LA City Council seeks new requirement for high-rises to install fire sprinklers

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday called on staff to develop new regulations that would require all residential high-rise buildings to install fire sprinkler suppression systems.

In a 10-0 vote, the City Council instructed various departments to draft such a policy and recommendations to ensure any existing tenancies be maintained throughout an installation process either on-site or off-site in comparable units — unless tenants voluntarily accept relocation assistance.

Council members Hugo Soto-Martinez and John Lee, seconded by Eunisses Hernandez and Imelda Padilla, introduced the motion in December 2024.

“The core mission of the city of Los Angeles is to ensure a safe living environment for all of its residents,” the motion reads. “Throughout the years the city has adopted policies to help strengthen building and fire codes that ensure when a tragic event happens that risk is minimized for everyone.”

City officials reported 53 residential high-rise buildings in Los Angeles that do not have sprinkler systems for fire suppression.

“It is critical that we begin the process of ensuring the safety for the residents of these properties. It must include a process that does not require any tenant to be permanently displaced out of their unit and any passed through costs needs to be calculated in a way that minimizes the impact on the current occupant,” the motion reads.

Such work has been mandated before through the Non-ductile Concrete Retrofit program and Sprinkler Retrofit program of commercial high-rise buildings, prompted by the First Interstate Bank Building fire in 1988.

Council members said the city can look to implement requirements that were made in those programs.

City Council members Adrin Nazarian, Traci Park, Curren Price, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez were absent during the vote.