Homeowners, don’t get burnt on rebuild

An open letter to the City Council:

My wife and I are Huntington Beach residents living in the Beachwalk Development (Yorktown and Golden West). We have happily lived in this community for 17 years.

One of the major reasons we purchased a home here in Beachwalk was the fact that this development is a planned-unit development and homeowners have always been allowed (with board approval and appropriate permits from the city) to make improvements to their homes, including room additions.

This year we are in the financial position to do what many other owners have done before us: Add 144 square feet to our home. As good homeowners we are taking all the proper steps to accomplish this task in a timely manner following all the rules, code upgrades, etc (which are significant) put forth by the city of Huntington Beach.

The approval of our planned addition has been stopped cold by the Fire Department and its interpretation of an obscure requirement in the city code that implies that we would need to install sprinklers in all seven homes in our group of attached homes, which would make the cost of any addition prohibitive. The afore-mentioned code specifically says “may be required,” which leaves the decision up to an individual or individuals to use their judgment. It is not specific to residential homes but it does mention that, if there are potential access problems to the structures, sprinklers “may be required.” Anyone that has ever visited Beachwalk is aware that there are no access problems in this community.

I had a meeting with members of the Fire Department and expressed my dismay at this apparent roadblock and they informed me they would take my request under advisement. Since that meeting I have realized that even If I am given approval to proceed it does nothing for the rest of the homeowners in Huntington Beach, who will have the same problem in the future. Thus my communication with you, the leaders of our city.

My wife and I are volunteers for the Fire Departments program S.H.I.P. (Senior Home Inspection Program, supervised by Martha Werth) and are very aware of the possible fire hazards in the home. We have inspected many homes in our community and do our part to assure we live in a safe environment.

We are also Realtors and have an educated idea of what does and doesn’t affect property values. Using this obscure requirement to place restrictions on room additions (of any size) can only hurt values of attached homes in our city. In essence, the Fire Department’s interpretation of this code would mean that no more additions could be made to any Beachwalk home and most likely any other multi-family dwelling in Huntington Beach.

There are 453 attached homes in our complex and all but one group of two or more attached homes would fall under this rule. We find ourselves and everyone else in Huntington Beach who live in attached homes built before January 2006 unable to add a single square foot of living space to our homes without incurring an additional potentially huge expense of adding sprinklers to the entire group of attached homes. Not to mention that the chances of getting all seven homeowners (many who have performed extensive interior remodeling) to agree to these invasive modifications to their homes is not likely to happen.

I am confident that there are no statistics (regarding fires in attached homes in our community) that would support such an extreme measure. The idea of forcing everyone in our group of homes to install sprinklers so we or anyone else can add a few extra square feet of living space is hardly feasible.

It is easy to understand and comply to installing sprinkler systems in new homes when they are being built from the ground up. But implying that when improving your home, all existing structures over 5,000 square feet gross need to be retrofitted with sprinklers just doesn’t make sense.

We sincerely hope that you can assist in resolving this problem and allow homeowners in Huntington Beach to continue to make improvements to their abodes.