MANASSAS, Va. — The Manassas City Council tonight is set to vote to lower the amount of insurance coverage developers must have when performing blasting work in the city.
From Manassas Fire and Rescue Department Lt. Jim Hartnett:
During the permitting process for 2 recent blasting sites in the City, two different contractors made us aware that our insurance regulations to obtain a Fire Prevention Code Permit were much higher than any others in the Northern Virginia region. Here in the City, our minimum requirement was $10 million. I reached out and found that the rest of the region required a $5 million policy with the exception of Manassas Park which has a $2 million requirement.
Due to the fact that we found out we were not in line with the rest of the region we proposed to change the ordinance to lower our insurance requirements to $5 million to fall in line with the rest of the area.
We recently had 3 areas in the City that required a blasting permit from the Fire Marshals office. They were:
– Gateway project near the airport
– Prince William Street project.
– Storm Water retention pond project (behind the hospital).Blasting here in the City is not all that common. With the exception of these last 3, I believe the last time any blasting was done in the city is when the Harris Teeter shopping center was being built.
The City Council is set to vote on the measure during a regularly scheduled meeting starting at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.
