Sprinkler incentives not hot item for cities

State won't make codes tougher; cities won't pay

Months after the General Assembly approved new incentives for installing fire sprinkler systems, they remain unavailable because not one municipality or county has adopted the tax breaks.

The incentives were meant to encourage people to install sprinkler systems in homes and businesses where they are not required by building codes, but declining government revenues have thrown cold water on the likelihood of the tax breaks becoming widely available.

"I don't know of anybody who's done it, and I don't know if anybody will," said Robert Croom, assistant director of the South Carolina Association of Counties. "At this point, it's a money thing."

"You've got state aid being cut, counties are furloughing people, and this would be one more thing."

The push to encourage sprinkler systems followed two 2007 fires: the Sofa Super Store fire in Charleston in which nine firefighters died, and the house fire in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., that killed seven South Carolina college students.

A study of the Sofa Super Store fire commissioned by the city of Charleston concluded, among other findings, that the fire would have been quickly controlled with only minor damage had there been a sprinkler system.

It's up to local governments that collect property taxes to adopt the incentives, which allow people who install sprinkler systems to recoup half their cost.

There would be a 25 percent tax credit against state income taxes and a 25 percent credit against local property taxes, but only if a local ordinance were adopted.

"Municipalities have the opportunity now," said State Fire Marshal John Reich. "I hope they do the right thing and make the right choices."

Efforts to mandate the installation of sprinkler systems in commercial buildings, first proposed in 2004 after six people died in a fire at a Greenville Comfort Inn, have been repeatedly rejected by state lawmakers.

Charleston officials this year sought legislation that would allow cities to go beyond state building codes in requiring new sprinkler systems, but that effort also failed.

Instead, lawmakers adopted the tax incentives, and without dissent overrode a veto of the measure by Gov. Mark Sanford.

According to the state Municipal Association, only the city of Greer has taken up a sprinkler incentive ordinance, and that ordinance was tabled.

"In my heart, I had hoped that Charleston would be the first to adopt this," Reich said.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said he expects the city will adopt incentives in 2009, but he would have preferred that the state allow the city to adopt tougher building codes.

"Our request to the General Assembly was to give the cities the authority to require (sprinklers)," Riley said. "What we have is an unfunded mandate."

The way the tax incentives are structured, any municipality that adopts the plan would essentially be agreeing to pay a quarter of the cost of each sprinkler system installed in a building where a system would not be required, through a property tax credit.

The state would pay another quarter of the cost, through income tax credits.

The legislation was authored by Republican House and Senate leaders from the Charleston area.

Sen. Glenn McConnell, who sponsored the Senate version of the plan, said he was disappointed to learn no municipality or county has adopted the incentives.

"That's disappointing news," he said. "I had hoped there would be some forward motion on that."

Rep. Bobby Harrell, who sponsored the House version, said that because no one has adopted the incentives, the Legislature must take another look at them.

"It's important that we cause more buildings to have the safety features that save lives," Harrell said.

The Municipal Association has prepared a model ordinance for municipalities that may be considering adopting the incentives. It has been available for about two weeks.

"I think they don't have a real big political push (to adopt the incentives), from what I hear from council members and mayors," said Ed Schafer, legislative counsel for the association.

The same legislation that created the incentives also prohibits water systems from charging fees to connect new sprinkler systems that exceed the system's actual costs. Regardless of the fate of the tax incentives, that part of the measure will reduce the cost of new systems in many areas.

The legislation, Act 357, also requires that new sprinkler systems not be counted as building improvements, for the purpose of assessing property taxes.

Charleston Water System eliminated all of its sprinkler-related connection fees last year after The Post and Courier wrote about the charges, which could amount to more than $100,000 for large commercial buildings.

Reich said the water system in Columbia charged a $26,500 fee to connect a sprinkler system in the state's new urban search and rescue fire training building this year.

"I had contracted for the system before the law was passed," he said.

Yvonne Wenger contributed to this report.

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