Fire Safety Inspection Ordinance Passes Council, Added to Books
By Karen Gould

For more than three years, the city has discussed a rental housing fire inspection ordinance, and following a public hearing and two months of fine tuning the language, Mackinac Island City Council approved adding the regulation to the city's ordinance book Wednesday, April 26.

The Rental Housing Inspection, Regulations, and Licensing Ordinance, which now also contains an inspection checklist, will require those landlords to have an inspection each year before they will be licensed to operate. Administrators noted that a grace period for licensing will be allowed owing to the number of inspections that will have to be made in a short period of time, though landlords still need to make application before the annual May 1 deadline.

Each inspection will be conducted by two designated city officials, which likely will include Fire Chief Dennis Bradley and Police Chief Bill Lenaghan.

The process to establish the ordinance began in 2003, though it was set aside at the Ordinance Committee level and little progress was made until this winter, under an ordinance priority list established by Mayor Margaret Doud.

The ordinance was offered at a public hearing in March, during which confusion by business owners over the wording and purpose of the ordinance was brought to light, which sent it back to committee for language review.

At that time, business owners predicted the inspections would lead to costly upgrades to meet current building codes, but city Building Inspector Dennis Dombroski explained that housing units probably had been inspected for building code compliance during construction, remodeling, or a change of use designation.

The ordinance contains a statement explaining the scope of the inspection, which reads, "The inspection process provided herein shall be limited to a relatively brief visual inspection of each rental premise with the primary purpose of the inspection being the identification and/or correction of visible conditions that violate applicable city ordinances and present a danger to the health, safety, and welfare of the occupants of the premises and the community in general."

At the public hearing, business owners also suggested that an inspection checklist be created and followed by inspectors, and that it be made available to them. They said the list would help them better prepare and maintain their properties.

Such a checklist was prepared, but Council notes that the inspections will not be limited to specific items on the

list, and the word "other" was added at the bottom of each section to allow inspectors flexibility in what they might find. As an example, Fire Chief Bradley recalled an apartment with a metal bed covered in Christmas tree lights, an electrical hazard, he said, that could not be foreseen by a checklist.

The checklist includes seven areas that will be inspected, with specific items in each area, including the building's exterior and interior, electrical system, heating and cooling units, fire protection, and a section entitled "special," which includes occupant load and emergency preparedness.

The Ordinance Committee notes the ordinance will promote safety and fire prevention and will keep insurance costs down, which currently is under review by the Insurance Services Office, Inc. of Illinois. The rating affects all Island businesses.

The Ordinance Committee is chaired by Mike Hart and includes Alderman Dan Wightman and Armand "Smi" Horn.

The committee meets every other Wednesday at 4 p.m. before City Council meetings, which begin at 5 p.m. on the second floor of Community Hall.