why has adequate fire protection has not been factored into the project?
- There are two main reasons: cost, and to discourage future development (the supplementary memo indicates that 127 additional dwelling units could be serviced. Zoning is the sole protection against this development otherwise, which is easily changed by one vote of Council. And, although this area is outside the urban containment boundaries, and is not zoned for urban services, the watermain proponents have refused to allow restrictive covenants to be placed on properties so that properties could not be subdivided if a water main were to be installed.
- In order to have adequate fire protection factored into the project, the system would need to be upgraded all the way back to the Saanichton PRV on Central Saanich Road. 2006 Cost estimates detailed in the Bullock Baur report as "Option 2" state that estimated costs to service this option would be: $3,780,000.00. Page 3 of the Executive Summary to this report states:
- The executive summary also contains information on Fire Flow. It reads:
" Fire flow calculation is largely dependent on type of house construction, total floor area, and exposure to adjacent structures. With the wide range of house sizes in the area, the required flow would rand from 67L/s to 116L/s. for this study, it was necessary to determine a fire flow that would meet an acceptable risk tolerance while ensuring the viability of the project. "
- The size of dwelling necessitates requirements for larger lines with respect to fire protection. Section #2 of the supplementary Bullock Baur report also mentions this, stating:
"given the large floor areas of the homes in this area, the available flow would not offer adequate fire protection."
Senanus homes currently listed provide information regarding the scale of square footage being discussed.
- The main Bullock Baur Report, page 6, has a section on Fire Flows. It reads:
"2.2 fire flow requirement
Fire flow requirement for existing residential homes were determined using guidelines outlined by Fire Underwriter Survey (FUS). Factors such as type of construction, total floor areas of the building, fire hazard nature of the occupancies, availability of sprinkler system, and exposure to adjacent structures were taken into account in the calculations. The fireflow requirement is largely correlated to the size of house." ... "to provide the high fire flow requirement for the estate homes on Senanus drive would be cost prohibitive, due to requirement of the larger new pipes and significant upgrades to the existing infrastructure." (Bullock Baur report, 2006, page 6, section 2.2)
The full Bullock Baur report is available here:
Relevant information from the plumbing code is available here:
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