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Click here to download a .pdf of elevator regulations
Most of the 50 people who came to a public meeting at the Roosevelt School auditorium, April 23, were ready to castigate the village for the imposition of financially burdensome regulations related to residential elevators. Most left thanking village officials for their understanding and cooperation, and directing their ire at the State of Illinois for what they said was a poorly communicated 4-year-old change in state law that mandates costly upgrades to passenger elevators in condo buildings.
Both Public Works Director Greg Kramer and Trustee Russ Nummer, the village’s former fire chief, stressed that River Forest no longer has oversight or say in inspection standards for elevators.
“We’re merely saying that the state code governs elevators,” said Kramer. “This isn’t something we can make go away with a local code amendment.”
The required compliance becomes effective in two stages, with smaller-scale life safety improvements to the elevator cab, door, electric and communications systems scheduled for Jan. 1, 2009. More extensive upgrades involving the elevator’s lift system hydraulics, requiring retrofitting the replacement of expensive cylinders, must be done by Jan. 1, 2011.
A listing of the 20 state-mandated changes, compiled by the Thompson Elevator Service Company, is available on the Wednesday Journal website with this story.
The audience directed two main complaints at the 2003 legislation. Many argued the upgrades were not necessary in the first place. But even those who allowed that the upgrades might be a reasonable safety idea were miffed the state apparently took no steps to notify them or anyone else of the new regulations for four years.
Phyliss Baren lives in a condo building on the 400 block of Ashland Avenue, serviced by an elevator requiring cylinder replacement and numerous other upgrades costing $200,000.
“My cost is $8,000, my share of a 29-unit building,” said Baren. She and her husband are making monthly payments over the next two years.
Besides the money, there is the inconvenience, particularly for older residents. Baren’s building will be without elevator service for 4-6 weeks.
Need for upgrades questioned
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Al Popowits, who lives in a five-story, two-elevator building on the 1000 block of North Harlem Avenue, which is facing a bill “well north of $100,000.”
“What is the problem? Who’s being killed in elevators?”
Wednesday Journal could not find any specific instances of deaths due to condo elevators free falling with residents inside. Statistics from the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System do indicate that between 1997 and 2006, 56 people died in passenger elevators “while not at work,” in 21 states, including three fatalities in Illinois.
According to statistics from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in a 2006 updated report by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR), 173 people were killed “working on or near elevators,” with 54 percent (93) of the deaths involving installation or repair of elevators between 1992-2003. Another study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 68 elevator-related deaths from 1992-2003 among people using elevators “while at work.”
Delay in notification criticized
Shirley Grott, who is the property management agent for several condo owners in attendance last Thursday, said she isn’t prepared to say the mandated upgrades aren’t necessary. But she took the state to task.
“I was disappointed the State of Illinois passed this in 2003, and I didn’t find out about it until July, 2007,” Grott said. “There were a lot of years there were people could have been saving money to do this.”
“The problem is the older buildings that have to replace the cylinders at $35,000, $40,000, $50,000 each-and then are told, if your [elevator] pit caves in, it’s going to be at least another $40,000.”
Nummer said he didn’t believe the state had notified the building owners affected, noting, “The onus has been on the inspectors and maintenance firms to inform their clients.”
Kramer met with the village’s elevator inspector, John Thompson of Thompson Elevator Inspection Services on Friday. He said Thompson told him he was first notified of the law in May, 2007 and “concurred there wasn’t good communications.”
The most outspoken audience member, Barbara Langer, produced a five-page document for distribution at the meeting, urging people to contact their state senators and representatives, and refuting the state’s contention that elevator safety was a significant concern. Kramer and Nummer also urged condo owners to take their concerns to their state senator and representative.
While expressing empathy for the condo dwellers, Kramer noted many buildings don’t face paying for all 20 required upgrades.
“It’s not like every elevator has all 20 items to complete,” he said.
Popowits suggested what others said off the record-that the law was passed more to benefit some in the elevator industry than for public safety concerns. One official, asking not to be identified, said he was told by one elevator inspection expert that “safety statistics were not what motivated these regulations, but rather an industry lobby.”
Kramer also said two state senators were reportedly in attendance at last week’s meeting of the Elevator Review Board.
“It appears this [opposition] is gaining momentum. They were calling for a moratorium on requirements,” Kramer said of the senators. “[And] both Trustee Nummer and [Nancy] Dillon made a commitment to advocate for this.”
That momentum includes State Senator Don Harmon, who said Monday he supported taking a second look at the law. He hoped to see some decision reached during the state legislature’s spring session.
“We’ll see what we can do to push this off for some time, to allow us to reassess things,” Harmon said. “We need to determine why the law was enacted and why there was a breakdown in communication.”
“These are dramatic investments we’re calling on condo owners to make.”
