Nearly nine months after a fire at Iconic Villages Apartments killed five and hurt many more, changes are coming to the San Marcos fire code that will affect commercial properties, including the more than 200 multifamily properties within the city.
At the San Marcos City Council’s work session on Tuesday, Fire Chief Les Stephens and Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner gave a presentation on the amendments, which Stephens described as “housekeeping.” The changes are local amendments to the 2015 International Fire Code. The city adopted the 2015 IFC the year it was issued, but updates are periodically necessary.
“In a book about 2 inches thick, this is probably 30 pages of local amendments,” Stephens said, noting that he and Kistner inherited those amendments from their predecessors. “... We were unsure of the origin and reasoning behind some of those, so we just set about to update those and bring those before you today. They’ll be on the agenda for consideration on the 16th.”
