Fresno, CA Building Safety: Elevator Maintenance (2026)

11 (§ 11-701). It only applies to buildings inside the district described in § 11-702(a), "the area surrounded by State Highway 99, State Highway 180 and State Highway 41 in central Fresno", and only when a commercial or industrial use is converted to joint living and work quarters. Within that scope, § 11-702(b) requires all converting buildings to meet the same fire and life-safety requirements as a new building of the same use, except where Article 7 substitutes an alternative standard. Section 11-735 is one of those standards: existing elevators carried over into a converted building must keep meeting the State Elevator Safety Order found in Subchapter 6, Chapter 4, Division 1 of Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations, and any existing freight elevator in the building is barred outright from passenger use.

The article also lets Qualified Historical Buildings use the State Historical Building Code as an alternative compliance path (§ 11-736), and requires an existing fire-rated smoke-sealed door in front of any elevator lobby where an exit stairway is allowed to pass through it (§ 11-723). Fresno does not have a separate, citywide elevator-maintenance ordinance outside this conversion context; general elevator safety and inspection requirements for other buildings run through the state order referenced above, not a distinct city code section.