This August, Cornell lost a New York State Supreme Court case against NYS’s Department of State and the City of Ithaca after having filed a lawsuit challenging the State Department’s interpretation of the fire code enforcement regulations as they applied to three lecture halls in Sibley and Myron Taylor Hall.

According to the court’s decision, the current NYS Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code, adopted in 1981, requires two means of egress, or exits, in rooms with a maximum load occupancy greater than 50. East Sibley Hall’s lecture room 157 and Myron Taylor Hall’s lecture rooms G85 and 285 — with a maximum occupancy load of 85 people — violated the fire code as they previously had only one exit doorway.

Myron Taylor Hall and Sibley Hall were constructed in the 1930s, and though the lecture halls met legal requirements at the time they were constructed, retroactive enforcement of the fire code regulation would require construction on these older buildings. The code has some restrictions regarding retroactive code enforcement on buildings that would require construction in order to make them compliant, according to Ithaca Deputy Fire Chief and Fire Marshal Thomas Parsons. To determine whether it was appropriate to issue Notices of Violations for these spaces, Parsons requested a code interpretation from the Secretary of State.

The code interpretation concluded that compliance with section 1028.3 of the 2007 Fire Code of New York State — the code that limits the occupancy load of buildings — “does not require construction or alteration of a building or any part of a building.” The code also states that the FCNYS provision is related to the “safeguarding of life and property therein and thereabout,” and therefore “section 1028.3 of the 2007 FCNYS applies to all buildings, including those constructed prior to 1984.” The code became effective on Jan. 1, 2008.

However, according to Parsons, the state “flip-flopped” in its interpretation and sent him three letters with different code interpretations. In response to the “frustrating” situation, he explained, the University filed a lawsuit to seek judicial clarity on whether the new code could be applied to Cornell’s older buildings.

In its lawsuit, filed on Feb. 26 this year, Cornell challenged the code interpretation and argued that “Code Interpretation 2008-01 is contrary to law and invalid, and as applied against Cornell, arbitrary and capricious.”

Fire hazard: The NYS Supreme Court ruled in August that several classrooms in East Sibley Hall, pictured above, and Myron Taylor Hall have violated fire codes. Cornell has renovated these classrooms to comply with the ruling.

Parsons declined to take a position on the case. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the state’s regulations, not mine. I’m just enforcing state rules,” Parsons said.

The case ultimately went to the NYS Supreme Court and according to the Aug. 4 decision and order of the court, “The State is not imposing a retroactive construction mandate. It is merely interpreting the law to give Cornell a choice, to wit: either continue to use the lecture hall with an occupancy limit of 50, or install a second exit.”

In response to the ensuing Notices of Violation, Cornell fully complied with the court’s ruling. In East Sibley Hall 157, the room occupancy was lowered from 80 to 49.

“AAP had to work fast with Cornell Facilities Management on a solution,” Peter Turner, assistant dean for administration for AAP, stated in an e-mail. The building was able to open up a second pre-existing doorway from the room which had been built years ago and transformed it into a modern fire door.

“A senior faculty member was very cooperative in moving his office, which was then dismantled to leave a hallway,” Turner added. “The authorities approved the new egress and set the new occupancy at 103 people (desks or tables) and 220 (standing — no chairs).”

On the other side of the campus in Myron Taylor Hall, the ruling was “no major problem,” according to Richard Robinson, the law school’s associate dean for administration and finance. The Law School complied with the ruling by initially reducing the occupancy of the rooms from 85 to 50. The size of classes that take place in those lecture halls has also been limited to 49. During the holiday break, Robinson said, the law school will be adding a second means of egress in those lecture halls, but “at a very significant cost” due to the slope of the rooms, the thick walls, and the complications of audio-visual equipment.

“Everybody at Cornell was shocked [by the ruling],” Robinson said. “We thought it’d be standard grandfathering … but we were able to fix the issue.”

Another building that will be undergoing significant renovations in order to improve the fire safety measures will be Olin Library, according to Robert Stundtner, director of Capital Project Management. Although he told the University on Aug. 27 that a large-scale renovation of the library has been put on hold under the terms of the University’s construction pause, the improvements to address fire safety will continue.

Like Myron Taylor and Sibley, Olin Library was not violating fire codes at the time it was constructed. However, Stundtner said, “[Olin is] 50 years old and a lot of things are a bit dated. … This is an important project.”

After an infrastructure examination determined that the library required significant improvements, Stundtner said that the project will upgrade the library’s fire alarm and smoke detection system, ensure that the entire building is covered by the sprinkler system and improve the fire ratings by enhancing the structural integrity of stairwells and major duct shafts so that they can better withstand a fire.

These recommendations were accepted at the October meeting of the Board of Trustees, and Stundtner expects that they will be approved for final construction authorization at May 2010’s trustee meeting.