Grand Forks, ND Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

City Code Section 12-0201(6) amends Chapter 2 of the International Fire Code's occupancy classification definitions. The amendment reads that under the Group E, or Education, occupancy classification, the code is changed "to change five children to twelve children," meaning a day care operation must reach twelve children before it is classified as a Group E occupancy under the fire code, rather than five as the unamended model code provided. The same numbered amendment separately raises the Institutional Group I-3 threshold from five persons to twelve.

Because occupancy classification determines which fire-protection provisions of the 2021 International Fire Code apply to a building, the twelve-child line decides whether a home-based or small day care stays outside Group E's requirements or falls inside them. The fire code official inside the Grand Forks Fire Department administers the International Fire Code and its local amendments under Section 12-0102, and that office is responsible for determining a facility's occupancy classification under the amended threshold. The amendment sits inside Article 2 of Chapter 12, the same article that Section 12-0202 penalizes for any violation, so a day care that is misclassified or that fails to meet the requirements attached to its correct classification is exposed to that article's fine.

Grand Forks's twelve-child threshold is a local departure from the base International Fire Code figure of five children, adopted specifically for occupancies operating within the city rather than following the model code's national default.