Fatal Trump Tower fire boosts calls for wider NYC sprinkler requirement

April 09--A Brooklyn councilman on Monday will call for new legislation that would require sprinklers be installed in all residential buildings without them, just days after a man died in a fire inside President Donald Trump's Fifth Avenue building.

Todd Brassner, 67, an art dealer who lived on the 50th floor of Trump Tower, died from injuries sustained Saturday in a blaze in the high-rise building. An FDNY spokesman has said that Brassner's apartment was not required to have a sprinkler system.

The proposed legislation, called for by Robert Cornegy, Jr., chair of the Housing and Buildings Committee, would require buildings like Trump Tower to be retrofitted with fire sprinkler safety systems.

New York City code requires sprinklers in buildings constructed in 2008 or later. Buildings built before 2008 are required to install sprinklers during major renovations.

In the late 1990s, Trump lobbied city council members against requiring sprinklers, and said he couldn't afford to install the sprinklers in all of his buildings, according to a New York Post report at the time. After a bill was passed in 1999 requiring sprinklers in certain residential buildings, Trump said he would spend $3 million to install sprinklers in all 350 units of Trump World Tower, an apartment complex that was under construction at the time in Midtown East.

The 58-floor Trump Tower includes the president's primary private residence on the top three floors of the building. Trump was in Washington at the time of the fire.

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