Final Votes In New Philadelphia Demolition Laws Delayed
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - New laws stemming from the tragic Market Street building collapse has been speeding through City Council, but final votes are now delayed by a speed bump imposed by the state.
In the past two weeks, City Council has given committee approval to five bills that embody 71 changes in the demolition process -- changes prompted by the disaster on Market Street.
Lawmakers had hoped for final passage on December 12th, the last regular meeting of the year. But Councilman Curtis Jones, who chaired the special council committee on demolitions, says some of the language in the bills does not conform to the state's Uniform Construction Code:
"There's a 'therefore,' 'in addition to' -- changes that are technical in nature but not substantive," he said.
So several of the bills will now have to be amended to reflect the code, says Jones:
"So we're very confident that it may move us back thirty days, but we're well on our way, and we're on the right track."
The revisions will cause final votes to shift from the last meeting of 2013 to the first meeting of 2014, but Jones says he doesn't mind:
"So now its the first regular scheduled meeting of Council of the new year. So we'll have new legislation just in time for budget considerations in the spring session."
Some of the changes place into the city code new standards already imposed by Mayor Nutter through executive order shortly after the incident.
In addition to Council's legislation, the collapse on Market Street, which killed six, resulted in a grand jury probe and an OSHA investigation. OSHA ascribed much of the responsibility on demolition contractor Griffin Campbell and Sean Benschop, a contractor who was operating the heavy equipment when a wall of the building fell onto the Salvation Army Thrift Store next door.
