LA Modifies Fire Code Requirement For All Skyscrapers To Be Topped With Helipad
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — City officials and local business leaders Monday announced a change to a half-century old fire code that required all tall buildings in the city of Los Angeles to be topped by helicopter landing pads.
Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas and Councilman Jose Huizar were among those on hand atop the AT&T Tower helipad in downtown L.A. to announce the change, which officials say will allow for more iconic architecture in the city's skyline while implementing cutting-edge fire-life safety measures and systems in modern high-rise buildings.
KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports Los Angeles - which is home to 745 of the state's 1,700 high-rises - is the only American city that requires flat rooftop helipads.
LA Modifies Fire Code Requirement For All Skyscrapers To Be Topped With Helipad
Established in 1958, the Los Angeles Fire Department's "Requirement No. 10" was aimed at ensuring its firefighting helicopters would have access to some of the city's biggest skyscrapers.
But under the revised policy, new buildings between 420 and 1,000 feet tall would be exempt from the helipad requirement, officials said. The buildings would instead need to have stairways, elevators, automatic sprinkler systems and video cameras that ensure safety, access and escape routes for firefighters and building occupants during emergencies.
Huizar, who worked to allow the under-construction Wilshire Grand hotel to include a modified helipad and a 100-foot spire, said the new policy will balance firefighting safety measures with the flexibility to allow for pitched-roof building designs seen in other world-class cities.
"After decades of drab, flat-roof designs, the skyscrapers of tomorrow will be bold, unique and imaginative, matching the (city's) well-earned reputation as the creative capital of the world," Huizar said.
Once completed, the 73-story Wilshire Grand will be 1,100 feet when built, surpassing the height of the U.S. Bank Tower, currently the tallest building in Los Angeles at 1,018 feet.
Despite increasing calls to modernize LA's skyline, a Wall Street Journal article from Oct. 2001 suggested adoption of the city's helipad requirement may have helped save more people from the World Trade Center in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack in New York City.
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
