Fire officials tell Ann Arbor planning commission that 150-foot rule, apparatus and staffing shape infill design

Chair Donnell White opened the May work session of the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission and said there would be no formal votes as the commission sought information from city fire officials about how code requirements affect infill development.

The most consequential takeaway for commissioners was a set of technical limits in the adopted codes that can force changes to site plans: Fire Marshal Marshall Redmond told the commission that the city follows the 2021 International Fire Code (IFC) and that the code includes a 150-foot travel-distance limit for fire apparatus, which often requires turnarounds or additional paved surface when a building is set far back on a parcel. "There's a fire code that says we can't travel over a 150 feet, without having a turnaround," Redmond said, adding that the travel distance is measured along the actual travel path around a building.

Why it matters: commissioners said their priority is enabling more housing while minimizing impervious surface and neighborhood impacts. Several planners pointed to the 805 Oxford…