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St. Albans moves to regulate group homes with registration, licensing and fire-safety rules
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Summary
City officials said a proposed local framework will require group homes to register with the city, obtain a business license and meet fire-code standards; facilities with six or more residents will be treated as lodging and require sprinklers.
Mayor Scott James said the city is advancing rules to allow St. Albans to better regulate group homes and ensure unsafe or poorly run facilities do not remain open.
Under the framework described by the mayor, group-home operators would need a business license and city registration. The city plans to apply fire-code requirements to those facilities; Mayor James said that a facility housing five or fewer residents would be considered residential, while one with six or more residents would be considered lodging and subject to lodging standards such as sprinkler systems. He said the city drew on other municipal ordinances and consulted the West Virginia Attorney General's Office (JB McCuskey) as it developed the proposal.
"They didn't even have to register with the city," Mayor James said, describing the prior regulatory gap. He added that the attorney general's office had participated in committee discussions and expressed support for the city's approach.
The podcast did not include the ordinance's formal text, a vote tally or an effective date. Officials said the policy would give the city tools to monitor safety and require operators to comply with licensing and fire-safety standards.
Next steps: finalize ordinance language, publish registration and licensing requirements, and communicate compliance timelines to operators; the transcript did not include a target date for implementation.
