PRINTER'S NO. 1357
No. 1151 Session of 1977
INTRODUCED BY PITTS, A. K. HUTCHINSON, PETRARCA, ZELLER,
SIRIANNI, VROON, KLINGAMAN, LEHR, DeVERTER AND MANMILLER,
MAY 24, 1977
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT, MAY 24, 1977
AN ACT
1 Requiring municipalities to enact and enforce fire prevention
2 and building codes.
3 The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
4 hereby enacts as follows:
5 Section 1. Every municipality shall enact and enforce both
6 suitable fire prevention and building codes, and provide for the
7 enforcement thereof by a suitable fine, and by instituting
8 appropriate actions or proceedings, at law or in equity, to
9 effect the purposes of this provision and ordinances thereunder.
10 Upon the recommendation of the fire companies in the
11 municipality, such fire prevention and building code ordinances
12 or resolutions shall provide for the appointment of a building
13 inspector and his qualifications who shall have the authority to
14 inspect for preplanning all buildings, structures, or other
15 places in the municipality excepting, however, the interior of a
16 private dwelling, where any combustible material, including
17 waste paper, rags, shaving, waste, leather, rubber, crates,
1 boxes, barrels, rubbish or other combustible material that is or
2 may become dangerous as a fire menace to such building or
3 buildings, structure or other places has been allowed to
4 accumulate or where such chief or his designated representative
5 has reason to believe that such material of a combustible nature
6 has accumulated or is liable to be accumulated. Such fire
7 prevention and building codes shall not be advertised by
8 publication of the full text thereof, and, in place of such
9 complete advertisement, an informative notice of intention to
10 consider such proposed fire prevention and building codes, and a
11 brief summary, setting forth the principal provisions of such
12 proposed fire prevention and building codes in such reasonable
13 detail as will give adequate notice of their contents and a
14 reference to the place or places within the borough where copies
15 of such proposed fire prevention and building codes may be
16 examined or obtained shall be published once in one newspaper of
17 general circulation in the municipality at least one week and
18 not more than three weeks prior to the presentation of the
19 proposed fire prevention and building codes to the council,
20 supervisors and commissioners of the municipality, as the case
21 may be. No further advertisement or notice need be published
22 following enactment of the fire prevention and building codes.
23 The fire prevention and building codes may be adopted by
24 reference to standard fire prevention and building codes, or to
25 parts thereof, determined by the council, supervisors or
26 commissioners, as the case may be, or the provisions of the
27 codes may be supplied by reference to typed or printed fire
28 prevention and building codes, prepared under the direction of
29 or accepted by the council, supervisors or commissioners, as the
30 case may be, or the provisions may consist of standard codes, or
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1 parts thereof, and also further provisions typed or printed as
2 aforesaid. Copies of the fire prevention and building codes thus
3 adopted by reference shall be made available to any interested
4 party at the cost thereof, or may be furnished or loaned without
5 charge. Such fire prevention and building codes need not be
6 recorded in or attached to the ordinance book, but shall be
7 deemed to have been legally recorded if the ordinance by which
8 such fire prevention and building codes were adopted by
9 reference shall have been recorded, with an accompanying
10 notation stating where the full text of the fire prevention and
11 building codes shall have been filed.
12 Section 2. This act shall take effect in 60 days.
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