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Short term emergency warming shelter

P

Plumb-bob

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Joined
Aug 31, 2022
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294
Location
BC
We have an application coming in from a government body to create an emergency warming shelter. The existing building is a Pt9, 2 storey mixed use C and D and is a real beater. The proposal is to block access to the top floor and put up to 26 beds on the ground floor for a single season of use. Of course this comes to me at the end of September when there is already snow on the mountain tops.

To bring this building to full code compliance in the near term is not feasible and they will be asking for relaxations. We will be requiring basic life/safety upgrades but not much more. There will be known deficiencies.

There are major liability implications for this, how do I limit my own liability? If my employer formally tells me to allow this project despite the known deficiencies are they then taking the risk?
 
Document everything. Tell everybody you want conversations in email and save copies. Also, recommend to your employer that they run this by their lawyers first. If they do and get the green light, and you have your paper trail, you will be just fine. IMHO
 
Yes we are getting a legal opinion and everything will be well documented.

I had another BO share a policy adopted by their town council for this purpose, which seems the best way forward.
 
Plumb-bob said:
from a government body to create an emergency warming shelter
Click to expand...
Is it your government body or a different one? Make sure you can easily pull the plug on the use if conditions are not met.

Below is what is going on in my town's warming center. This is just the beginning of the headaches and potential lawsuits for the city

https://flatheadbeacon.com/2024/05/14/residents-divided-over-impacts-of-flathead-warming-center/

www.kpax.com

Kalispell City Council revokes conditional use permit for Flathead Warming Center

The Kalispell City Council revoked the conditional use permit for the Flathead Warming Center on a 6-3 vote Monday evening.
www.kpax.com www.kpax.com
 
This proposed facility is supposed to only be for this winter, and the building will then be demo'd to make room for a 40 bed supportive housing complex.

It is a good insight that these same issues are widespread.
 
In our code, we have a lot of leeway with temporary stuff.. When you’re doing a plan review or any kind of analysis ask the designer or whoever’s responsible what their trade offs are for any shortcomings on the safety side. If they have no answer, that’s not good, but if they have some kind of answer that you accept at least it’s not you suggesting or designing it.
 
I've done a little bit of reading on BC's Building Act, but am by no means an expert.

There does not appear to be any delineation between permanent or temporary uses. This is logical as the building is either safe for occupancy or it is not.

As an official you do have some professional discretion, but that does not allow you to completely ignore the code. The government agency has a responsibility to provide a safe building for these people. I would ask the gov. agency how they are addressing the code issues.

Ultimately, if you are not satisfied that the building meets the objectives of the code, you cannot approve an occupancy permit.
 
tmurray said:
I've done a little bit of reading on BC's Building Act, but am by no means an expert.

There does not appear to be any delineation between permanent or temporary uses. This is logical as the building is either safe for occupancy or it is not.

As an official you do have some professional discretion, but that does not allow you to completely ignore the code. The government agency has a responsibility to provide a safe building for these people. I would ask the gov. agency how they are addressing the code issues.

Ultimately, if you are not satisfied that the building meets the objectives of the code, you cannot approve an occupancy permit.
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Im down with all of this.

I have a draft policy for our Town Council to consider that states we will not enforce building or fire codes, or zoning bylaw, for a temporary emergency shelter. This will put the legal responsibility onto Council. Regardless, I am going to make sure my name is not the signing authority for this.

We get temps into the -40C for some periods every year, and we have had cold related fatalities with our homeless population.
 
The way I'm reading the Building Act, the council could do this, but would need to approach the minister for a variation (unless you're Vancouver or First Nations).

Possible? Yes. Likely? Nope.

Unless council is OK to do this illegally. But they wouldn't do that right? LOL
 
Plumb-bob said:
We have an application coming in from a government body to create an emergency warming shelter. The existing building is a Pt9, 2 storey mixed use C and D and is a real beater. The proposal is to block access to the top floor and put up to 26 beds on the ground floor for a single season of use.
Click to expand...

A neighbouring municipality (which we do not provide services for) has had a similar situation. I believe the Fire Marshal treated this as an A2 occupancy, not a C occupancy. One of the mitigating factors are concerns that homeless folks are over-represented when it comes to cognitive challenges due to either mental illness or substance use.

One relaxation the OFM did allow was counting beds as single-person occupancy. However, you're still into an occupancy of 26 potentially sleeping people, which triggers all those lovely alarm requirements.

Barrier-free considerations also.

Washrooms.

Blocking access to the second storey doesn't change the fact the second storey exists. Is there F/R drywall on the ceilings and supporting walls (or, if it's an old building, lath and plaster on wire mesh you can give a rating to under appendix D)?

Plumb-bob said:
To bring this building to full code compliance in the near term is not feasible and they will be asking for relaxations. We will be requiring basic life/safety upgrades but not much more. There will be known deficiencies.
Click to expand...

As a professional, you have professional obligations that your employer ought not force you to subvert. If it's not suitable for occupancy, and can't be brought into code compliance, you have an obligation to state as much. The only way around it not meeting the prescriptive requirements of Part 9 would be to have an Alternative Solutions proposal, and potentially - as someone else suggested - a fire plan. Otherwise, if you issue a permit for the change of occupancy knowing it doesn't meet Code, I am of the belief you're assuming liability for whatever goes wrong -regardless of what your bosses tell you to do.
 
I assume that an emergency warming shelter is activated via a local, regional or state declaration of emergency. Such declarations may already have guidelines as to alternate means of code compliance.
Here in California, many school gyms and other areas are utilized as evacuation shelters during wildfire events.
There was an Appendix P added to the IBC related to our slow-rolling homelessness crisis, based on a declaration of housing emergency:
https://up.codes/viewer/california/ca-building-code-2022/chapter/P/emergency-housing#P

Excerpts:

P103.2 Existing Buildings​


Existing residential and nonresidential buildings or structures shall be permitted to be used as emergency housing and emergency housing facilities provided such buildings or structures comply with the building code provisions and/or other regulations in effect at the time of original construction and/or alteration. Existing buildings or structures used as emergency housing shall not become or continue to be substandard buildings, as determined by the enforcing agency.

P103.2.1 New Additions, Alterations and Change of Occupancy​


New additions, alterations and change of occupancy to existing buildings shall comply with the requirements of the California Building Standards Code effective at the time of addition, alteration or change of occupancy. The requirements shall apply only to and/or within the specific area of the addition, alteration or change of occupancy.
Exception: Existing buildings and structures used for emergency housing and emergency housing facilities may not be required to comply with the California Energy Code, as determined by the enforcing agency.

P103.3 Occupant Load​


Except as otherwise stated in this appendix, the maximum occupant load allowed in buildings and structures used as emergency housing shall be determined by the enforcing agency, but the interior floor area shall not be less than 70 square feet (6.5 m2) for one occupant. Where more than one person occupies the building/structure, the required floor area shall be increased at the rate of 50 square feet (4.65 m2) for each occupant in excess of one.
Exceptions:
  1. Tents.
  2. Recreational vehicles and park trailers designed for human habitation that meet the requirements in the Health and Safety Code, Sections 18009.3 and 18010, as applicable.
  3. For emergency housing, including emergency sleeping cabins, the minimum interior floor area may be reduced to 53 square feet (4.9 m2) if the enforcing agency determines that 53 square feet (4.9 m2) is adequate space for a single-occupancy sleeping unit.

P103.4 Fire and Life Safety Requirements Not Addressed in This Appendix​


If not otherwise addressed in this appendix, fire and life safety measures, including, but not limited to, means of egress, fire separation, fire sprinklers, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms, shall be determined and enforced by the enforcing agency.
 
Inspector Gadget said:
A neighbouring municipality (which we do not provide services for) has had a similar situation. I believe the Fire Marshal treated this as an A2 occupancy, not a C occupancy. One of the mitigating factors are concerns that homeless folks are over-represented when it comes to cognitive challenges due to either mental illness or substance use.

One relaxation the OFM did allow was counting beds as single-person occupancy. However, you're still into an occupancy of 26 potentially sleeping people, which triggers all those lovely alarm requirements.

Barrier-free considerations also.

Washrooms.

Blocking access to the second storey doesn't change the fact the second storey exists. Is there F/R drywall on the ceilings and supporting walls (or, if it's an old building, lath and plaster on wire mesh you can give a rating to under appendix D)?



As a professional, you have professional obligations that your employer ought not force you to subvert. If it's not suitable for occupancy, and can't be brought into code compliance, you have an obligation to state as much. The only way around it not meeting the prescriptive requirements of Part 9 would be to have an Alternative Solutions proposal, and potentially - as someone else suggested - a fire plan. Otherwise, if you issue a permit for the change of occupancy knowing it doesn't meet Code, I am of the belief you're assuming liability for whatever goes wrong -regardless of what your bosses tell you to do.
Click to expand...
The building will be deficient in all of the points you state above which is why I will not be issuing a permit. My boss can sign it. Or it can be without a permit as per a council resolution. Regardless, I have made it clear that this project will not be approved by me, and my manager fully understands.

I will be suggesting we require a fire alarm system and 24hr fire watch.
 
There has to be overnight staff personnel to over see the occupants just to keep order in any kind of shelter. The people using this facility typically have mental or drug issues. That should address the fire watch concerns.
 
This situation is a good reminder that ultimately all public life-safety decisions are ultimately an act of political will, and we have to be ok with that. Whether following model codes or carving out unique exceptions, “how safe is safe enough?” is a cost/benefit analysis. We can try to find statistical precedent to determine the potential for loss of life in putting people in a non-code compliant but warm building for the night vs. freezing on the streets, but in the end it’s a gut call by the people elected to make gut calls.
 
Yikes said:
This situation is a good reminder that ultimately all public life-safety decisions are ultimately an act of political will, and we have to be ok with that. Whether following model codes or carving out unique exceptions, “how safe is safe enough?” is a cost/benefit analysis. We can try to find statistical precedent to determine the potential for loss of life in putting people in a non-code compliant but warm building for the night vs. freezing on the streets, but in the end it’s a gut call by the people elected to make gut calls.
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The issue in this case would be that the local council has not been delegated the legal authority to decide this. Plumb-bob has. The elected official who can make the call is the minister at the provincial level. The question the minister is going to ask is why is this an emergency now? Winter happens every year. We get these asks all the time. From local governments and from other provincial departments. They want us to vary code/legislation because they forgot or missed something and now it's an emergency. I've never seen the minister actually provide an exception.
 
(Edited this post)
There are two uses of the word "emergency" here.
1. It is called an "emergency" shelter because it will only be used when some political body declares an emergency, either on a case-by-case incident basis, or on a predetermined prescriptive basis (e.g. shelter is allowed to open when temperatures drop to a predetermined level).
2. The use of a building on an emergency basis for a different function than allowed by the adopted code, and not in compliance with the the minimum requirements of the adopted code, requires either:
- new legislation that approves an alternate code for emergency shelters, OR
- the political declaration of an emergency (basically, an ongoing, increasing crisis in homelessness, or something like that) by the minister, which then allows (and should probably indemnify) unelected civil servants who are building officials to deviate from the adopted code.
 
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If the use of the building is based on an emergency declaration from a local government, it could supersede any code requirements. I'm not familiar enough with BC's legislation to say.
 
tmurray said:
More info on this issue: https://www.squamishchief.com/highl...keep-homeless-shelters-open-ubcm-says-9547477
Click to expand...

Well, that was a lot of word salad that said nothing.

Translation: "It's a problem that we should do something about by relaxing the codes, but if we relax the codes we could be sued. We should relax the codes but we shouldn't compromise safety."

Huh?

Typical politician-speak.

Who has authority to modify the code in Canada? In my state, only the legislature can actually amend the code, and only the state building inspector can modify it on a case-by-case basis (and then only if equivalent safety is provided, so that might not help in the case of people sleeping in a non-compliant structure).
 
Yankee Chronicler said:
Well, that was a lot of word salad that said nothing.

Translation: "It's a problem that we should do something about by relaxing the codes, but if we relax the codes we could be sued. We should relax the codes but we shouldn't compromise safety."

Huh?

Typical politician-speak.

Who has authority to modify the code in Canada? In my state, only the legislature can actually amend the code, and only the state building inspector can modify it on a case-by-case basis (and then only if equivalent safety is provided, so that might not help in the case of people sleeping in a non-compliant structure).
Click to expand...
Very similar in Canada.

The National Building Code is functionally created by a federal crown corporation (an arm of the federal government).

It is then adopted as is or adopted with amendments by the province.

The only exception I know of is the City of Vancouver can adopt their own code based on a charter agreement with the Province of BC.

Local AHJs can accept what you call a modification (we call it an alternative solution). With an objective based code, it is a lot easier to have that done at a local level.

This would be a significant break from traditional application of codes. It is troubling to create a lower safety level that is acceptable based on "classes" of people for obvious reasons.
 
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