Frequent readers will remember proposals in recent years to mandate that cities authorize installation of electrified security fences for property protection. AWC opposed these efforts as cities wanted to retain the ability to regulate these devices as the community saw fit.
Over the interim, AWC and individual cities participated in a workgroup organized by the state Department of Labor & Industries and a new approach emerged that seeks to provide more certainty to allow these devices to be permitted in cities who have not adopted specific policies, while retaining community discretion to go in a different direction.
HB 1688, sponsored by Rep. Lisa Parshley (D–Olympia), includes this new approach. Cities who do not have policies regarding regulation of electric security alarm systems (commonly known as electric fences) must allow these systems on outdoor storage properties under the following conditions:
- May not be considered a fence or regulated by fence codes;
- Installed adjacent to a five-foot-tall perimeter fence that was code compliant when on installation;
- Includes warning signs at determined intervals (“Warning: Electric Fence”); and
- Powered by an energizer of certain voltage
A key component in HB 1688 is that it allows a city who has already chosen to regulate electric fences to maintain their current approach, and any city who later determines that they want to vary from the standardized approach in the bill is free to do so.
Date to remember
HB 1688 will be heard in the House Local Government Committee on Wednesday, February 5 at 8 am.