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Current through October 23, 2012
It shall be the duty of the owner entitled to the beneficial use, rental, or control of any building 3 or more stories in height, constructed or used or intended to be used as an apartment house, tenement house, flat, rooming house, lodging house, hotel, hospital, seminary, academy, school, college, institute, dormitory, asylum, sanitarium, hall, place of amusement, office building, or store, or of any building 3 or more stories in height, or over 30 feet in height, other than a private dwelling, in which sleeping quarters for the accommodation of 10 or more persons are provided above the 1st floor, to provide and cause to be erected and fixed to every such building 1 or more suitable fire escapes, connecting with each floor above the 1st floor by easily accessible and unobstructed openings, in such location and numbers and of such material, type, and construction as the Council of the District of Columbia may determine; except that buildings designed and built as single-family dwellings, and converted to use as apartment houses, in which not more than 3 families reside, including the owner or lessee, or rooming houses in which sleeping accommodations are provided for less than 10 persons above the 1st floor, not more than 3 stories nor more than 40 feet in height, and having a total floor area not more than 3,000 square feet above the 1st floor, shall be exempted from the provisions of this section; and except that buildings used solely as apartment houses, not more than 3 stories nor more than 40 feet in height, so arranged that not more than 5 apartments per floor open directly, without an intervening hall or corridor, on a fire-resistive stairway, 3 feet or more in width, enclosed with masonry walls in which fire-resistive doors are provided at all openings, shall be exempted from the provisions of this section.
(Mar. 19, 1906, 34 Stat. 70, ch. 957, § 1; Mar. 2, 1907, 34 Stat. 1247, ch. 2566, § 1; June 4, 1934, 48 Stat. 843, ch. 388.)
HISTORICAL AND STATUTORY NOTES
Prior Codifications
1981 Ed., § 5-501.
1973 Ed., § 5-301.
Change in Government
This section originated at a time when local government powers were delegated to a Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia (see Acts Relating to the Establishment of the District of Columbia and its Various Forms of Governmental Organization in Volume 1). Section 402(117) of Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1967 (see Reorganization Plans in Volume 1) transferred all of the functions of the Board of Commissioners under this section to the District of Columbia Council, subject to the right of the Commissioner as provided in § 406 of the Plan. The District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act, 87 Stat. 818, § 711 (D.C. Code, § 1-207.11), abolished the District of Columbia Council and the Office of Commissioner of the District of Columbia. These branches of government were replaced by the Council of the District of Columbia and the Office of Mayor of the District of Columbia, respectively. Accordingly, and also pursuant to § 714(a) of such Act (D.C. Code, § 1-207.14(a)), appropriate changes in terminology were made in this section.
