FIRE SAFETY
Town to put in place inspection program for businesses
LANSDALE » A new program of fire safety inspections could be in place in early 2021 for businesses in Lansdale, along with a new charge to enforce them.
Borough Fire Marshal Rick Lesniak gave council a preview in mid-December of a new commercial fire inspection program he’s aiming to implement in 2021.
“The goal of the program is to minimize the risk of life and property loss from fire,” Lesniak said.
How? “By going out into commercial properties, observing the conditions that are in the occupancies, educating the occupants — the business owners, the employees — on steps that they can take to minimize or reduce the risk of a fire.”
Starting in 2018 council has discussed creating a new program of fire safety inspections around the town, after changes in state law required a new code update council vetted from March through May 2019. Those discussions included talks on whether the fire safety and emergency management jobs in town should be held by one or two persons, and since Lesniak was hired in late 2019, developing the fire inspection program has been an ongoing discussion with council’s code committee.
During the Dec. 16 council
meeting, Lesniak outlined the program he’s developed so far, which would include an educational checklist for business owners to see the requirements they need to meet, ahead of in-person inspections by staff.
“One of the most important things that’s going to come out of the fire inspection program is to develop a relationship with all of the business owners, to work with them, to achieve the common goal of making their business safer,” Lesniak said.
“It’s for the employees who work there, it’s for the customers who may come and visit and do their shopping. It’s also for our firefighters, who could respond to that business,” he said.
As part of the inspection process, each business would share details of their floor plans and fire systems with the borough and fire company, then undergo an in-person inspection which will yield a report of changes the business would need to make. As he spoke to council, Lesniak showed a chart of fees for the inspections, which he said were based on averages currently charged for similar services in Conshohocken Borough and Montgomery, Towamencin, Upper Gwynedd, and Warrington townships.
“A business that has a square footage of less than 2,999 square feet would be charged $40 for their inspection,” Lesniak said, with fees increasing for larger businesses.
Those from 3,000 to 4,999 square feet would have a $60 fee; from 5,000 to 9,999 square feet would be $110; from 10,000 to 29,999 square feet would be $150; from 30,000 to 49,999 square feet would be $200; from 50,000 to 99,999 would be $255 and 100,000 and above would be $355.
After the first two inspections, a re-inspection fee for the third and any subsequent inspections would drop to $25.
“You’d get an initial inspection, and two re-inspections, for the cost that’s shown there, based on the square footage,” Lesniak said.
“We want to be able to work with the businesses, who understand there’s going to be a learning curve associated with this. Some of the businesses might need a little extra time to correct some things,” he said.
Councilwoman Carrie Hawkins Charlton asked if the borough inspections would include Fairmount Fire Company firefighters, and Lesniak said they could, depending on availability.
“Some of the smaller businesses, they may not be interested in, per se, but some of the large buildings, the more complex buildings, I would certainly communicate when I’m going to do the inspection, and if anybody was available they’d be welcome to join in,” he said.
Hawkins Charlton also asked how fees would be charged, and Lesniak said they would be similar to rental apartment inspection charges the borough already does: after the inspection, a report and invoice given to the owner.
During the presentation, Lesniak showed an early list of businesses in town, their square footage, and the charges for permits they’d receive in the other towns based on their size. For the Elm Terrace Gardens complex on Broad Street, at roughly 289,000 square feet, their charge would range from $350 to $645 in the other towns and would be $355 in Lansdale, while properties in the next-highest tier such as the North Penn YMCA at 69,800 square feet would range from $250 to $450 in the other towns and $255 in Lansdale.
“A number of (municipalities) are in the process of doing a similar evaluation, and will most likely be going to increase their fee schedule,” Lesniak said.
“At this point we’re in around the average cost, for the fire and safety inspections, but when the rest of the municipalities get through and do their own analysis, we might fall toward the lower end of the fee scale,” he said.
Councilman Leon Angelichio asked if those permit fees would be enough to cover costs of the inspections, with zero profit to the town.
“There’s often a perception that this is a money grab, some way to make revenue, and it’s really not, because there’s a cost associated with performing the service,” he said.
Lesniak answered that he’s not yet done compiling square footage data for every business in town, but the goal would be for the fees to be revenue-neutral with neither profit nor loss.
Councilman BJ Breish said he’s had two concerns
during talks at code committee: would the fees be lower for nonprofits, and is the added expense too much for business struggling with the impact of COVID-19?
“I’m not saying that we shouldn’t proceed, but are we going to be lenient with businesses in terms of the added costs, the burden this is going to put on companies that are currently having difficulties? The timing of this is just really bad,” Breish said.
Borough Manager John Ernst answered that, while the final choice is up to council, staff are not recommending any discount on the fees for nonprofits.
“There is a certain train of thought that many of the nonprofits are already getting a break, a tax break, from the borough to begin with, by not paying taxes,” Ernst said.
“We certainly can look at reduced rates, we can look at forgoing fees. My recommendation, however, would be that nonprofit organizations, the fee structure, should be the same as for all other businesses in the bor
ough.”
Regarding the timing of charging the fees, Ernst said staff would have flexibility similar to other fees charged now, and Lesniak agreed, while Breish asked if there were ways to require fixes first before charging the fee.
“At the moment you have a fire in the business, you don’t want to find out the fire extinguisher wasn’t charged properly, and you can’t use it to put the fire out, and somebody gets injured or killed,” Breish said.
Hawkins Charlton added that as the wife of a local firefighter, she’s heard stories of accidents in other communities that could’ve been avoided with a regular inspection program.
“Honestly, I think we’re way overdue on this, especially for the firefighters to be able to get into these buildings, and the potential to see anything before even responding to a fire,” she said.
Council President Denton Burnell said a vote on Dec. 16 would advertise the fire inspection ordinance for
public feedback, then another vote in January would be needed to adopt it.
“It’s going to take some time to get it off the ground,” he said; “I would expect the administration to work collaboratively with each and every business, to work through any of those issues that might arise.”
Ernst and Lesniak both said they would do so, and the fire marshal added that the first step would be distributing the brochure and checklist to all local businesses so they know what to expect.
“We gave them pictures, diagrams as to what’s correct and what’s incorrect,” he said.
“And then, at the end, a checklist where they could use it on their own, to be prepared for the inspection. Hopefully, it’s a quick, easy, in-and-out, and everything is looking good, and then we move on to the next business,” Lesniak said.
Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 8:45 p.m. on Jan. 6 and 7 p.m. on Jan. 20; for more information visit www.Lansdale.org.