Commerce City council revisits residential sprinkler rule after developers and builders raise costs, implementation concerns

Commerce City councilors and staff spent more than an hour on Tuesday discussing the city's residential fire sprinkler requirement, focusing on implementation problems builders reported and the cost passed to homebuyers.

The sprinkler requirement, adopted as part of Commerce City's 2021 code adoption and effective six months after adoption in November 2023, applies to new attached-unit housing and many townhomes; the ordinance includes an 8-foot side-separation exemption that staff and some council members said has caused confusion. Staff presented options to keep the requirement, modify implementation, remove the 8-foot exemption or repeal the requirement entirely. After a straw poll produced no majority, council asked staff to return with a more specific package of changes for further consideration.

Council and staff said the city adopted the code-aligned sprinkler requirement to reduce interior fire spread and save lives. Mike Sutherland, deputy director of community development, summarized the safety case during the presentation: "With residential fire sprinklers, 96% of fires are contained within 1 room...89 percent of fires are suppressed by a single head and 78 percent, fewer injuries to firefighters are, are reported in house fires when they're equipped with spot fire sprinklers." He also said the requirement stems from long-standing model-code recommendations and renewed interest after the Marshall Fire.

But builders and…