By Laura Clark
During the last two weeks, the Lexington Division of Fire and Emergency Services inspected random houses in residential neighborhoods around campus, Mayor Jim Newberry said at a news conference on Friday.
The inspections were part of National Fire Prevention Week and provided a “real example of how important (Fire Week) is,†Newberry said.
Lexington Fire Marshal James Branham said about 14 houses were inspected. Twelve had violations, and seven of the houses had “serious†violations.
Lexington Fire Marshal James Branham spoke at a news conference with Mayor Jim Newberry, right, addressing safety fire code violations in houses around UK's campus in the Government Building on Friday. Photo by Adam Wolffbrandt | Staff
Branham said those facilities either had non-working smoke detectors in bedrooms or padlocks were used to secure doors.
Newberry said in addition to inspecting houses for fire code violations, the fire department would be looking for violations of zoning codes. He said if overcrowding issues were found in properties inspected, necessary measures would be taken.
“We will work with the council to identify … change zoning laws,†Newberry said.
Newberry said areas will continue to be monitored, and more properties will be investigated for violations.
Along with Newberry and Branham, Student Government president Ryan Smith and representatives of the Lexington Police Department were present at the conference.
Smith said the inspections had taken a priority over the current Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Housing Planning Committee’s housing proposal, but he was not speaking for the mayor or the council.
“The zoning regulations that (Newberry) brought up kind of hinted at a lot of things,” Smith said. “But it’s more just enforcing a law that’s already on the books.”
Smith said the university is involved with the housing proposal and the recent fire safety inspections to some degree, but its involvement “boils down to” interpretations of whether or not the public feels UK is responsible for the supervision of students off campus.
“Students choose to live off campus for a reason,” Smith said. “They have the freedom to live off campus and live their own lives … and shouldn’t be subjected to university oversight.”
In the midst of all of the recent attempts to regulate student housing that has been perpetrated by certain members of the L.F.U.C.G. and their various boards am i the only one who finds the actions taken by the mayor and the city Marshall just a little suspicious? With all of the potential harm that this bill could render upon our campus i believe that we should all be suspicious. By no means am I saying that these codes do not need to be enforced but i do know this, in the past few weeks the planning committee has held two separate meetings and has used violations such as the ones above as ammunition for their cause, i would not be surprised if mayor Newberry comes out in support of the planning committees proposals in the coming weeks and uses his findings for support.