get mine down to under sixty seconds here and supply you with some written comments. Two things. As a fellow fire chief, when I reviewed the statement of need from the manager and staff, I think that Chief Jones was very flexible when he talked about the ability when he talked about their ability to pump six hundred gallons of water per minute. What he didn’t say is they’re going to have that choice or if they have to do search and rescue, they have to do one or the other because they simply aren’t staffed to do both. You’ve got a real lean fire department down here, I can tell you that. One mention of cost, I have an odd background as a fire chief. I have a masters degree in sociology and I’ve always been bothered in the past that we just don’t have enough numbers to look at and we were relying on anecdote. Now that we’ve had some studies like Scottsdale Arizona who have had sprinkler ordinances for ten years, we’ve got some numbers to look at that we can generalize from. I am doing case studies in four communities now around the country. One of the things I can tell you now is that as competition increases, cost decreases. I’ll cite Scottsdale. In the 10 years since they implemented their ordinances for commercial and residential, installation costs have dropped by 50%. It’s obviously a market force that will come into play. I’ll follow up in writing. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? Questions from council members?

 

Council Member Andresen       I would be interested in knowing how our standards for new construction in North Carolina compare to other states. And I’m also interested in how many buildings we would have over 6000 square feet. We don’t know what the future is going to hold but¼ And then this question that was raised by Mr. Tennyson concerning the townhouses versus multi-family and the trade-offs involving fire walls. I don’t know if you want to address that now, Fire Chief Jones.

 

Fire Chief Jones    The question raised by Mr. Tennyson, and I’ll take them in reverse order, concerning townhouses. His concern about what’s called a 4 hour rated fire wall which is non-penetrable wall. Council has seen these walls. If you look at some apartment complexes where every so often down the building you’ll see a wall that extends through the roof and out both ends so that it’s brick thick wall. It completely cuts the building in half. Under North Carolina building code that, in essence, defines the beginning of another building and that’s his question. His question dealt with are we going to consider that entire building as part of that 6000 square feet or are we going to adhere to the North Carolina Building Code which defines that that wall, in essence becomes another building. We would be obligated to follow, unless we received legislative authority to do otherwise, we would be obligated to follow the definition of a structure and recognize that wall as a break point of one building and the beginning of the next building. We couldn’t apply the standard beyond that.  You heard one speaker say that there are trade-offs and sometimes those walls are allowed to be taken out if a sprinkler system is there. So that’s a decision a builder/developer could make, whether they wanted to break their building up in sections to stay under the limit or they take those walls out and reduce the cost and put in a sprinkler system to go larger.

 

The North Carolina Building Code is based on the Southern Standard Building Code and also here in Chapel Hill, we adopt the National Fire Prevention Association as a reference code to fill in the blanks that aren’t covered by the building code. That’s no different than many other parts of the country. There’s a number of model building codes that local legislatures either at the state or the local level adopt and use and then do what we’re doing tonight which is add to them for special hazards. So we’re really no different than many other parts of the country. We are modeled after one of the national model codes. I can’t tell you how many buildings we have over 6000 feet. This is a new construction ordinance. We could survey to find out how many buildings that fall under the renovation or reconstruction applications ordinance. But this ordinance, as opposed to the ordinance for fraternities and sororities which is retroactive, this is for new construction.

 

Council Member Andresen      But the point with this cut off is that you could handle a fire with a certain amount of water however, it would not appear to me cover the case of a multi-purpose family building where a fire got started and for the time until you got there, obviously. I mean, we’ve been hearing about the different materials which are very volatile and toxic.

 

Fire Chief Jones      There are so many variables when it comes to fire suppression, that’s why sprinkler systems are as effective as they are. We depend of recognition. The threat of a fire has to be recognized by an occupant or a passer-by. There’s the notification time that person has to take appropriate action. That person has to call 911, whatever that takes and then there’s the turn around time, the time it takes to notify us and our travel time to get there and then set up time. And we get into this situation where we have a five minute response standard in Chapel Hill which is very good but on front of that is this notification time that we can’t control. One of the speakers referred to flash over. If we get into that situation in the structure where the fire has begun that exponential increase in what’s called a flash over situation. That then would exceed our ability to immediately control that fire.

 

Council Member Capowski      In 1993 when we did not vote to require sprinklers on non-residential construction it was our ¼ what we were afraid of was the economic consequences on our smaller businesses. One of our concerns is the franchising of Chapel Hill and we do not want to put the Mom and Pop businesses out of business. I guess I’m a little disappointed that there was no Chamber of Commerce reply tonight. I don’t know whether to interpret that as they don’t see a problem with this or not and I guess I also would wonder to the people who build multi-family residential houses, how much of a rent increase are we looking at if we require sprinklers in new apartment houses. I’m surprised these numbers haven’t bubbled up to us.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I have a question. Flo, we have 336 public housing units? (Yes) I’m under the impression that none of them are sprinklered. Is that right? So if we passed this ordinance as proposed, then it would fall due on us.

 

Acting Manager Miller    It would have an impact on us when we do our new renovations. If I recall correctly, when we were looking at South Estes renovations, I think the estimate was around $300,000.00 if we were to sprinkle 40 some units.

 

Council  Member Franck     Were the renovations done for more than 50% of the value? Would it have triggered the ordinance.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Oh yes, it was a major renovation.

 

Council Member Evans    The issue was raised about the fact that there wasn’t anyone here from the Chamber and I would like to ask about the notification, wondering .. someone else said that they received the material this past week and I wonder how the notification went out. Because I remember last time when we addressed it, there was fairly strong comment. The other thing I’d like to ask is what is the cost of putting in sprinkler systems in new construction. I’m sure it’s less and then what is the effect on, not only the rental prices but housing prices because we have the highest in the state and we’re trying to achieve some more diversity. Also could we have some numbers as to how much this decreases insurance costs. That issue has been raised several times and, for instance, both in regard to the fraternities and sororities and regard to these kinds of issues maybe in regard to office and institutional, we could get some firm figures probably from CABA and I’d like to know about the reduction in insurance costs.

 

Council Member Andresen     Just one comment in response to the comment that Joe made. I think that we often hear about the cost of taking various safety measures. Obviously, that’s something we have to weight in to the total equation that’s before us and this is no different. However, I think that rental housing is big business in Chapel Hill, there are a lot of people who live in rental houses in Chapel Hill who have no control, they go and live in an apartment house and they have no control over whether someone has thought to put sprinklers in that house and maybe they can install a smoke alarm but I think that the council need to look carefully at the safety issue here when looking at new construction. I think that should really be emphasized.

 

Council Member Chilton      Looking at page 10 this time, ordinance A as recommended by the manager, section 7-50 seems to say in any new multi-family building of three or more attached housing units¼ If the attorney could just clarify what he intends in that drafting. It could be read in two different ways. If you build two duplexes on one piece of property is that three or more attached housing units? That is to say, you have 4 units and they’re all attached housing units so maybe just some clarification on that. I think I know what’s intended but the wording seem ambiguous to me.

 

Acting Manager Miller    Madam Mayor, I’d like to point out that we made a mistake by putting that ordinance A was recommended by the manager. Actually, ordinance C on page 15¼.

 

Council Member Chilton    Regardless, the question is the same.

 

Sonny Aldridge     I would like to address Ms. Evans question in terms of cost. I do own a sprinkler contracting business. We have installed numerous sprinkler systems in apartment buildings. Depending on the square footage of the unit and the number of the units can probably range between a 700 square foot unit to a 1100 square foot unit, anywhere from $1.00 to $1.50 per square foot. Renovated, we have renovated many buildings that were old cotton mills. We renovated schools for apartment buildings and those did not exceed $2.00 per square foot.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Well, that’s good news and if you could send us some data that shows the actual examples of those figures. We’d love to get it.

 

Council Member Capowski      I would like to ask you to write a letter to Barry Jacobs, the chair of OWASA, summarizing what we’ve discussed today and expressing our concern about the high cost of sprinkler tap on fees one more time.

 

Mayor Waldorf     You want to do to that way instead of having a resolution on the agenda on November 11th?  You can do it either way.

 

Council Member Andresen     I think there’s something to be said for resolutions and then we can get the wording just right.

 

A MOTION TO REFER THE MATTER TO THE MANAGER AND ATTORNEY WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY.

 

                                 Item 5  Proposed Home Occupations Ordinance

 

Mayor Waldorf       Thank you all for coming. Let’s move onto the final item on the public hearing agenda tonight which is a public hearing on proposed changes to the town’s requirements for home occupations. We’ll have an introduction by the manager.

 

Acting  Manager Miller      Greg Feller will be making the presentation but Madam Mayor, as you know, Council Members Chilton and Pavao have also worked on this issue and my want to make some introductory comments.

 

Assistant to Manager Greg Feller     Thank you. I just want to summarize that material before you. There are reports from the town manager and from the Home Occupations Committee and two alternative ordinances. Before going into the substance of those ordinances, I do want to mention a procedural point. We are recommending that the council continue tonight’s hearing to Oct. 28th so we can advertise the hearing on the 28th with the required minimum ten day notice. That’s a requirement of our development ordinance and state law based on the attorney’s advice, we’re asking you to continue this hearing to a later date and we think the 28th would be a good time to do that. As to the substance of the proposals before you, I want to review primarily the committee’s report and then I mentioned a couple of areas in which the manager has made different recommendations. I’ll try to cover this quickly.

 

The committee reviewed the current ordinance which has been in place since early 1980 and as a first change suggested, the current language that talks about traffic and parking from a home occupation not exceeding that which would be expected in a residential neighborhood, the committee suggested that it should refer to “the” residential neighborhood which is presumably the one in the vicinity of the home occupation. Secondly, the committee suggested that the total on and off street parking for a home occupation should be three spaces, not counting drop offs and delivery trips. Third, the committee recommended that home occupations not be allowed to have any more on street parking than the amount that could be accommodated by the street frontage of the home occupation. The manager is not recommending that. We think there’s some equity and problems of applying that in situations like multi-family buildings. Fourth, the committee recommended that there be a permit required for home occupations, although the committee was divided on whether there should be a renewal requirement. They did agree that there should be a permit, meaning a zoning compliance permit required for home occupations. Fifth, the committee suggested that there should be clarification to allow businesses like music teachers to sell incidental items like sheet music along with the service that they operate. As a final key point, the committee recommended that home occupations no longer be allowed to display signs indicating that a home occupation is there.

 

With respect to truck delivery, the committee had suggested further that there be a weight limit and a length limit and we prepared an ordinance that includes those, including a length limit of 24 feet. The manager’s recommendation differs on this point. He’s suggesting that the size of trucks used in deliveries be that which is customarily used in residential deliveries. There are some additional points for the committee’s report. I’m just going to cover a few of the major changes and be glad to answer any questions.

 

Council Member Brown     Are there any clarifying questions from the Council. If not, some people have signed up.

 

Dr. Philip Hirsch Dr. Madam Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Phil Hirsch and I have been a resident of Chapel Hill for 30 years and I also served on this  Home Occupation Committee. First, I want to thank the council for asking me to be a member of this committee. It was a pleasure to serve and I enjoyed the association and interaction with the other members of the committee. Because of the diversity of opinions, I was not optimistic that we could agree on matters of substance and be helpful to the council on recommendations for changes. However, much to my surprise we did agree on many items and we made definitive recommendations, most of which have been included in the proposed changes to the development ordinance to the home occupations. My comments will be brief. I call your attention to the first sentence on the top of page 15 of this big agenda item that came out with this home occupation. It states that 8 members of the committee have concluded that the present ordinance has worked effectively in many ways since it was adopted in 1981. I am one who disagreed with the committee on this. I did not think the ordinance has been effective.

 

 Few citizens know about the ordinance, the need for a permit or the mechanism that could be effected in the case the home occupation became a nuisance to the residential neighborhood. Until two years ago I did not know that a home occupation ordinance existed. Then I watched as the planning board revoked a home office permit. This is the first time that a home office permit was revoked and in this case the action of the planning board was overruled by the board of adjustment. Later, at the suggestion of Mr. Roger Waldon who obtained substantive evidence of violation of the present ordinance I took pictures of parking at two home offices. One of them had only recently obtained a home office permit, having operated for a number of years without one. The pictures of the parking at this one home occupation appear on your page 65. Despite my request for action by the Planning Board, when these and other pictures were submitted no action was ever initiated. In fact, it took eleven months to receive any response from the planning office to my initial formal complaint. Clearly the business was in violation but the planning board did not attempt to enforce the present ordinance. I present this information to emphasize two points. Citizens are poorly informed about the process and the ordinance has not been enforced. What assurance that a revised ordinance will be enforced any better than the present one? My only other comment since my time seems to be running out has to do with the renewal. The town of Chapel Hill does not know how many home occupations exist. 

 

Many permits have been issued but there’s no way to know how many of these occupations still exist or whether the permit holders live at the address where it was issued. Over the years the nature of business may have changed and my no longer fit into the requirements of the ordinance. How can one know the effectiveness of an ordinance unless such information is kept up to date. One way to help in the accounting is to have a renewal of permit every two years or at least not more than every three years. I’ll stop because I have hand outs for everybody here.

 

Connie Mullinix     My name is Connie Mullinix. I am president of Flint-Mullinix Health Care Consulting, a Chapel Hill based firm specializing in health policy management and related research. We are a home based business located in the Westwood community. I speak tonight in favor of the ordinance as recommended by the town manager. I’ll make two points, one specific and one general. First, I’m very pleased to see that the ordinance changes from one employee to be legal to one full-time equivalent. This is very important for my business because we hire part-time people. The ordinance also does not limit the number of employees. It only talks about what can be at the home at any one time. We hire people all over the United States. They tap in by computer, by fax, by phones, whatever and so the number of people actually in the home based business is minimal and this allows us the flexibility to do a thriving business. And now my general comment. I believe that my business is exactly the type of business we want in Chapel Hill. It’s clean, it’s quiet and we bring money in. In the past, in the history of businesses, we started out an agrarian society. Mom and Pop and the children went to the school. Then Pop went off to the business and Mom followed later and the children went to daycare. We’re now in the process of bringing us all back home. The people we employ are at home working at 6:00AM. One of our employees taps into voice mail every morning at 4:00AM before her children get up and she does her work and when her children get up she gets them ready to go to school. It allows us flexibility in high quality work and we appreciate this ordinance. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

 

Victor Friedmann       Madam Mayor, members of the town council, my name is Victor Freidmann I’m President of the Alliance of Neighborhoods. Mrs. Wiggins, welcome to our Town Council. The Alliance speaks as a unified voice for the interest of residential neighborhoods. In doing so, we clearly aim to preserve the tranquillity, the property value and high quality of Chapel Hill neighborhoods. This defense, I believe is particularly relevant at a time of almost unprecedented attack on residential neighborhoods from development, commercial interests, and as some residents feel from our town government itself. The Alliance has reviewed the proceedings of the Home Occupation Committee and there are conclusions. The composition of the committee was fairly stacked in favor of the commercial interest.

 

The committee should have reflected more closely Chapel Hill’s largely residential character but failed to do so. The committee has also failed to address the cumulative effects of increasing numbers of home based businesses within a neighborhood. When does a neighborhood become effectively misused and cease to be strictly resident amounting to a defacto zoning change? And the committee has failed to recommend a tracking mechanism for home based occupation permits. An application for an occupation permit amounts to a request for variance for residential zoning. The town has no obligation to grant such a variance. The town has no obligation to grant such a variance. The grant of such a variance should reflect clear benefits to the neighborhood or at the very least no impact on neighborhood tranquillity. The collective welfare of the residential community comes well before any individual commercial interest. In any case, Chapel Hill does have commercial areas where it may be more appropriate to carry on some of these businesses. The Town of Chapel Hill derives no direct financial advantage from home occupations as it collects no commercial taxes from them and the immediate neighbors seldom benefit from the home based businesses. As the furor over the medical practice on South Lake Shore Dr. demonstrates, home based businesses can bring automobile and truck traffic from the main arteries to neighborhood streets. There is no effective way of controlling this traffic. The Alliance of Neighborhoods urges the council to adopt a zero impact policy as the guiding principal formulating a new home based occupation ordinance. The Alliance urges the council to follow the spirit as well as the law of residential zoning. To put neighborhood interests first. Thank you and I believe you have copy of my presentation tonight.

 

 

 

TJ Friedmann       Madam Mayor and members of the town council. I also was on the committee of home based occupation regulations and I enjoyed serving on that committee. There’s just a few points that I would like to make that were in a minority. I’d like to make sure that you heard these views. Let’s remember that the intent of the Home Occupation Regulations is to provide peace and quiet and domestic tranquillity within all residential neighborhoods within the city and to guarantee to all residents freedom from excessive noise, excessive traffic nuisances, fire hazards and other possible effects of commercial uses being conducted in residential areas.

 

This is from the Blaine, Minnesota regulations. Blaine, Minnesota defines the home occupation as any business or commercial activity that is conducted from property that is zoned for residential use. Let’s remember that the R in R1 to R5 zoning stands for residential and not commercial. Last fiscal year, here in Chapel Hill, 53 permits were issued by the planning department for home occupations. This is a growth factor of about 23% per year for the last few years. In ten more years, with only the same growth factor, we can expect to have issued a total of over 2000 permits. With a slightly higher growth factor, say 25%, we can expect that number to reach 2,500. So there’s going to be a lot of these in the future. We must have some provisions in place for tracking regulating these businesses to ensure that our neighborhoods not be turned into commercial areas. Falls Church Virginia has divided its home occupation definition into minor and major categories. Minor home occupations are those that are not intrusive and generate little or no commercial activities such as writers, tele-commuters, computer programmers. Major home occupations are those that do generate commercial activities, client based businesses such as health care, music teachers and childcare. It is not the minor home occupations that most residents are concerned about but the major home occupations. I believe that the single most important concern of town residences is the cumulative effect of traffic and parking and it’s associated noise within residential neighborhoods caused by home occupations. It is the responsibility of the town government to put in place some provision for protecting our residential neighborhoods from turning into commercial areas. Let’s face it, residential zoning should be kept residential. Let’s make sure the R in R zoning stands for residential and not racket. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Is there anyone else that wants to speak on this item? Is there anyone here from the planning board to speak on this item. Well the planning board looked at this and had recommendations which are in our packet. All right, questions and comments by council members.

 

Council Member Evans     The only discussions I’ve had with citizens concern rental property. Most owner occupied people are quite sensitive to their neighborhood and neighbors and feel more of a responsibility but there often times is rental property in which there isn’t the same sort of responsibility. I wondered if you on the committee had talked about that issue at all and who get the permit, whether it’s the homeowner or the renter. When the renter changes what happens? The other thing is in regard to storage of either parts that are assembled or parts that are¼ and it may have been in here and I kind of¼ There’s the issue of parts storage in trucks and vans and then after pieces are assembled they are getting stored in trucks and vans until the van is full and then it moves out. These are some of the concerns that I heard that I didn’t know whether they had been addressed or not. For the most part, most home businesses have benefits to the people because it allows parents to stay home with their young children and it decreases the traffic on the roads and all the kinds of good things that happen. But there are some eroding impacts also.

 

Mayor Waldorf     What sort of parts are you talking about?

 

Council Member Evans     If they do some kind of assembly operation. Whether it’s little stuff or repair computers or they upgrade computer. Often times it’s involving computers. They may have old computers that they’re trying to¼ I don’t know how¼. You guys know.

 

Mayor Waldorf      You’re talking about a situation where a large van or truck would sit around in someone’s driveway and essential function as a storage unit

 

Council Member Chilton      Two question were directed to the committee and did they discuss and the answer is no in both cases. We did not discuss either of these issues as far as I recall. I will point out that under either ours or the manager’s recommendation, the proposal includes that the permit is revoked when the holder moves from the residence so that addressed one minor question you were asking.

 

 

Council Member Capowski     I want to thank Lee and Mark for their service on this committee. I don’t think I would have wanted to do this. I also want to thank Connie Mullinix because she lives two blocks from me and I go by her and her husband’s house several times every day and I never knew you had a business so the impact on that is indeed zero. My third point has to do with a philosophic one. What’s enabling all this is the high technology and communications, computers and telephones and faxes and all that stuff.   The problems we’ve got here are just automobiles and parking, not technology and I don’t see a technology for this. My final point is that we are a town of Chapel Hill, our function is primarily to deliver services to the masses. That’s what we’re designed for, those are the skills that we have. We are not a dispute settlement center. If we tried to negotiate neighborhood disputes, we will do a lousy job because we’re not organized for it, nor do we have the skill-set on board for it. Consequently, I want to thank you for the phrase in your recommendations where you strongly encourage voluntary mediation of neighborhood concerns because I do think this is a better way to solve this than getting the town involved.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I was remembering the rooster incident. Didn’t somebody come to the town about the rooster who was waking everybody up.

 

Council Member Brown       When this comes back to us, I’d like the question that Dr. Hirsch raised about the enforcement to be addressed. Also on the ordinance, where it says no external evidence of the home occupation shall be visible, what about vehicles with identification of the business? It certainly isn’t a sign but it’s identification and it’s important to some people who have these kinds¼ Would that be affected by this particular language? How could we change that language to reflect that?

 

Council Member Andresen      I wanted to thank Lee and Mark and all the people who served on this committee. I really do think that it was exceptionally arduous and difficult. I think you came out with a pretty good product. To me, it’s definitely an improvement. We started out with a problem and while I agree with Joe that we want to see neighborhoods solve disputes between themselves that if we have good ordinances and they’re clear that we can avoid some problems. This is going in the right direction. I have some concerns about enforcement. There was one concern raised tonight. Also what is the incentive? Are businesses that are out there operating getting a permit? I’m kind of curious to what degree of compliance we have here. Maybe Mark and Lee have some ideas on that. Are we really prepared for the exponential growth that is going to occur? The hope is that the job you’ve done is so good that this isn’t going to come back in 5 years because we have a whole new set of problems. Hopefully, we’ve built in something here that’s going to withstand the growth that’s coming in that area.

 

Mayor Waldorf      I want to ask a question about problems¼ I’d like to address this to Mark and Lee. Apart from the medical practice on S. Lakeshore which so many people have so strongly objected to and apart from Dr. Philip’s psychiatric practice on Ridgecrest which is now defunct because he’s now retired, did the committee get testimony about many home occupations that are true problems as perceived by the neighborhoods?

 

Council Member Chilton     We got much testimony. I don’t know whether it amounted to many problems. I think there was at least one other home occupation that we heard some significant complaints about. I can’t remember where it is so I won’t be too specific. As I recall, there was a complaint about a home occupation that was manufacturing some type of consumer goods and it involved a tractor trailer truck that had to come in periodically to pick materials up and drop materials off. And that tractor trailer truck would sometimes be sitting out in front of the house for days at a time. That was the only major other complaint that we heard and you’ll note that 2.56E addresses that point pretty specifically. If I can just launch into a few other comments on this. The committee’s report notes that we really endorsed the idea of some “brightline” tests, some specific tests, not leaving things up to subjective interpretation on language. For example,  our current ordinance and the modified one both say that, ”the home occupation shall not generate traffic volumes or parking needs greater than would normally be expected in a or the residential neighborhood.” It’s subject to interpretation. What is greater that would normally be expected in a residential neighborhood? That’s open to a lot of interpretation. And we thought that to the extent that we could pin down numbers it would be better to pin down numbers so hence, we specifically said¼ But regardless of that absolutely no more than three vehicles parked at any one time. That was why we had recommended putting in some specific numbers about the sizes of delivery vehicles. I think we ought to put some numbers in there or at least clarify that definitely tractor trailers are not allowed. Because again, D3 as it is proposed by the manager is really subject to some interpretation and something that could change over time. Suppose those companies like Federal Express and UPS may, in the future choose to use larger and larger trucks, who knows. 2.56C bothered me. We recommended changing the exception that allows a sign.

 

Under article 13, you are currently allowed to and you would not be allowed to under this proposed change, be allowed to have a sign up to 3 square feet is what article 13 allows now. Which to my way of thinking is not all that large of a sign. I’m fine with reducing the size of the sign that you’re allowed to have. It seems to me that it’s an exceedingly harsh restraint to say that you’re not allowed to have any sign at all, even possibly constitutionally dubious. So I had a problem with that recommendation. The other thing is, I think some of these things don’t amount to changes so much as clarification. Under B, what we’ve proposed to add there is just clarifying what portion of the house is to be counted toward the 35% or 750 square feet of the dwelling unit. That doesn’t really make more liberal or more conservative the current standard, it’s just clarifying that your hallway that people have to walk down to get to your office is not to be counted towards part of the area that’s used for the home occupation. And likewise, I don’t think item F there, “sales goods which are incidental to the home occupation” represents any real change in the ordinance. That’s just clarifying that that is allowed. Basically, what happens right now is that rather than piano teachers selling sheet music, they just charge a little bit more for their service and the sheet music is free. So that sort of thing is already going on and that’s just clarifying that.

 

To address two of the questions that were asked earlier. Automobiles parked in front of the home occupation being use effective as signs. We did actually discuss that issue. I’ll just point out that the complication and the reason the committee did not go into trying to regulate that was that some home occupations¼.. One of the things that could be a home occupation is a plumbers service. They have an office in their home but really they do all their work elsewhere. Almost all plumbers have a little sign on the side of their car and the same is going to be true with all sorts of contracting business. That sort of thing was okay, otherwise, you’re making a rule where to prohibit these signs on cars was to effectively prohibit somebody who has a business from either parking their car at home or having one of these signs on the side of their cars. I don’t think any of us wanted to go that far.

 

On the compliance issue, the staff had a contrary recommendation to what the committee recommended. I understand their point and I agree with their point about keeping any sort of detailed records of calls and letters from citizens about home occupations. They may pose some challenges and depending on what’s contemplated there, it could be a reasonable task for the staff it could be a noxious burden. But I have to disagree with their recommending that we not enforce any particular deadlines for responses to complaints. The committee did recommend that we adopt some specific deadlines for response from the staff. This point was fairly important because there was the perception or the reality that the staff had been less than fully responsive in the complaints that came forward about Dr. Eisen’s situation. That it took the staff a long time to deal with the situation. Which I think mostly had to do with prioritization issues and trying to deal with a heavy load. But I do think that when a citizen complains about a matter of this kind that it deserves some reasonably prompt attention, within the next month or so. We could set some reasonable deadlines for the staff so that they understand that they need to make some at least preliminary response to a complaint. That currently is not reflected in the ordinance that the manager is recommending.

 

Council Member Brown     To you Mark. Where is that addressed? The last point that you made?

 

Council Member Chilton     I don’t know that it is. I know that that point was addressed specifically in the recommendations.

 

Council Member Brown     It sounds like something that needs addressing.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I was going to suggest, Mark, if you could work with the staff and make a list of these points that you’ve just enumerated here so that we could have them in writing.

 

Council Member Chilton      The most significant of them and the one we would most need the staff’s help with is how we might write in some deadlines for some responses from the staff. Gregg,  is that included in ordinance B right now?

 

Greg Feller      No it’s not but it’s covered on page nineteen.

 

Council Member Chilton    Circled at the top of page nineteen, and I’m not necessarily endorsing the time frame that’s outlined here, it says “ten days after completing investigation” I don’t think it necessarily needs to be that time line but I think it would be good to have the staff be responsible for coming up with a prompt response to the complaints.

 

Council Member Pavao      I’d just like to add to that Mark. When you look at what is here on page 19, it sort of indicates the amount of time that the committee spent discussing that point in relation to the other points. I’d also like to add that the only point that the committee did not come out with a majority decision was on the requirement for renewal of the permit. It was a 6 to 6 deadlock. 6 members felt that no requirement was necessary and 6 others felt that there should be some sort of renewal requirement.

 

Council Member Andresen     I myself would like to see an option coming back to us the would involve a renewal of the permit as well as the other point that Mark just said. Although, I’m not sure, Mark, that I agree with having a 3 foot sign. I just think, if you have a business in your home, you advertise other means, the Internet or through faxes. It’s just hard for me to see 3 foot signs around. I mean, why not just a small plate for the purposes of FEDEX delivery would be adequate. I don’t understand the need for a 3 foot sign.

 

Council Member Chilton     I agree. It says “no sign at all will be permitted”. In theory, that would mean that you couldn’t even put under Council Member Andresen, Andresen Consulting. Maybe something¼

 

Mayor Waldorf    We need to make a procedural move which is to continue this hearing to Monday Oct. 28th so that we can satisfy all the notice requirements.

 

Council Member Chilton     I’d like to make that motion and referring the issues that have been raised to the manager and if I could take one more second. Though it was time consuming, I was glad to chair this committee and at least in a certain sense enjoyed doing it. I will point out that this report that you have here, starting on page 13, actually at one point had a sentence in it expressing the committee’s sentiment that they enjoyed serving on this committee and the committee agreed to take that sentence out. That gives you an idea of how contentious things got at one point. I thought that should be noted for sure. But I did appreciate all the people who served on the committee. I’ll mention Phil and Tony Jo because they’re here tonight and Lee but most of all, the hardest working person involved in all of this was our staff person, Gregg Feller. He was the person who worked the longest and hardest on any of this and we really appreciate his help as well as the help of the dispute settlement center.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Mark’s excellent motion to continue this public hearing and refer the comments to the manager are awaiting a second. Moved and seconded. All in favor please say I "I". All opposed no. Before we adjourn, Joyce has one procedural item she’d like to bring up and Julie has one that she’d like to bring up.

 

Council Member Brown     In 1991 the Council established a policy for a review of documents which were made available to the town under the North Carolina Environmental Policy Act and that is chiefly the University proposals for any kind of expansion. The policy stated that any council member may request the town manager place the item on the next council meeting agenda for discussion. We’ve recently received a document from the University regarding Finley Golf Course extension and renovation and playing fields relocation. And I have asked that this be placed on the council’s agenda for our next meeting which would be October 16th. I would like to request from the council, if the council sees fit, that this actually be called a public forum rather than an agenda item. I think that this area is of real interest to the town. I think that the town regards this as a very special area. Certainly in a very environmentally sensitive way and also to ensure that we do hear and discuss and have the ability to hear from the public on this because there is a cut-off date. So I’m just requesting that the council have this as a public forum because it does take council action.

 

Mayor Waldorf     The motion has been made and seconded.  Any discussion?

 

Council Member Capowski      Joyce, we get these environmental assessment/finding of no significant impact statements for every building and every piece of development they do, minor, major, whatever. We don’t do this procedure. I don’t remember ever doing this. What is so special about this one in contrast to the other projects that UNC does that we should take our time for it?

 

Council Member Brown     I actually think that we could take our time for almost everything and I think that might have been a lack on our part. I think that this policy is here for us and I think that this is a particularly good time for us to make use of it. The Mason Farm area is very important to the town. It’s also a particularly environmental sensitive area. I know that there is concern about this. We’ve heard enough from people over the years. If the council does not want to call a public forum, that would be fine. I think it would be finer if the council did want to. But anyway, it will be on the agenda.

 

Council Member Chilton     What was the development that you’re referring to?

 

Council Member Brown      The Finley Golf Course expansion and renovation and the playing fields relocation.

 

Council Member Andresen       I’d support it because I think it’s worth looking at and pay attention. Anytime there’s a substantial moving of earth, there are going to be environmental impacts.

 

Mayor Waldorf       So there’s a motion that we’re going to have a public forum in which we can take comments on this. It’s understood by everyone that we have no regulatory authority here and what we can do is forward any public comments and any council comments. I’ll vote for this. I would just like to point out that we’ve got a very heavy agenda on the 16th and I hope that once the members of the public have spoken on this that we will just make record of it and move on because we have a lot of other things to deal with that we can take action on.

 

Council Member Evans     I  hope this doesn’t mean that on every building when we don’t have any regulatory authority over it, that we won’t have a public forum on everything the University wants to do. We have lots of important things to do on this council that we keep continually putting off. I think that we would be better serving the community if we got at some of those.

 

Mayor Waldorf     The motion is on the floor and is approved by  a vote of 8-1, with Council Member Evans voting no.

 

Council Member Andresen     I have just an information item request of the council. On Oct, 28th we have a work session with OWASA. I wanted to remind you all about it. As you recall, I proposed a couple of time that we get together a list of issues and I would like to invite a couple people who would be willing to work with me to make a list of issues for the OWASA meeting and bring it for you review to the 16th meeting which will mean that we’ll need to get together very shortly. The 28th is our actual meeting with OWASA but if we’re going to run any of these by as an agenda item to the council that would need to come before you all meet on the 16th therefor we would need to meet before. I would just like to know if there are any volunteers? Joyce and Joe. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf    I know that one of the things that OWASA folks want to talk about then is sort of a hurricane post mortem.

 

Council Member Franck     I move to adjourn.

 

Council Member Capowski     I second the motion.

 

Mayor Waldorf    The motion to adjourn the meeting carries unanimously.

The meeting stands adjourned.

 

The meeting concluded at 9:39 p.m.