Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 4, 2018, edition 1 / Page 4
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North Carolina Department of Insurance agrees to let students move-in following fire safety concerns AMANDA NAIL Opinion Staff Writer anail@unca.edu The first week of fall elasses at UNC Asheville always brings a feeling of exeitement and anticipation to new and returning UNC A students. Two weeks ago many of those students were antici pating being some of the first students to move into the The Woods;our new apart ment style dorms at UNCA. Consuelo Perez, a soph omore mechatronics engi neering student at UNCA, arrived for the new school year in anticipation of being one of those students. Perez didn’t begin to move into her new dorm until a day later, after multiple negotiations between UNCA and other state agencies took place over whether the buildings at The Woods were safe which ultimately led to a compromise. UNCA worked toward a solution as students were on standby for nearly two days, some of them having to stay in off site hotel rooms. “I came a day early and they didn’t really have any thing planned. I was just told to put my stuff into storage. and hang around campus and chill,” Perez said. “We came to a meeting and they still didn’t have a verdict, but I decided to go to the hotel rooms they were offering us and after thirty minutes of me already being there they said we could then move in.” Most of the concerns from the North Carolina Depart ment of Insurance were regarding fire safety. The State Construction Office had previofikly award ed the dorms a certificate of occupancy giving UNCA the green light to allow students to move in. Mike Causey, North Car olina’s insurance commis sioner and state fire marshal, denied students from moving into The Woods after the certificate was issued, stating that he could not allow stu dent occupancy if there were safety issues regardless of the certificate of occupancy issued. Asheville Fire Department Chief Scott Burnette in an interview with FOX Carolina highlighted the importance of the stairwells meeting standards in order to with stand fire for a eertain period of time. John Pierce, vice chan cellor for administration Dobcat sits in the mi tion to finish. and finance at UNCA, took immediate action in help ing to negotiate and get a signed agreement with the Department of Insurance three hours after The Woods closed down. “Once we got a signed copy of the document the next day as quickly as we could we called a meeting to address the items in the agreement with the DOI with the representatives from the State Construction Office, DOI, the Asheville Fire De partment, the architect, the contractor and UNC Ashe ville personnel,” Pierce said. All parties involved in the meeting then met the fol lowing day on site to come up with actions, followed by a meeting the next day to e plaza waiting for construc- propose solutions. UNCA officials moved quickly, taking notes in all the meetings circulating them for concurrence with all parties involved. “We are working very closely with the architect and contractor to make the esti mates of cost, timelines and all the things to expediently and safely address the issues involved,” Pierce said Bill Haggard, vice ehan- eellor for student affairs, stated that they had prepared in advance, due to not know ing if The Woods would be finished on time, reserving a block of hotels in the area for student residents moving in early over the weekend. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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