Question: In March of this year a home in our community was destroyed by fire. During the application process with the city and Marion County, it came to our attention that the Fire Marshall had contacted the city public works department, telling them that they needed to be contacted if our community made any placement applications to move a new home into the community. The city would not accept our application.
Upon contacting the assistant Fire Marshall, she advised that any new homes within the community would have to be located within 600 feet of a fire hydrant. She advised that this has been the requirement for approximately the last 15 years. She explained that although there have been homes allowed to be placed in the park exceeding this distance within that time frame, the fact that they were more than 600 feet from the hydrant was apparently not an issue.
She further explained that the fire engines carry 600 feet of fire hose, and that during the March fire the responding fire fighters ran out of hose prior to reaching the fire. A second fire engine was needed lay additional hose to the scene. She said that until a solution was made to be able to supply a suitable water supply for firefighting, no homes could be placed in the park that are located more than 600 feet from the hydrant.
As an older park where the homes are quite vintage, this will obviously cause a major blow to our business in the future. Are we in anyway protected or somehow "grandfathered" due to the age of our park? I can't imagine that we are the only park that may face similar situations.