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Council approves bond-based assessment program to finance fire-sprinkler retrofits for participating building owners
Summary
The council approved a voluntary, single-purpose bond assessment program to finance retrofit costs for building owners who opt in to have fire sprinklers installed, with assessments tied to each building's retrofit cost.
The Los Angeles City Council on Aug. 3 approved a financing arrangement for property owners to pay for required fire-sprinkler retrofits via a voluntary, single-purpose bond assessment.
Councilmember Holden asked staff how the assessment amounts were calculated and whether taller buildings would pay proportionally more. Marla Blevins of the City Administrative Officer’s office explained that the assessment is based on the amount of improvements each building needs; Colin Chu from the City Attorney’s office said the bond was single-purpose and sized to match the retrofit cost for each participating building. “This was a single purpose bond issue specifically for the number of building owners that wanted to participate in order to get this kind of financing,” Chu said. He said the size of each owner’s assessment corresponds to the debt service on the amount of money that owner needs to borrow to finance the sprinkler retrofit.
Councilmembers were told the retrofit requirement dated from an ordinance adopted about 12 years earlier that required certain tall buildings to be retrofitted; staff said the current assessment approach divides debt service according to each owner’s retrofit financing need and that participation in the bond issue was voluntary. The council recorded a roll-call vote of 14 ayes approving the item.
