Council makes school storm-shelter requirement optional, approves middle-scale housing and fire-code changes

The Memphis City Council on Oct. 21 adopted three related ordinances to amend the 2021 Memphis and Shelby County building code, making the ICC 500 storm-shelter requirement optional for educational buildings and approving related changes to the existing building code and the fire code to ease costs for small multifamily projects.

Chief John Zena, chief of development and infrastructure, told the council the package responds to a moratorium the council put in place last year and to project delays driven by the storm-shelter requirement. He said the ICC 500 provision "was making it prohibitive for a lot of these school projects to even move forward." The administration and its code officials said the change is intended to reduce construction costs so school and small multifamily projects that have stalled can proceed.

The council considered…