Building Code Review Board

Agenda Village of Arlington Heights Building Code Review Board Commissions Room 33 S. Arlington Heights Rd. AH 60005 May 30, 2017 6:30 PM I. CALL TO ORDER II. ROLL CALL III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. Approval of May 11, 2017 Minutes IV. REPORTS V. OLD BUSINESS A. Continuance of May 11, 2017 Meeting Regarding 610 E. Maude Ave. VI. NEW BUSINESS VII. OTHER BUSINESS VIII.ADJOURNMENT Persons with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services, such as an American Sign Language interpreter or written materials in accessible formats, should contact David Robb, Disability Services Coordinator, at 33 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, Illinois 60005, (847)368-5793 (Voice), (847)368-5980 (Fax) or drobb@vah.com. Item: Approval of May 11, 2017 Minutes Department: Building & Life Safety ATTACHMENTS: Description Type Minutes Minutes  DRAFT BUILDING CODE REVIEW BOARD MINUTES OF A MEETING BEFORE THE VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON HEIGHTS BUILDING CODE REVIEW BOARD May 11, 2017 MEMBERS PRESENT: ADMINISTRATION PRESENT: John Carrato, Chairman Steven Touloumis, Director of Building Services Carl Baldassarra Charley Craig, Assistant Building Official Richard Bondarowicz Don Lay, Fire Safety Supervisor John Scaletta (Trustee) Patty LeVee, Recording Secretary Scott Smith OTHERS PRESENT: Northwest Metal Craft: Dawn and Hall Selleck, Shane Mayer, Daniel Mayer, Kelle Bruckbauer, Rodger Plat, 110 S. Brighton Place: David Esau 610 E. Maude: Bonnie and Chuck Gerstung, Charlie Gerstung (son) SUBJECT: Variance from Chapter 23, Section 203-402 of the Arlington Heights Municipal Code for Northwest Metalcraft, Inc. at 413 S. Arlington Heights Road. Variance from Chapter 23, Section R305.1 of the Arlington Heights Municipal Code for 110 S. Brighton Place. Variance from Chapter 23, Section R305.1 of the Arlington Heights Municipal Code for 610 E. Maude Avenue. There being a quorum present, Chairman Carrato called the meeting to order at 6:30pm. All stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF MINUTES CARL BALDASSARRA MOTIONED TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE MARCH 21, 2017 MEETING, SECONDED BY RICHARD BONDAROWICZ, THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY. NEW BUSINESS 1. NORTHWEST METALCRAFT, INC. – 413 S. ARLINGTON HEIGHTS RD. Representing Northwest Metalcraft, Kelle Bruckbauer of Tinaglia Architects, introduced herself. Ms. Bruckbauer stated her clients, also present, would like to put a storage building on the back of their site, which is about 1,680 sq. ft. Until recently there was a hodge podge of storage sheds and an old home that has recently been demolished. They plan to put the storage building up, redo the parking lots, landscaping, and underground storm water detention. They are asking for relief from the requirement per the Village of Arlington Heights amendment to the International Building Code (IBC) to install a sprinkler system in the building. She stated this building will not be occupied except for staff going in and out for deliveries and pickups and other sorts of product for the building, there is not going to be any combustible gases or liquids in the building, and no clients will be going into the building. Ms. Bruckbauer explained that about two years ago when they started this project, they approached Paul Butt, former Fire Safety Supervisor, to see what could be done. Mr. Butt suggested staff would probably support this as long as a few things were done. Those things were to construct the building out of all non-combustible materials, thus instead of wood they are doing metal stud steel. They will fire rate the west and the south sides of the building, including the openings, and they will be providing a fire detection system that will tie into the existing panel. They are spending a lot of time, energy and money to upgrade the site and make it look nice, but the sprinkler system was a little bit too far out of the budget. They are hoping that by agreeing to pay for certain things to make the building more structurally sound and safe, that they may be able to do without the sprinkler system. Mr. Carrato stated there is a recommendation from Building Services with the five conditions put forth by Paul Butt being met to approve this variance. Mr. Touloumis stated that is correct. Mr. Baldassarra asked if the existing storage is sprinklered. Ms. Bruckbauer stated no. He then mentioned some confusion with the site plan at sheet A001, at the setback line. Ms. Bruckbauer clarified that is the 10% side yard setback, and stated they went before the Plan Commission, Village Board, and received a variance for it. Mr. Baldassarra asked about that being on the drawings or not and what does the variance say about the distance that is allowed. Ms. Bruckbauer said they were allowed what they have, which is 5 feet 1 inch. Mr. Carrato added, which is for the existing building. Ms. Bruckbauer replied, yes, that lines up with the existing building. Mr. Baldassarra asked if they would not want to move that because it appears confusing. Ms. Bruckbauer said she could take it off. Mr. Smith asked what is directly behind the proposed storage building, to the south. Mr. Selleck answered there is a lot and a rectory for the church. Ms. Bruckbauer said there is nothing constructive there right now. The reason they agreed to put a fire rating on that south side was just in case something ever went in that space. With no further questions, Mr. Carrato called for a motion TRUSTEE SCALETTA MOTION TO APPROVE THIS VARIANCE, SECONDED BY MR. BALDASSARRA, THE VARIANCE WAS APPROVED. 2 2. PETITIONER DAVE ESAU, 110 S. BRIGHTON PLACE Mr. Esau introduced himself, mentioning he has lived at Stonegate for 22 years. He explained the homes in the area have a lot of one car attached garages, some with rooms up above the garage, as he has. There is an alley behind them, where he is currently building a detached garage. Until now, he was one of the only houses that did not have a detached garage off the alley. This brings up the house; they are left with the old garage that is presently attached and need to turn into part of the house, as it seems awkward to leave it as a garage. Their bedroom is above this garage and due to manner the house was constructed many years ago, there is a step down to their bedroom, which brings the ceiling lower in the garage. The only issue is that the ceiling is low and they are not sure how to fix that. He did look at other homes in the area with the same issue and made note that just about every five houses has a detached garage in the back and turned the little garage into a room. He is seeking a variance to allow any type of building in there whatsoever and to keep that floor. He does not know what to do if he can’t as there could be flooding issues if they dig down. There is no basement, so there is no sump pump. There is boiler heat and they have discussed underfloor heating with the architect as the boiler is right on the other side of the garage wall. Mr. Carrato noted that he is essentially asking for a variance from the 8 foot first floor requirement and noted Building Services recommends approval. Mr. Touloumis confirmed, yes. Mr. Smith asked if anyone knows why we varied our requirements from the International Building Code and made it 8 feet. Mr. Carrato stated he believes 7 feet is the IBC standard. He said when they did the amendments, basically they had their own municipal code and they tried to pare them down going through one by one by one. There was an architect on the board at that time that was probably the person weighing in on that and he does not remember the specifics. Mr. Baldassarra did not remember either but stated it is standard and it is more of a quality of life aesthetic issue then it is anything else. Mr. Esau stated it is definitely lower and will be visibly lower when you step into it. The problem is they are plagued with this room. What they want is a garage and now we have our garage and are stuck with a room. They have to turn that room into part of the house and now this requirement came up. With no other questions, and Building Services recommending approval, Mr. Carrato called for a motion. MR. BALDASSARRA MOTIONED TO APPROVE THIS VARIANCE, SECONDED BY MR. SMITH, THE VARIANCE WAS APPROVED. 3 3. BONNIE GERSTUNG – 610 E. MAUDE AVE. Ms. Gerstung introduced herself along with her husband Chuck and their son Charlie. The Gerstung’s are 40 year residents of Arlington Heights and have been in their current home 30 years. She is a retired teacher from Hershey High School of 32 years. There is a strong family history of residences in Arlington Heights. Her son and his children are presently living in their home, which brings us to why they are looking at this remodel project. The ages of the children living with them are 16, 14, 12 and 10 year of age. Ms. Gerstung explained when they first began this project she was told that their basement would not get approved because of the ceiling height. At that she called Mark Fink, Building & Property Inspector, who told her not to worry about the building height of the basement, that as long as everything else gets approved he can waive that. She did not want to pursue and have to hire an architect and spend a lot of money figuring out what to do if it was not going to go. But Mark said that this would be ok for them to do and that he couldn’t do anything else. Ms. Gerstung noted they have already been approved for plumbing and electrical. The only thing standing in their way is the height of the ceiling. The room in the basement is needed for their son in order to have more room upstairs for the children. Mr. Gerstung added this is a four bedroom ranch. It was explained the oldest granddaughter, 16, has been diagnosed with severe anxiety. They need to provide her a stable environment. Their son, Charlie Gerstung added his daughter also has insomnia issues. Mr. Gerstung continued that with the four bedrooms they have three girls and one boy. One of the girls ends up sleeping on the couch in the living room, which can’t go on. Ms. Gerstung stated unfortunately their architect could not be there. The room they proposed is a very large room with a very large egress window, it is as wide as a patio door and very high. There is a second escape route at the stairs going upstairs. There is also another egress window in the utility area. There are three separate areas of escape routes. The room is very large at about 14 x 13. She noted the plan indicates ceiling height of 6 foot 9 inches; it is actually slightly higher than 6 feet 10 inches. The architect will verify that if need be. Mr. Carrato explained that Building Services did not recommend approval, being below base IBC (International Building Code). Mr. Touloumis stated that is correct. Trustee Scaletta mentioned when looking up the code, there was a different code for basements, referring to Section 305.1.1. Mr. Touloumis stated that is for non-habitable basements. Trustee Scaletta stated that the code does not mention habitable or non- habitable, it says change 6 feet 8 inches to 7 feet. Mr. Touloumis said that is because what you are reading is the amendment that changes the exception to the stock code section. Trustee Scaletta noted no one was in attendance from the Fire Department and was looking for their feedback. Mr. Lay stated they would not support it because of the fact 4 that lower the ceiling you have more intention of heat rising and the lower the ceiling again, you have more potential of flash over. That would be their concern. Trustee Scaletta asked if we are aware of any other lower level units in a home in Arlington Heights that has a ceiling of this height. Mr. Touloumis did not have enough data to make comparisons and was not aware personally if there was. Trustee Scaletta noted there was no representation from the Fire Department. He made mentioned of Mr. Lay being with Arlington Heights over a year and asked if there had been times when he and the Fire Department did not necessarily agree? Mr. Lay stated they have entered into discussions, yes. Mr. Lay conveyed the Fire Department did offer to have Deputy Chief Ahlman in attendance and after talking about it they did not think it was necessary. Mr. Lay spoke with them and they were confident in his ability to convey what their feeling was. Mr. Baldassarra commented that this room will be used as a sleeping room and asked if there were any other sleeping rooms proposed for this level of the house. Ms. Gerstung answered no. Mr. Baldassarra asked where the furnace room with respect to the drawing. Ms. Gerstung answered it is in the utility area. Mr. Baldassarra asked if the dimension is measured to the lowest point of the room, below the ducts. Mr. Gerstung said it was the measured at the lowest point; the ducts are up in the rafters. Mr. Baldassarra asked if there are parts of the room where the ceiling is higher than what is shown. Ms. Gerstung stated the sub floor is 7 feet 10 inches. Mr. Baldassarra said that if standing in the room, are there low and high parts of the room. Mr. Gerstung replied no, it is all the same. Mr. Baldassarra asked if they had thought about doing anything from some of the comments, presuming they heard some of them prior to this meeting. Were you aware of the Village position? Ms. Gerstung said she saw it last night and was very surprised because she thought they had gone through all of the proper steps and the fact that she had spoken with Mark Fink, she thought it was a good thing that he was a building inspector that was willing to say if the other things get approved, I can overlook that. She felt comfortable with that. This is why they went ahead and got the architect. Mr. Baldassarra asked if the first they heard about this issue was last night. Ms. Gerstung said the first she heard that it was not recommended to be approved. She knew from the very start that the basement height was not to code. She heard that before she started the whole process. Mr. Baldassarra stated he was surprised she got this far with this issue being on the table. The reason he was asking about the timeliness is that he was wondering if they had any time to even think about doing something to ameliorate this risk. He is a fire protection engineer and does not think the ceiling height makes that much of a difference with all due respect to safety and fire growth, but he does think if smoke detection on this level was expanded on the entire level and connected to the smoke detection you have on the upper level, so that any one detector operating sounds everything. Mr. Gerstung mentioned thinking the same 5 thing and was surprised that it was not brought up as an issue. Mr. Baldassarra said that is for them to bring up. He suggested they go beyond the minimum. Ms. Gerstung said they want to will do whatever needs to be done. Mr. Carrato asked if there were other measures that can be taken to relieve the concerns. Mr. Lay said they could install a fire sprinkler for residential use or what they call a 13D system, that feeds right off of the main service, it does not require a separate main, that would alleviate any concern. This would be residential sprinkler for the whole lower level, not just the one room. Mr. Baldassarra said these are the kind of things they could think about, talk with their architect and return to present the Board. Mr. Smith explained that typically when someone comes before the Board and wants to change something, especially when it comes to life safety issue, that they bring proposals that would provide the same level of safety but just a different way. Typically it is up to the homeowner to provide that to the Board so they can make a determination whether or not they feel that solves the issue. Mr. Carrato added that in this case they were under the impression, right or wrong, that it could be waived. It is understandable why they would have come without that. Charlie Gerstung (son) added that the other issue was that they did have the three escape windows, with the two egress windows in the basement, with a very large 6 x 3 egress window in the room; it is a big window for escape. Ms. Gerstung said one thing she failed to mention is that the bottom of the egress window exceeds the code, it is better than what the code wants. It is lower, so it is easier access to escape out that egress window. The egress window was something that she thought was needed for escaping fire, and they spent many days talking about the proper egress window. Mr. Carrato explained that is a separate issue from fire safety and the impact of the rest of the house. Trustee Scaletta mentioned talk at one point of possibly tying in smoke detectors into a central area and asked if the Building Department would feel comfortable with that system. Mr. Baldassarra said that is even with a panel but the ones you can buy, they do interconnect. Mr. Touloumis said that by current code is standard anyway. It would not be anything above and beyond what the standard code calls for. Mr. Baldassarra added perhaps if they added additional ones on the lower level where they are not otherwise required. Mr. Touloumis said that could potentially help. Mr. Bondarowicz added that they may just be missing some of that on the plan presented; asking Mr. Craig saw the full version of the plan. Mr. Craig replied that the version presented shows the change to the house, the sheet with the full basement blow up shows the existing there now in the space that is going to be made into the bedroom. He never addressed the smoke detector, no one asked 6 about it particularly. There is a smoke detector shown in the room and it looks like one outside the room, which both would be required by code. It does not spell out the specifics of their interconnection. Mr. Bondarowicz wanted to clarify a couple of things. One related to the ceiling height. The ceiling height for the basement currently, if they want to do anything in this space, is 8 feet. Is that correct? Mr. Touloumis replied, by existing amendments, yes. Mr. Carrato added – to make it habitable. Mr. Bondarowicz said that habitable means that it is a sleeping quarter. If they wanted to just drywall the ceiling and have that be a drywall room with a door, are they allowed to do that or are they not allowed to drywall. Mr. Carrato noted that in Section 305.1.1 it says 7 feet. Mr. Touloumis said that if someone was dry walling an existing space and not changing the use; surely would not prevent or stop someone from doing that. It is the change of use that really makes the difference. Mr. Bondarowicz said the reason he is bringing this up is because this is going to continue to come up. There is something else that he has seen come through the Building Department where there is another question of being under 8 feet, under a steel beam and it cannot be living space. It is tied into something else that is being discussed right now and was submitted. As it stands to the code, this cannot even be dry walled right now. Mr. Baldassarra said the issue is habitability. Mr. Bondarowicz asked, is it a sewing room, is it a storage room, or somebody’s office, does that make it habitable? Mr. Touloumis said the declaration of the type of use is a critical element; you have to declare what you are doing in the room. If you say sewing room, den, great room, rec room, yes, that is habitable; if you say storage or utility it falls under a different use category and different rules kick in. Mr. Bondarowicz said that as a result of this being declared as bedroom, you are enforcing these guidelines. Part two to that question, is that a smoke detector would be required in this room as a bedroom, a smoke detector would be required in the hallway, which it appears to be shown. If this were a remodel of the upstairs, also, then all of these smoke detectors would have to be hardwired together. Mr. Craig said that is correct. Mr. Bondarowicz asked; in this instance what would the requirement be even if the ceiling height was 8 foot 9 inches, would it just be the two? Mr. Craig thought no, he would say you should interconnect all of them in the house, the ones in the bedrooms upstairs, the ones in the hallway upstairs, should be interconnected so that any one activation would set the alarm off in all of them. Mr. Bondarowicz added that these are not shown on this plan. Mr. Touloumis asked if he was talking about if they were remodeling the first floor. The code requires that if you are doing remodel work and you have the walls open that you then need to bring the smoke detector interconnections up to code. If you are just painting and changing 7 trim, we would not say you need to open walls when not in the plan for that scope of work. Mr. Bondarowicz asked that in this instance where there is potentially a bedroom in the basement, and there is a smoke detector in the hallway, and what they are suggesting maybe is additional smoke detectors in the basement, the question would be, does code require those, in this instance, to be hardwired to the upstairs smoke detectors, even if you are not remodeling. Mr. Touloumis replied, no. However, if the pipe that is already feeding the ones upstairs comes down and you have electrical pipe and the interconnect wire is there in the junction box, then it make good common sense to go ahead and tie into the other ones upstairs. Some of that is dependent on a field call, dependent on what existing circumstances. Mr. Bondarowicz explained the disadvantage of not having their architect there to present alternatives to be more palatable to this Board, the Building Department, the Fire Department and the overall Village. They are trying to figure out what some of these suggestions could be if the Architect could present that would make this more acceptable to the Building and Fire Departments. One suggestion is that if this was a more substantial remodel, you would have a smoke detector that is in the basement that would be interconnected to the one that is upstairs. In the drawing, it appears to be that if the smoke detector goes off downstairs, nobody upstairs knows. It is a life safety question, if someone is in the basement sleeping and the alarm goes off in the basement, no one upstairs may hear it and vice versa. Mr. Carrato recommended to table this and explained to the Petitioners to come back with recommendations that would satisfy their concerns with fire safety. He asked if the sense is what was described is sufficient; do we think we would want a sprinkling system or is it enough to interconnect smoke detectors between the floors. Mr. Baldassarra said the sprinkler system is a much better level of protection than smoke detection, it responds quickly and puts fires out. Then again, if you didn’t put sprinklers on the first floor and that is where the fire is, people still have to get out from the basement through the first floor, although you have the escape window. It would be good to look into the sprinkler system option. With the additional smoke detectors beyond what is required on the lower level and an interconnection of them, he feels ok about it. Ms. Gerstung inquired about the tabling procedure and returning to the Board. Mr. Carrato explained the process and entertained a motion to table. TRUSTEE SCALETTA MOTIONED TO TABLE THIS ISSUE; SECONDED BY MR. SMITH, THE ISSUE WAS TABLED. The meeting adjourned at 7:22pm. 8  Item: Continuance of May 11, 2017 Meeting Department: Building & Life Safety Request Continuance of May 11th, 2017 meeting pertaining 601 E. Maude Avenue, Petitioner, Bonnie Gerstung, for a variance request from Section R305.1 of Chapter 23 of the Arlington Heights Municipal Code for a ceiling height variance in their basement. ATTACHMENTS: Description Type Revision Submittal Correspondence