Small Texas City Demands Sprinklers in High-Rises
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Addison, Texas, is a city of 7 ¼ miles square where more than 40 high and mid-rise buildings are planned for construction within the next five years. Half of these are already grub-staked and a dozen are well on their way toward being occupied. Occupancies ranging from hotels to corporate business offices now dot the landscape where only a few seasons ago, farming was a way of life.
Addison seems destined to ultimately become the shining star of business and economic activity in prestigious North Dallas County.
In this intense atmosphere of growth and construction in the vertical plane, Chief R. A. Minor presented his plan requiring a shift of the burden for fire protection in high-rise buildings to the private sector, namely the building owners. He first contacted Addison City Manager C. J. Webster and Mayor Jerry Redding with a modest proposal when Addison only had one building over three stories.
Ordinance well received
The plan, known early on as the “sprinkler ordinance,” because of its modification of the Uniform Building Code (1973 edition, UBC) sprinkler requirements, was well received by the city fathers. It basically required a supervised, 100 percent sprinklered building in buildings of three or more floors with modified height requirements from 75 to 65 feet. The system followed all National Fire Protection Association Standard 13 guidelines for installation and testing.
Then as the future for high-rise building seemed more certain for Addison, Minor pressed for the adoption of the 1979 UBC. Also, and most significantly, the requirements in Section 1807 requiring the state-of-the-art in highrise fire protection systems was modified, leaving out any loopholes or alternates for compartmentation. In essence, the entire structure, if built in Addison and requiring the provisions of Section 1807, would be required to have a full sprinkler system throughout that conforms to both UBC and NFPA guidelines.
Monitoring station
The requirement for a continuously manned monitoring station or a link to the same is hoped to provide the early detection necessary for prompt fire department notification and evacuation of building occupants. On the merits of these modifications, builders in Addison are permitted certain substitutions in construction, helping offset the cost of the elaborate fire detection and protection system.
This all seemed a pretty bitter pill for the private sector to swallow in 1979. This was especially true in the light of the fact that there hadn’t been a recent high-rise disaster in the United States. Would these requirements be too restrictive and force penny-pinching developers to seek greener pastures in the North Dallas Fields, leaving Addison to become another bedroom community? This was the gamble the city faced with the only other alternatives to stricter codes being (1) a very large and expensive fire department or (2) substandard (in their eyes) fire protection and the real possibility for legal recourse on the city should bere be a local high-rise disaster.
Before taking final action on such long-range matters, consultations were held with area developers to gain their input and surprisingly, there was no strong opposition to the proposal from builders or developers. It seemed there was something special about Addison and its location. Redding readily recommended the whole package of code revisions be adopted by the city council with the blessings of the city manager. The mayor’s main concern through all the consultations was primarily life safety to the building occupants with the development being secondary. There was no room for compromise in this area. It all passed the city council overwhelmingly.
Gamble paid off
Today as the story continues to unfold, the gamble between gaining adequate fire protection or losing big business developments and the money that comes with them, seems not to have been anything but a sure bet, and the public is the winner of increased fire protection in high-rise buildings. Addison has landed some of the biggest developers around with the projected working population in excess of 100,000 persons by the mid-1980s. The resident population will probably never exceed 15,000, helping maintain a tax rate among the lowest in the State of Texas.
It is hoped that with continued regular testing of the intricate high-rise fire protection systems and regular inspections of the buildings that fire incidence will be kept to a minimum and probability for a large-scale high-rise disaster will never appear. This all goes to prove that local governing bodies occasionally have more in mind than the almighty dollar and personal politics. The Addison city government including the council, city manager, mayor and fire chief used master planning techniques and sound judgment to help assure their city will be a model city in the future in every respect.