A-3743

Sponsored by: Assemblyman WAYNE P. DEANGELO District 14 (Mercer and Middlesex)

STATEMENT

This bill requires a bidder on any contract for the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, renovation, preservation, or improvement of any public building or of any public work to be paid for in whole or in part with or out of public funds, to include in the bid documents detailed information on all fire safety features that will be included in that project. If a bidder does not propose the use of a sprinkler system to suppress fires and proposes, instead, the use of an alternative technology, that bidder must provide a written explanation in the bid documents of why the alternative technology should be used instead of a sprinkler system, including a cost-benefit analysis of both a sprinkler system and the alternative technology.

Although the vast majority of buildings built or repaired using public funds have a sprinkler system, the committee seeks to reinforce that all available fire suppression techniques that could be applied were examined and studied, as the committee is reminded of the Boland Hall fire at Seton Hall University, where three students died and many more were injured. In that case, there was no fire sprinkler suppression system, even if the building itself was up to code.