DeKALB | Tonight, the DeKalb City Council will vote to require rooming house owners to submit scale drawings when renewing or applying for licenses.

City attorney Norma Guess is defending the changes. She said scale drawings must be submitted every year for each of DeKalb’s 83 rooming houses and the new changes will help fire officials and city inspectors.

“We have a new fire prevention officer and, with advances in technology, he wants to scan plans into a system,” Guess said.

The revised ordinance requires that each rooming house and the plot it is on must be drawn on a 1:20 scale. Guess said this will allow consistency for all drawings and be far easier to use when firefighters are responding to a call.

Fire Chief Lanny Russell described the frustration firefighters feel using current plans when responding to an emergency. He said keeping plans up to date was difficult. His ultimate goal is to make all scale drawings available through a central database accessible to fire responders and inspectors. Paper copies of building plans are currently kept in each fire engines for use when responding to a fire.

“The plans allow us to see where things are within the situation. Like, OK, we’ve got two bedrooms on the floor and two more to the left,” said Russell. “You can do a thorough search.”

Guess said the city will not require owners to hire professionals to create the drawings. Some rooming house owners and managers continue to worry about the cost and question when the city will actually put them to use.

Susan Besinger of Horizon Real Estate manages rooming houses for clients and said many of those clients do not feel confident creating their own plans.

“People bought these for their retirement. There aren’t pensions or 401Ks; they bought a rooming house and want to keep costs as low as possible,” Besinger said.

While rooming house owners’ costs may rise each year, owners may not always be able to raise rent to reflect the increase and this is just another added cost, Besinger said.