Council Bluffs, IA Building Safety: Fire Sprinkler Requirements (2026)

The City of Council Bluffs adopted the 2015 International Residential Code, excluding all appendix chapters, as its Residential Code under CBMC 13.06.010, but Chapter 13.06 immediately amends that base text. Among the listed amendments, CBMC 13.06.305 is a single, blunt instruction: IRC Section R313, the Automatic Fire Sprinkler Systems chapter that would otherwise require sprinklers in new and substantially remodeled one- and two-family dwellings and townhomes, is deleted in its entirety. The deletion traces to Ordinance No. 6100, adopted November 8, 2010, and was carried forward when the chapter was reaffirmed by Ordinance No.

6291 on April 24, 2017. Because the requirement is removed rather than merely made optional, the building official has no residential sprinkler standard to enforce under the IRC as adopted locally; homeowners and builders are not required to install, inspect, or maintain fire sprinkler systems as a condition of a residential building permit in Council Bluffs. This puts the city in the group of Iowa municipalities that opted out of the model code's residential sprinkler chapter rather than adopting it as written. Other Chapter 13.06 amendments enacted the same way include deleting the IRC's flood-resistant construction chapter (Section R323, renumbered 322 locally) and its energy-efficiency chapter (replaced by CBMC 13.20), showing this is part of a broader local pattern of striking specific IRC chapters rather than adopting the model code unmodified.

Fire code enforcement for commercial and multi-family sprinkler systems still runs through the separately adopted Fire Code in CBMC Title 12, which is unaffected by this residential-only deletion.