April 20, 2000

WRT fire department hits roadblocks for new building

       A few technical difficulties have put the new White River Township Fire Department headquarters a bit behind schedule.  “We wanted to be in the building by December,” said Eric Brown, fire prevention chief for the department. “But now it looks like it will be early January. We definitely do not want to delay the service to the community any longer. “They’re probably five years behind already.”  The technical review committee for the Johnson County Planning and Zoning Department reviewed on Wednesday the site plan for the 15,000-square-foot building, to be built at the southeast corner of the junction of State Road 37 and Smith Valley Road and Mullinex Road. The biggest roadblock is that the department will have to petition the county Board of Zoning Appeals to get the special exception for building a firehouse in a residential zone, according to Joe Rathz, assistant engineer at the planning department.  They also still have to face the standard procedure of going before the county Drainage Board, he said.  “They’re by no means home free,” Rathz said. “They’ve got some hoops still to jump through.”  If approved, the new building will replace the headquarters on Runyon Road, which was built in the 195O’s. The old station will still be in service but will no longer be the headquarters, Brown said.  “Basically the general concern is, we have an area west of Morgantown Road that suffers long response time,” Brown said. In some areas, such as Oak Meadows mobile home park, the response time is more than 10 minutes, he said.  “With future growth, we don’t have any fire protection in that area,” he said.  The Insurance Services Organization, the organization that sets insurance rates based on fire protection in the area, stipulates that each fire station serve a maximum area of a three-mile radius.  In addition to increasing fire protection, the new building also will supply the department with a training-meeting room. The department also plans to add two new part-time positions after the building is built.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

 

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