By Daniel Newhauser – Cronkite News Service

Laura Gentile said she rests easier knowing that she, her husband and her 16-year-old daughter live under a ceiling sporting fire sprinklers.

“I for sure feel safer with them,” she said from the doorway of her home in a new development.

Since 1986, Scottsdale has required all new single-family detached homes to be equipped with fire sprinklers. Jim Ford, Scottsdale’s fire marshal, said he knows of 13 people who are alive because of the ordinance.

“There’s no question that sprinklers save lives and property,” he said. “A little bit of water early saves everybody resources.”

Calling it an issue of consumer choice, Rep. Sam Crump, R-Anthem, is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit other municipalities from passing ordinances to require sprinklers in new, detached single-family homes.

“There’s always people every year at every level of government that have good ideas of what they want people to do,” Crump said. “We want to keep it in the consumer’s realm of choices.”

Crump also said he wants to avoid a patchwork of different rules in different communities.

HB2267 won endorsement from the House Government Committee on Jan. 27 and was headed to the House floor by way of the Rules Committee.

Several groups representing home builders and Realtors registered support for the bill. The Arizona League of Cities and Towns, Arizona Fire Marshals Association and Arizona Fire Chiefs Association were among more than 30 groups and individuals registering opposition.

Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, who cast the only vote against the bill in committee, said the measure would endanger the public and first responders.

“Bottom line: Fire sprinklers save lives,” he said in an interview.

Campbell added that the state shouldn’t prevent communities from simply considering the issue.

“I’m not even saying it’s right for every community,” he said. “Each community should make its own choice.”

The bill wouldn’t affect Scottsdale and other Arizona municipalities that already require sprinklers in new single-family homes, including Cottonwood, Carefree, Cave Creek, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills.

Phoenix and Glendale require sprinklers in homes of 5,000 square feet or more. Mesa requires that buyers of new homes have the option of adding sprinklers.

In September, the International Code Council, a group that makes recommendations on residential and building codes, called for sprinklers in new one- and two-family homes beginning in 2011. Many communities nationwide use the council’s recommendations as the basis for regulating new home construction.

Spencer Kamps, a spokesman for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, said that a sprinkler system can cost as much as $10,000 in some rural areas where systems would require a water tank.

“The homeowner pays for that in the price of the home,” he said.

Ford, Scottsdale’s fire marshal, that said fire sprinklers in his city, where systems connect to water mains, cost around $1 to $1.50 per square foot. That makes the cost $2,000 to $3,000 for a 2,000-square-foot home.

“Nobody that I’m aware of in my 20-plus years in Scottsdale has not bought a house because of the sprinkler system,” he said.

Mike Casson, the fire chief in Cottonwood, which has required sprinklers in new homes since 2004, said he doesn’t understand why anyone would want to take away a community’s right to decide the level of safety it wants.

“I’ve rarely been so passionate about anything that can make such a long term difference in the safety of our community for decades to come,” he said.

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