Sprinklers won't be required

Bedford County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night approved placing the rural portion of the county under the 2009 International Building Code and the 2009 Residential Code, but exempted the county from the portion of the code which requires fire protection sprinklers in new one-family and two-family dwellings.

Such rules only apply to new construction or expansion, not to homes that already exist.

The reason for exempting the county from the sprinkler system requirement was that in some parts of the county local water pressure is not sufficient to operate a sprinkler system directly, meaning that homes would have to use a pump and a tank to operate them, adding to the cost of a new home.

County Zoning Director Kay Demonbren said the exemption might turn out to be a moot point; the state is trying to decide whether to require such sprinkler systems, and if it does require them it would override the local decision.

The code already required, and still requires, sprinkler systems for buildings housing three or more families.

The county had been under the 2003 edition of the International Building Codes. State law requires the county to use a version of the code within seven years of the version the state is using, or else the state can come in and impose its own code requirements. Changes in the 2009 edition of the code, other than the sprinklers for one-family and two-family homes, include requiring carbon monoxide alarms, locking caps for air conditioning refrigerant circuits (to prevent abuse of the refrigerant by inhaling it), expansion tanks on hot water heaters, and a permanent certificate showing a building's insulation value.

No one from the public spoke for or against the change at a public hearing on the change held during Tuesday night's meeting. The only person who rose to comment was Commissioner Jimmy Woodson, who corrected the minutes of the commission's rules and legislative committee related to the change.

The International Code Council, based in Washington, D.C., draws up the codes, which are adopted or used as a reference by governments, builders, and other organizations. The ICC has a variety of different products, but the two that were specifically adopted by the county were the International Building Code and the International Residential Code.

Commissioners approved adopting the code, with the sprinkler exemption, by voice vote.

In other action Tuesday night:

* Commissioners voted to amend the county zoning resolution to allow so-called "accessory structures" like storage sheds on property even if there is no primary structure (a home or business) on that property yet. Such accessory structures would have to be approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals to ensure that they met setback requirements so that a primary structure could be placed on the property at some point in the future.

The old rules defined an accessory structure in terms of the primary structure, meaning there was no legal way to place an accessory structure on the property if there was not a primary structure. Proponents of the change used the example of someone owning undeveloped property who might want to put up a shed to hold lawn equipment for maintaining it.

No one spoke for or against the rules change during a public hearing held Tuesday night. Commissioners approved the change by voice vote.

* Commissioners approved a change to zoning regulations to define and allow homeless shelters as a special exception in the C-1 (commercial) zone. It is problematic from a legal standpoint for a county to prohibit a legal use of property altogether, and if a particular use isn't mentioned at all in the zoning resolution the county has no control over its placement. allowing homeless shelters, and assigning them to a particular zone, gives the county some say-so in where they can be placed.

If someone wants to locate a shelter in an area that is not currently zoned C-1, they would have to go before the Planning Commission, and later the Board of Commissioners, to ask for a rezoning. Once the rezoning was granted, the developer would have to go before the Board of Zoning Appeals to ask for a special exception within the C-1 zone.

In the rural areas over which the county has zoning power, the C-1 zone can only be located on major arterial highways, meaning federal or state highways within the county.

No one spoke for or against the rules change during a public hearing held Tuesday night. Commissioners approved the change by voice vote, with J.D. "Bo" Wilson offering the only audible "no" vote.

* Commissioners approved rezoning the site of Smith Equipment, at 3225 U.S. 231 North, from A-1 (agriculture) to C-2 (commercial), which would allow the existing business to add trucks to its current product line of farm equipment. Only the 7.6 acres closest to the road were rezoned.

Commissioner Bobby Vannatta, a farmer by trade, said he had irrigation rights to draw from a quarry behind the site and asked if that would be affected, but property owner Roger Smith said that the quarry was not a part of the rezoning request and would not be affected.

No one spoke for or against the zoning change during a public hearing held Tuesday night. Commissioners approved the rezoning by voice vote.