Amid a backlash from property owners, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a five-year extension to the 2027 deadline that owners of nearly 10,000 high-rise units had been facing to seek permits under the city’s fire code mandate. The city code still requires sprinklers to be installed by the end of 2034, but the revised version approved without discussion by the board extended the deadline to file for permits from next year to the end of 2031. The initial code mandating sprinklers dates to 2022 and was approved after international code authorities urged cities worldwide to require sprinklers in high rise buildings. The issue was first highlighted when a fire broke out on the 12th floor of residential high-rise in San Francisco back in 2018. At the time, the then-fire chief was candid about the challenge posed to fire crews as flames spread up the 22-story building. “It was built in 1965 so there’s not sprinklers — it’s not a requirement in these residential units,” Chief Joanne Hayes-White said after the fire in the Financial District. No one was injured, but it took crews nearly an hour to put out a fire that would have been extinguished much sooner had the building had sprinklers. The fire was ultimately blamed on an overheating battery on a motor scooter. San Francisco Sep 6, 2024 Glass from shattered window falls from SF high-rise; no injuries San Francisco Nov 22, 2023 Flooded San Francisco high-rise pushes back return for residents to 2024 San Francisco Jun 21, 2023 Millennium Tower residents complain of unpleasant byproduct of continued tilt Four years later, acting on the urging of international fire code experts, the city code was changed to mandate some 125 residential high-rise buildings — like the Golden Gateway tower where the 2018 fire hit — to have sprinklers. Requiring nearly 10,000 units to be retrofitted to with sprinklers even though they were built before California required sprinklers for new buildings in 1974. The 2022 code – which went into effect 2023 — set timelines, with owners given until 2027 to submit sprinkler plans to the city and until the end of 2034 to complete the work. The 2025 code – effective this year now that it was approved on Tuesday –extends the deadline to apply for permits to allow additional time to complete a study of alternatives to full sprinkler systems. And at the same time, the approved version sets up a path for owners to seek unspecified hardship exemptions. The fire official who crafted the 2022 retrofit ordinance, now retired, worries the exemptions could defeat the intent to protect the safety of both firefighters and residents. “They need to take some time and invest into the safety of their building,” says Ken Cofflin, a 27-year veteran who retired from his post as city fire marshal last year. He said that when he left, he was optimistic the city would do the right then and owners would do their part and install sprinklers. “I do care about it,” he said in a recent interview, adding that while sprinklers don’t actually put out fires, they serve as a barrier to spread while at the same time automatically alerting authorities to the high-rise emergency. “San Francisco is the only city in the country that decided to do that,” said Ann Miller, a leader of a coalition of city condo owners that formed to fight the mandate. Miller, head of the Fontana West owners association, says retrofitting her building could cost as much as $300,000 per unit. The main part of the cost, she said, is all the work installing a pumping system and routing the piping needed to distribute water through asbestos filled concrete walls. Residents would likely be displaced for months, she says, to allow the asbestos to be safely controlled and removed. Late last year, in response to such concerns about feasibility and cost, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office revised the fire code now up for adoption before the Board of Supervisors. The proposal is to extend the 2027 deadline for five years to allow more study, while keeping the end of 2034 deadline to actually install the systems.But several high-rise owners at Fontana West told us they oppose any “one size fits all” mandate. “For me, it’s crazy,” said Elise Kazanjian, 91, a retired shop owner. “We feel put upon.” “It just doesn’t make sense,” added fellow resident Ruben Espinoza. Owners at the building say the only true fix is to start over to craft specific provisions to account for the individual characteristics of buildings and account for the financial impact on residents. “If this moves forward, what this means to me is that my life will be turned upside down,” said Gina Ferrante, a retired San Francisco school administrator, who says she spent three decades to scrape up enough to buy her condo on Russian Hill. She says Fontana West is a concrete building that’s equipped with a newly installed, elaborate system to alert residents and second one to boost firefighter radio communications. Residents here, she says, are taking trainings on how to assist crews in emergencies and have been barred from keeping electric motor scooters that can spark fires. “We’re responsible, hardworking, rational citizens, public servants,” Ferrante said of her fellow residents. “Nobody wants to put a firefighter’s life in danger, nobody. But for heaven’s sake, let’s be rational when we’re looking at what’s being these mandates that are going to have a drastic impact on many people’s lives.” Yet the city’s former fire marshal told us that he’s worried that if approved, the revised mandate could leave room for widescale exemptions based on cost, undermining the life-saving intent of the code. “My concern is the work will never get done,” Cofflin says, “that hardship exemptions will allow them just to continue on postponing and postponing, and the work doesn’t get done.” The sprinkler industry has issued data suggesting that condo owners are overestimating the costs, he says. Cofflin notes that the code he wrote already allows less costly solutions in buildings where sprinkler systems are shown to be cost prohibitive. After decades of exemptions, backers say it’s time for owners to do their part for safety. “We’re in San Francisco — we have zero lot lines, or we have units next door to each other with one wall difference, right?” Cofflin said. “What happens in your unit is going to affect your neighbor. Don’t be selfish and think about just yourself. We have to think about everybody.” ...read more read less