Sprinkler Law Angers Residents of High-Rise

Robert M. Reich moved into his condominium in Verdugo Towers in 1966, one year after Glendale’s first residential high-rise was completed.

After paying $71,000 for an 11th-floor penthouse, Reich and his wife prepared for the quiet life of retirement, amid views spanning the San Fernando Valley and its cradling mountains.

The only fires they have worried about, the couple said, are the periodic blazes in the nearby Verdugo Hills, which are perfectly framed in the 9-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling windows of their living room.

But unlike any other high-rise residential building in the region, Verdugo Towers has no sprinkler system, and for that oversight the building’s residents face criminal prosecution. Owners of the 51 units in the building were notified last week that they face as much as six months in jail and $500 in fines for not complying with city fire codes.

“I’d be willing to go to jail before they make me do anything,” Reich, 83, said, reflecting on the residents’ nine-year fight with the city. “This is crazy. They want me to pay to install the fire sprinklers so I’ll be safe. But when I’m done paying for them, I won’t be able to afford living here anymore.”

Estimates for sprinkler installation throughout the building range from less than $100,000 to more than $1 million. The city estimated the cost per condo at $25,000.

Even with a fire station next door to Verdugo Towers, city officials are giving the building’s residents no choice but to comply with the sprinkler law.

“It’s ridiculous how they deal with code enforcement here,” said Reich, echoing concerns voiced but other residents, most of whom are elderly and retired. “This building is safe. It’s all electric and made from concrete and steel. It won’t burn down.”

But city Fire Marshall David Starr said that to allow the building to remain without fire sprinklers is not only unsafe, but unfair to the other building owners in the city who complied with the city’s amended code.

“We feel we’ve come up with a very workable solution, but there are still homeowners who like to do nothing at all,” Starr said.

In 1989, the city passed an ordinance requiring that all high-rise buildings built before 1974--when a city law mandated the installation of fire sprinklers--be retrofitted with sprinklers. A total of 29 buildings across the city were affected. Verdugo Towers was the only residential building.

“We’re not picking on them,” said City Atty. Scott Howard, noting that Verdugo Towers is Glendale’s only building not in compliance. “We want to bring them up to code, because that’s what is safest and best for the residents of Verdugo Towers.”

Every high-rise residential building in the region is outfitted with sprinklers, according to city officials in Los Angeles, Pasadena and Burbank. Loath to allow the one building unequipped with a sprinkler system to continue courting danger, Glendale officials said Verdugo Towers will be retrofitted, whether the residents like it or not.

“When this began, we gave the residents more than five years to come into compliance,” Howard said, referring to last year’s missed deadline for installing sprinkler systems in the public areas of the building. “They never did. And now, we don’t have a choice but to take legal action.”

The residents challenged the ordinance in federal court in 1992, and when a judge ruled against them, they appealed. When a federal appellate court again upheld the city’s power to require sprinklers, the residents asked Glendale to grant them a variance.

The council denied the variance in December 1995 and gave condominium owners until 2000 to install sprinklers in private quarters, and until last month to put sprinklers in public areas.

No work was done, and the notices were mailed last week.

Residents don’t deny that the city has a legitimate concern, but, they argue, the issue has become one of economics, not safety.

“Many of the residents here simply don’t have the money,” said Scott Alberts, chairman of the building’s board of governors. “There’s no real concern here that the building will burn.”

In response, the city has offered the residents taxpayer-financed loans and grants to help defray the costs, said Gillian van Muyden, deputy city attorney, who mailed the notices to residents Monday.

To qualify for a loan of $25,000, which is roughly what the city estimates it would take to retrofit an individual condominium with a sprinkler system, residents of a two-person household must be 62 years or older and earn between $32,000 and $49,250 per year. To qualify for a grant of $7,500, residents of two-person household must be at least 62 years old and earn less than $32,000 per year.

So far, 20 loans and grants have been approved, Van Muyden said. The residents of the remaining 31 units either did not qualify for the need-based loans or did not apply, she said.

Which prompted the residents to raise yet another concern: Is it fair that public money be used to help select residents deal with property concerns?

“Why should Glendale tax money be used?” Alberts said. “And it’s discriminatory. Only some residents qualify, and others don’t.”

Reich said he applied and is awaiting approval. His downstairs neighbor, Jack Hildreth, did not, because he didn’t qualify, he said.

“I’ll hold out as long as possible,” Hildreth said. “Anyway, the type of sprinklers they’re talking about will devalue my home.”

Exasperated city officials said that the residents are looking for any argument they can find to delay or derail the city’s plans for sprinklers in Verdugo Towers.

“I don’t want to see anyone going to jail over this,” Howard said. “But they can’t drag their feet forever.”

Forever, maybe not. But some residents said they won’t go along without a fight, or, rather, without prolonging the fight.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’ll go to jail before I do this,” Reich said.

His wife, sitting nearby reading a newspaper, peered over her paper and rolled her eyes.

“I will,” he said.