Homeowners_of_Texas

'Good exchange of arguments here, but a Texas legislative battle over fire sprinklers resulted in something more devious - the State preventing local ordinance making, including requiring stricter building codes to save lives. We gathered several articles (http://tinyurl.com/lx2zag) that describe a national movement and a Texas builder-written amendment that was added to a plumbing bill on the last day of the 81st legislative session and went largely unnoticed. By rejecting these stronger building codes and preventing municipalities from adopting them, Texas positioned itself as a laggard behind more progressive states and nations.

Builders lobbying for this amendment argued that fire sprinkler systems add too much cost to homes and that only sprinkler companies would benefit. Their REAL CONCERN, however, was more likely that the systems, installed by subcontractors, would add another source of construction defects that could increase their liability.

HOT believes that the added cost would be small if sprinklers were mandatory but very large if they were optional. That's because builders would be able to price them artificially high to discourage a choice that they clearly don't want consumers to make.

Gov. Rick Perry was caught between his buddies in the powerful homebuilder's lobby, with their large campaign contributions, and a public safety issue that attacks municipal rights and nullifies existing statues for cities that already have adopted the new building codes. Perry's own Governor's Mansion would have been spared by sprinkler systems, but instead it burned down. And since he often argued against federal legislation that infringes on states' rights, we thought he'd find it difficult to oppose the rights of municipalities to set local building codes. In the end however, he signed the bill into law, and it seems that [builder] money does talk.