PORTLAND, Maine — Ever since last month's deadly fire in Portland, questions are being asked about whether or not the property on Noyes Street should have been classified as a boarding house, or rooming house.
It's an important distinction because rooming houses typically require stricter fire safety measures. But the line between "rooming house" and "single family home" is not as clear as it could be.
Next month, the City of Portland's Fire Prevention's task force reconvenes for Phase Two of its action plan to revise the city's fire and building codes policy.
Among the issues that will be considered is "building use." In other words, what a property is being used for, and whether it meets the relevant fire safety requirements.
For example, in the case of 20 Noyes St. — where six young adults died in a fire last month — some are suggesting it was being run as a boarding house. But how is a boarding house defined?
According to independent consultant Mark Cummings, that depends on a range of a measures and metrics "that can be used to determine whether or not boarding houses are providing adequate life safety for tenants."
Cummings is president of Fire Risk Management Inc. in Bath, an engineering firm that specializes in fire protection. He says many communities, including Portland, use the life safety code drawn up by the National Fire Protection Association as a guide.
Cummings says boarding houses cannot have more than 16 residents and cooking facilities must be shared. But that also sounds like a large, private residence.
"It has to do with 'are you hiring out those rooms?'" he says. "In other words, if you had a family that had 16 kids, there is no restriction, you would follow the same requirements as a one- or two-family home."
So, if there are as many as 16 tenants all paying the landlord directly for their individual rooms, it's a boarding house.
That definition would appear to apply to 188 Dartmouth St. in Portland, which city officials inspected last week following complaints over fire safety and other health-related concerns.
The property is owned by Greg Nisbet — the same landlord who owns the Noyes Street building. A Fire Department official told journalists that this property also appears to be operated as a boarding house.
Tenant Steven Soldan says Nisbet typically negotiates rental payments with each tenant individually.
So what extra fire safety measures does a boarding house need? Engineering consultant Mark Cummings says that depends on the age of the building.
"How long has it been a boarding house or a rooming house?" Cummings says. "What code was in effect when that transition, assuming it was a single family home before, or if it was constructed, whatever code was in effect at that time are the requirements that a landlord would be required to live to?"
Cummings says any property that becomes a boarding house today — whether it's built from scratch, renovated, or just redefined in code — would have to meet the most up-to-date requirements for that type of building: this means, among other things, integrated smoke alarms and a sprinkler system.
"From a landlord's standpoint, obviously they do need to understand what their responsibilities are, and frankly I'm not sure everybody does," Cummings says.
Landlord Brit Vitalius says he would appreciate more clarity on the issue.
"What I don't understand is at what point does an apartment become a rooming house?" says Vitalius, president of the Southern Maine Landlords' Association. "There are a lot of big apartments that have a lot of bedrooms, and there are tenants there, but they're not rooming houses. I mean, I don't know at what point it comes over and becomes something qualitatively different."
The Portland City Fire and Building Codes Task Force meets again on Jan. 5 for the first of four meetings ahead of a public hearing in early February.
Final recommendations will be presented to the City Council’s Public Safety, Health & Human Services Committee on Feb. 10. To see Portland's land use ordinance, visit http://www.portlandmaine.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/1080.
