At the June 12 City Council meeting, an ordinance was passed to amend the Fire Prevention Code.
“A lot of the items we had on the books for years, but we needed to clean them up and ensure everything is enforceable throughout the community,” Fire Chief Marc Lowery said.
“One of the main ones we discussed earlier is adopting the International Existing Building Code. This gives us some options for the older buildings, especially downtown on the square,” Lowery explained.
Also, this ordinance requires plan reviews for residential construction. Lowery said, “It’s just the drawing they bring to us, and we talk about it. This is already required in the state code, so we are cleaning it up in our code.”
Councilman Mitch Magness said, “Some of these changes and enforcements will increase due to the staff ramping up and being properly trained. Councilman Boswell used to say, ‘If it’s on the books, we need to enforce it. If not, we need to get it off the books.’”
Mayor Jerry Jackson said, “This ordinance will include adopting the International Existing Building Code. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. It will help us renovate some of the old buildings downtown. It won’t make it easy, but it should make it a little easier. Thank you, Chief Marc.”
The three-reading rules were suspended to put Ordinance 1538 into effect immediately.