Des Moines Sun

City Building Official Adam Ostert asked Johnston City Council to consider relief zoning codes for rental properties in the city until fire and building rental codes can be unified.

During the Dec. 19 council meeting, which was streamed on YouTube, it was noted that the city’s current rental code requires landlords to provide fire extinguishers in corridors as well as in each unit, while previous fire codes only required extinguishers in the corridors of buildings.

The current rental code requires landlords to provide fire extinguishers in each of the dwelling units as well as in the corridors, while previous fire codes only required extinguishers be provided in the corridors. Ostert noted that there was some seemingly inconsistent language in the existing codes.

“Our intention is to match the building code to the fire code,” Ostert said.

Ostert said during the session that the staff wanted city officials to allow them to only enforce the code requiring extinguishers in the corridors of multi-family units. He noted during the meeting that some larger apartment complexes could be forced to ante up as much as $30,000 to meet the code requiring extinguishers in each unit as well as corridors.

Council agreed to temporarily halt enforcement of the code to provide some financial relief to the owners of rental properties as staff decides its next move to align the codes.

Moreover, Ostert said during the meeting that staff is interested in making the codes require extinguishers in each of the units and potentially do away with the corridor requirement, which would be more of a compromise in codes.