Bloomington city council has passed a new regulation requiring city landlords to change their smoke detectors to new versions.
The city of Bloomington is requiring landlords replace all battery powered smoke detectors with hard-wired detectors.
City council representative Darryl Neher says the city originally was going to require them to do so by 2014, but several people raised concerns about the deadline
"I think that the amendment that I offered along with council member Mayer last night to extend the compliance date out to Dec.31, 2018 provides a reasonable window to be able to account for some of those fiscal and logistic constraints that landlords would be facing," he says.
Varsity Properties general manager Thomas Guthrie says the installation of hard wired smoke detectors will cost him about four hundred thousand dollars. Guthrie says he understands the city wants to increase safety, but he doesn't agree with the new ordinance.
"When you throw out anything is worth saving one life, that's true, but at the same time when you don't believe what they're wanting you to do necessarily would change anything in general, it kind of makes you feel dirty," he says.
Guthrie says tenants could still pull out the cord on the hard-wired smoke detectors to stop them from going off.
Shameka Neely contributed to this report.