13 ms·
The case for single-stair multifamily
- ponector 3y agoI have a great idea how to solve housing shortage in US: ban single family houses inside and near the city borders. Make 25-mile zone where new construction could be multi family only.
- explaininjs 3y agoWhich cities? Why 25?
- deadbabe 3y agoThis dovetails nicely with the push for WFH.
- munchler 3y agoHard disagree. With WFH, cities now have beautiful but empty office buildings near public transportation. Those should be turned into housing first.
- deadbabe 3y agoWhy? They could be used as really cheap offices eventually as demand falls.
- munchler 3y agoWith WFH, you’ll have unused offices no matter how cheap the rent. There are simply more offices than workers to occupy them. At some point it becomes immoral not to let people live there instead.
- deadbabe 3y agoPeople can never live there, it’s not up to code. You can rent the offices really really cheap.
- novagameco 3y agoChange the code and it becomes way cheaper to renovate them. Turn them into dormitory style buildings with communal bathrooms and interior apartments with no outward facing windows
- anticensor 3y agoMost married couples would still not prefer them. It would be stuffed by single people that would otherwise be homeless.
- shortrounddev2 3y agoThat's fine, the married couples can live elsewhere. If the only thing we accomplish is ending homelessness, then that's a major achievement
- ghaff 3y agoIn practice, in much of the US, it's the commute that drives people into cities (or maybe being young). But I've never lived in a city after school and had no real interest in doing so. Maybe I would have at first but like most tech companies at the time the offices were well outside the city.
- erikaww 3y agoA more realistic solution is just to remove restrictions that discourage MFH in the first place (zoning height limits parking requirements lot size requirements height requirements regressive fees/taxes)
- fnimick 3y agoYou don't even have to go that far, just ban single-family-only zoning. The economic pressure to add more units will take care of the rest.
- masklinn 3y agoAnd more generally move zoning to a nuisance basis (as in Japan or Europe), euclidian exclusionary zoning is a root cause of suburbian sprawl and dead areas. That means local shops can pop up, and city centers are able to progressively transition upwards at the edges (and plots can be upzoned) instead of having a sea of low-density housing suddenly becoming a bunch of skyscrapers.
- pandaman 3y agoZoning is already on the nuisance basis in many places in the US. It means local shops cannot pop up in residential neighborhoods if nobody wants to live near such a shop. If residents are fine with traffic, noise and pests they can vote for changing zoning on any lot to commercial. High density residential is almost the same, except there are also physical limitations of the infrastructure.
- masklinn 3y agoThat's specifically not what nuisance basis means. That's exclusionary zoning, and the co-morbid NIMBY-ism. In a nuisance basis zoning system, an area would not be zoned like that, a business would only be forbidden if it exceeded the nuisance level for the zone. So in most areas, small stores and restaurants are allowed, because they are low-nuisance businesses. Even in very low nuisance areas, businesses traditionally run out of homes (e.g. very small offices, some forms of medical services, small shops, very small convenience stores / corner shops) could not be forbidden. Commercial zoning would be for "disruptive" commerces due to traffic, noise, space requirements, sight, ...
- pandaman 3y agoSo correct me if I get you incorrectly. 1. "NIMBY" is a Redditism for people who are apparently obsessed with the value of their property and do not allow dense residential construction only because the value of their property will plummet due to increased supply (no nuisance concerns are accepted). 2. The very same "NIMBY" do not allow commercial construction because it decreases residential supply and increases value of their property (which they are obsessed with, see #1), no nuisance concerns are accepted. Did I get it right?
- hobs 3y agoNo mention of the ADA in the entire article - I guess people with mobility issues should go fly a kite.
- renewiltord 3y agoI imagine if one staircase doesn't do the trick, it's unlikely that the second on the other side of the building helps very much.
- jackson1442 3y agoyou can have single-stair with elevators.
- pmontra 3y agoWhich is the norm in Europe. One stair, one elevator. Even large and long buildings are divided in "stairs": there is central concrete tower with the staircase and the elevator shaft and a number of flats around it. Repeat like a pack of AA batteries. No way to move between them except the basement with parking for the cars.
- epistasis 3y agoElevator regulations are another area where the US needs to improve. In many areas, the regulation is that if there is an elevator, it must be big enough to hold a stretcher for EMTs. These are of course far more expensive than an elevator large enough to accommodate a wheel chair. So given the choice between some accessibility and extreme accessibility which is too expensive to provide, the legal choice is to go with zero accessibility. After a while it becomes clear that the point of most of these regulations is to make multi-unit housing inconvenient and expensive, under the veneer of regulations that, on their face, would improve outcomes.
- pmontra 3y agoRecent houses here do have much larger elevators than houses of 50 years ago, which in turn had much larger elevators than older houses. I don't know if they can accommodate a stretcher but they can often fit a bicycle, which can be quite long. 70 cm of wheel diameter plus tires plus the distance between wheels. It could be close to 2 meters. A stretcher is maybe longer if completely extended. I don't have figures, but my job, but for a multi unit house the extra space is probably not a problem. A typical one could be 10 floors, 4 units per floor. The extra expense for the builder of the house is divided by 40 and the extra space taken from each floor is divided by 4. The maintenance and electricity bills are higher though.
- baq 3y agoEuropean here. I can't even put to words my embafflement upon having learnt that you US folks need two staircases.
- kazinator 3y agoEmbafflement? Oh US buildings have that too: fire-proof doors divide those long hallways that connect the staircases.
- cal5k 3y agoHow do you think we feel about cookie notices?
- andix 3y agoThere is one solution for the cookie notices that is very seldomly talked about: just don't use any marketing cookies, then you don't need consent from the user :)
- oblio 3y agoYes, housing and web cookies, equally important for one's life.
- speeder 3y agoAnother European here: I think the law is fine. How companies, specially US companies react to it, that is not. 1. A ton of Health related websites in US refuse to work in Europe, because they are NOT willing to let you visit without sensitive data being grabbed with cookies. I truly do not understand how US people are ok with this. 2. The law says that you can't make hard to refuse cookies, yet many US-based sites I visit have shady, shady practices, for example many you have to click a button to see all the sliders for individual cookies, and when you click that button, it switches the orders of the buttons, so that the button you just clicked become "accept all", and the previous "accept all" button becomes "save current settings". Thus if you double click/tap by accident you accept all. 3. The sites that most often piss me off with shady cookie banner that tries its hardest to force you to opt-in to tracking, are ones that use a company called "Admiral", that according to LinkedIn is from Florida. https://www.linkedin.com/company/getadmiral/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/getadmiral/
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y agoThe Boston triple decker should be the standard home of North America and nobody can tell me otherwise.
- hk__2 3y agoCan you explain this for the non-US audience?
- pimlottc 3y agoOr just the non-Boston audience
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=Boston+triple+decker&client=firefox-b-m&sca_esv=599503376&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY7I6rvueDAxVBPxAIHTHQBE4Q_AUIBigB&biw=432&bih=816 https://www.google.com/search?q=Boston+triple+decker&client=... Cheap enough for a middle income family to build or purchase themselves, enough apartments for grandparents, parents and children just getting their start in the world. They're great!
- manuelmoreale 3y agoI suspect they're referring to this type of buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)
- alexb_ 3y agoLand Value Tax being the main method of taxation would encourage municipalities to adopt things like this.
- bequanna 3y agoI have yet to understand why people have made land value tax a thing. As I understand it, land value and improvements are already taxed but a land value tax would only tax land value. Can someone make this make sense? Why would this promote development?
- ok_dad 3y agoThe classic example is the lot that sits empty or has a parking structure on it in Manhattan. Today, you pay very little tax on the empty land or parking lot because you’re taxed on that total value of the land and improvements. This discourages building stuff sometimes. With land value tax, you’d be taxed on what someone would pay you for that land with improvements similar to surrounding, so it’s advantageous to build something there instead of nothing, since you’re paying the same tax as the sky scraper next door. In other words, the taxable value of the land is what it would be if it had similar improvements to surrounding lands, rather than taxing it based on actual improvements.
- RandomLensman 3y agoSo if the most valuable use is luxury apartments and stores that would be what everything needs to converge to? Feels like a tax always looking towards the most valuable use could actually be very regressive and push anything but the richest out of economically attractive cities. Maybe I am missing something?
- ok_dad 3y agoI mean, it might be that there’s an empty lot outside your own home that could use some houses built on it but no one does because it’s easier to pay a pittance for taxes and leave it sit until it’s worth more. There are many cases where land could be put to better use but it’s not. A few people might get priced out of an area, but they’ll be able to sell their land and buy something elsewhere easily. The downside is certainly there but I think the upsides outweigh those.
- phkahler 3y agoSounds like a cost savings for those buying up all the real estate in the US and renting it out.
- throw0101d 3y agoThe province of British Columbia (BC) seems to be considering it: * https://morehousing.substack.com/p/bc-single-stair https://morehousing.substack.com/p/bc-single-stair * https://morehousing.substack.com/p/single-stair https://morehousing.substack.com/p/single-stair See also: > Number of storeys permissible with single exit stair around the world. * https://www.coolearth.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/image-1.png https://www.coolearth.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/image-1.... * https://www.coolearth.ca/2022/03/16/building-code-change-to-allow-single-stair-residential-buildings-up-to-six-storeys/ https://www.coolearth.ca/2022/03/16/building-code-change-to-... The diagram illustrates that the longest aerial ladder firetruck available in North America is 137' / 41m, which should be able to reach about fourteen storeys high. A 'typical' aerial ladder is about 75' / 22m, which is about seven storeys.
- bombcar 3y agoThe ladder never goes straight up, so you need to check what its maximum “reach” is. A building that is seven stories high is going to be big enough to have multiple stairways; probably multiple elevators.
- michaelt 3y agoAn additional constraint here is that the fire trucks have to be able to navigate around the city. London has many high-rise buildings, but the many narrow roads and tight corners mean they don't operate the tallest fire trucks.
- twelvechairs 3y agoWhat's not covered in the diagrams you've provided are construction standards (for fire ratings) and also whether scissor stairs [0] satisfy the requirements for two staircases. These vary widely across the countries noted [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnC9ge6WQAAFd7p?format=png&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnC9ge6WQAAFd7p?format=png&name=...
- nothanksahole 3y ago[dead]
- exabrial 3y agoNo. It’s not only fire that’s a hazard, but a personal safety thing. Most men here probably never experienced being stalked, or having to turn around when your path is through a group of shady characters. In the Midwest, brick/concrete fire stairwells have another benefit: tornado shelters. While a sufficient tornado would decimate any wooden structure, these stairwells provide essential protection from the main hazard in a tornado: flying debris. Offhand I can think of a dozen more reasons. Lets not reverse sensible progress in the name of profits and tax revenue.
- lanewinfield 3y agoprofits and tax revenue? how about more housing for those who need it? or should we prevent housing for the 500,000 americans who don't have it because of tornadoes?
- Spivak 3y agoThis is what's called a false dilemma, pitting two non-mutually exclusive options as an either or situation when they're actually not opposed to one another. We should get to reap the benefits of improved fire and personal safety and build more housing.
- bluGill 3y agoYou would scream if those homeless died in a fire or tornado because the building lacked protection. The two staircase rule increases costs, but not by that much - any place that allows building housing doens't have a homeless problem. That isn't to say there are no homeless people - there are many - but they are homeless because of other issues (mental). In California the homeless often are otherwise normal people who cannot afford a place to live despite the ability to work a job. Where I live you can rent a new two bedroom apartment in walking distance of Burger King that pays enough to afford that apartment and leave enough leftover for food - it won't be a great life, but you can live on one income (and since most people live as a couple that second income can buy some nice things)
- piombisallow 3y agoSafetyism will be the death of civilization.
- nicole_express 3y agoI'd like to see more discussion of the safety impact; I know the article makes the point that fire deaths per capita are lower in Europe, which lacks the requirement, but it also notes that US housing stock is also much more wooden and therefore at higher risk to begin with. (Wood construction is generally a good thing from a sustainability perspective) Whenever I see this proposed my brain immediately goes to the Grenfell Tower fire in the UK. I guess that may just be an outlier due to the myriad of other causes, but it gives me pause.
- lokar 3y agoA few cities (with wood framed construction) in NA have allowed this for decades with no apparent issues
- bobthepanda 3y agoThe intention of the double stairwell requirement, is that you are not supposed to have your access point to the stairwell by an obstruction, and there should be a maximum access time to the stairwell. One notable requirement of single-stair buildings where they are legal in the US, is that 1. the height is generally determined by the height of the fire ladders available, providing a second means of egress 2. the single stair requirement usually only applies to buildings that have a low maximum units per floor. In Seattle where they are legal, this is four units. At four units a floor, your front door directly opens feet away from the stairwell, and having a second staircase a sufficient distance away would be hard to fit in the floor plan.
- LandoCalrissian 3y agoWhy not get rid of all fire safety protections? We can really get moving then. The ADA is pretty onerous, if we just ignore that we can have it up in half the time! I don't REALLY need all that electrical grounding in my house, all that extra copper adds up you know, think of how many more houses we could build without it?
- masklinn 3y agoAs the article argues, at length, the "most of the USA" with this requirement does worse than NYC which does not have it, and significantly worse than Europe which does not have it but even more.
- bluGill 3y agoWhen I look closer, the newer the building the better it tends to do in general. And as the article itself points out, Europe doesn't use nearly as much wood which changes things (not always for the good - Europe tends to have terrible insulation and their construction materials are not helping - though newer buildings do well here)
- ajuc 3y agoEuropean houses in climates where it matters have better insulation that American houses. You can check it's true by looking at the energy use per capita.
- cycomanic 3y ago> When I look closer, the newer the building the better it tends to do in general. Which should be in favour of the US, which has much younger housing stock. So likely the statistics are even worse (from a US standpoint) if we consider building age. >And as the article itself points out, Europe doesn't use nearly as much wood which changes things Actually many new large buildings in Germany, Scandinavia... are build using timber constructions. >(not always for the good - Europe tends to have terrible insulation and their construction materials are not helping - though newer buildings do well here) You are joking right? When was the last time you have been to a northern European building? From my experience they tend to be much better insulated than most US houses (likely also because energy/heating costs tend to be higher). The passive house standards originated in Germany.
- jes5199 3y agoI think we've hit peak density already and the rest of the 21st century will be defined by people moving into former farmlands
- epistasis 3y agoI think just the opposite, people want more density but outdated views have made it illegal. Former farmlands are cheap, dense areas are super expensive. The market has spoken, yet we continue to undersupply density by regulatory fiat, against the will of the people.
- gabesullice 3y agoDense, rural towns ftw
- ghaff 3y agoRelatively dense small villages are a thing in many places. (And historically probably dominated.) Of course, as they get bigger, you've basically created at least a smaller city. And if they stay small you're going to have to travel to a great number of day-to-day locations like larger stores, medical, etc. that depend on a critical mass to operate.
- standardUser 3y agoI don't see why fire escapes aren't the better answer here.
- Spellman 3y agoI believe the new codes require the stairway to be enclosed
- adameasterling 3y agoThis is a fantastic article. Burdensome regulations on housing construction have caused costs to skyrocket. Minimum lot sizes, setback requirements, square footage minimums, floor-area ratio restrictions, overzealous height restrictions, parking requirements, abuse of environmental reviews, historic designations, community reviews, overzealous MFH requirements (like double-stair), below-market mandates, all have worked together to constrain supply, leading to skyrocketing costs. It's the single most important economic issue for me. We need a nationwide effort to ease these restrictions, or we're just going to continue to see rents eat up more and more of young people's earnings.
- twiddling 3y agoDon't forget about street widths being determined by the ability to turn around fire equipment.
- bombcar 3y agoIf it makes you feel any better the oldest streets around here are wider than newer ones, because they had to be able to turn a wagon with a team of horses.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThat sounds like what they did in Salt Lake City.
- trgn 3y agoThis was the seed that destroyed the American city. Roads were humongous 100 years before car was invented. It was fine, a buffer for the smoke and filth of the industrial city, but still multipurpose, accessible. Once cars started driving on these huge expanses, it turned every city street in a highway; dangerous, polluted, noisy, pushing out other uses, ...
- actionfromafar 3y agoHm.. couldn't a fire engine be driven in reverse? It could have an emergency driver's wheel in the back. I have seen crane trucks driven with a joystick from outside the vehicle, so it doesn't seem impossible.
- logifail 3y agoMostly OT, but related to emergency staircases. We visited Glasgow (Scotland) last summer and the hotel fire alarm went off the middle of the night (for whatever reason we seem to attract fire alarms while on family holidays) After getting the kids dressed(ish) we exited the rooms, totally missing that there was one emergency staircase immediately opposite. There was a sign at ceiling height, at 90 degrees to us, which was basically invisible. There was no sign on the door to the staircase itself :/ So, we went all the way down the hall, along with a bunch of other guests, then I carried my 7 year-old down seven floors' worth of the secondary staircase stairs to the ground floor, really pretty slow progress due to the number of people, on exiting the building we met four fire engines plus a significant police presence, and hundreds of hotel guests. Turned out it wasn't a fire, but a disturbance, and a fire alarm had been activated as part of that. We were outside for ages. Lesson learned: just as you hopefully do immediately after boarding an aircraft, check your exit routes well before you need them...
- InCityDreams 3y ago>(for whatever reason we seem to attract fire alarms while on family holidays) Took a while to learn to "check your exit routes", then? Or, ignoring any snark, you've learned a lot since "Glasgow (Scotland) last [S]ummer"?
- bumbledraven 3y ago>Took a while to learn to "check your exit routes", then? Or, ignoring any snark, you've learned a lot since "Glasgow (Scotland) last [S]ummer"? Presumably the family had always found the exit routes easy to locate until the incident in Glasgow. So yes, that would be when they learned the lesson. Nit: according to https://www.grammarly.com/blog/are-seasons-capitalized/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/are-seasons-capitalized/, "The seasons—winter, spring, summer and fall—do not require capitalization."
- from-nibly 3y agoWe just need to make builders more liable for issues caused by their own building. Building codes are just a way to say, you won't get in trouble for bad things that happen, in return you have to follow these rules every time you build a house. Instead if we just say, if you build a house that kills someone, you are now a murderer, then yeah I think the markets can figure out how to not get people killed. But that's not going to happen for lots of reasons.
- quickthrowman 3y agoThe builder doesn’t design a building, they’re given a set of engineered plans and told to build it. If it meets code and passes inspection, why are design problems the builder’s fault? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.
- from-nibly 3y agoI guess I should clarify often in the US the "builder" and "designer" are the same entity. By "builder" I mean the people responsible for designing unsafe designs, and the people responsible for poorly executing good designs. Find root cause, and make that entity liable
- jlhawn 3y agoThere are construction defect laws in California which, infamously, only apply to multi-family buildings and exempt single-family homes. There's a 10-year window after certification of occupancy where the builder is liable for any construction defects, not just those that may lead to death of occupants. In practice it's mostly cosmetic/finishing issues that people complain and file lawsuits about. Leveling the playing field here would be nice.
- michaelt 3y agoUnfortunately this is unlikely to work, so long as limited liability companies exist. After all, it's a simple enough matter to start a new company, trade for 3-5 years, pay yourself some big dividends then declare bankruptcy and start a new company with a very similar name and set of employees. Furthermore, the construction of larger buildings often allows for a merry-go-round of blame shifting. The architect specifies fireproof material 'or equivalent', the main contractor outsources parts of the design to specialist suppliers, the specialist suppliers trust marketing materials, the material manufacturers had small print saying people should run their own tests, the specialist fire consultant didn't raise the alarm about a change but he stopped getting paid a third of the way through the project, the contractors thought the building inspectors were checking for safety, the building inspectors thought they were a secondary safety net and responsibility lay with the designers... and so on.
- rolph 3y agomultiple streams of people converging on a choke point exit is poor planning in general, but often lethal in the case of fire.
- slyall 3y agoExcept there are often fewer people per exit in single-exit designs and the exits are closer to each apartment
- gabesullice 3y agoCorrect. You're just not going to get into a bottleneck situation with ~4-8 people per floor/flight of stairs.
- rolph 3y agoas long as it stays that way, all too often friends, and extended family move in, then thanksgiving and christmas happen
- rsync 3y agoI knew this was coming. Affordability problems in desirable locales already caused progressives to jettison anti-sprawl initiatives and environmental reviews. It was only a matter of time before our gaze shifted to building codes and life safety provisions as cost-adds that "we" should all work against. It does not gratify me in any way to have foreseen this.
- cycomanic 3y ago> I knew this was coming. > Affordability problems in desirable locales already caused progressives to jettison anti-sprawl initiatives and environmental reviews. > It was only a matter of time before our gaze shifted to building codes and life safety provisions as cost-adds that "we" should all work against. So if your safety provisions yield worse outcomes than other places is it not time to review those regulations? Do you actually care about safety or just about your confirmation bias that "progressives are doing something bad"?
- rsync 3y agoPlease see my use of the words “our” and “we”. I am one of those progressives. I just haven’t flip-flopped on sprawl and open space and environmental review based on my current economic outlook.
- sunshowers 3y agoConservationist "hippie" environmentalism is very different from, and in many ways the opposite of, modern climate activism. A general concern for the environment is roughly the only thing they share in common.
- epistasis 3y ago> progressives to jettison anti-sprawl initiatives and environmental reviews. I follow these matters closely in my state and others, but have never heard a single instance of either of these! Could you point to some examples, because I would love to know more, and have not found and examples by searching the web.
- SkeuomorphicBee 3y agoLooking from the outside I would guess this is one of the big reasons for the "missing middle" [1] (lack of medium-density housing) in most North American cities. It is simply not economically feasible to build a small to medium size multi-unit building if you need to include two stairwells, so all buildings are either single family houses or huge mega projects. In my country the simple and cheap four-story walk-up condo building (with a single stair and no elevator) is the bread and butter medium density housing for the working class. You either have two or four units per floor, all opening to the stairwell with almost no space lost in corridors, it is simple and efficient. Alternatively for higher density there are higher versions with typically up to 12 floors with one or two elevators but still only one stairwell, so keeping the same efficiency. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing
- quickthrowman 3y agoThe reason five over ones are popular in the US has nothing to do with staircase requirements. The reason is money, like always. You can stick build residential buildings up to five stories and it’s way, way cheaper than reinforced concrete and steel. They are mega complexes because the financial stakeholders want to maximize the available land and rents.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago> The reason five over ones are popular in the US has nothing to do with staircase requirements. The reason is money, like always. Yes it is money. More staircases remarkably increase the costs of buildings. Single stairway, cheaper buildings, more profitable to do other sorts of buildings, more variety of buildings etc. (see also no parking mandates)
- bluGill 3y agoStairs are not expensivei they take space, but are cheay otherwise
- ponderings 3y agoI see these things in movies, sometimes the last part is a ladder? Why isn't it one big ladder?
- yellow_lead 3y agoI imagine time to get down it is a factor
- Tiktaalik 3y agoInteresting to see how we got to where we're at. Seems like at no point along the way, as more and more fire safety measures were being added (eg. sprinklers!) did anyone think that maybe it meant some of the more egregiously expensive safety measures were now deprecated and their use should be ended. British Columbia's government has mentioned they're looking into this and I hope we see an end to the mandated two staircases. People consistently say they want more two and three bedroom apartments. Single stairway buildings seem like one of the best ways to introduce the flexibility that would make those products more viable.
- KaiserPro 3y agoI'm sorry, but the assertions that multi-exit housing blocks take up more space is frankly bollocks. Housing estates in Europe manage it by having proper balconies that can be used as exits, but also having share walk ways out the front. Not only can you have two or more exits, it also means that you can secure the building more easily as there are less doors to secure. take this estate: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RXscnAJaDRCLausL9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/RXscnAJaDRCLausL9 there are 200 flats, a mix of 1-4 bedrooms. The biggest flats are about 85m2 (~1000sqft) every flat has a separate kitchen, living room and toilet/bathroom. There are four exits to ground level on the "C" (the top, right and bottom of the block) they are secured by keyfob. Each landing is then secured by another keyfob. In case of fire, the balcony divider can be pushed open allowing refuge in the next flat. These flats are made of concrete, and there are only 4 holes into the flat above/below, meaning that fire doesn't spread. That estate has a fire at least once every 2 years, and it only affects one flat.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cycomanic 3y agoAfter reading your comment I'm wondering if we have read the same article. It's pretty self evident that adding an extra staircase takes up significant space as everyone who has tried to design a floor plan will tell you. For larger buildings it's not just the area of the stairwell, but also the corridor that has to connect the 2 of them. I can also confirm that most apartment buildings in Germany, France, Scandinavia, Austria and Italy (that I'm familiar with) have only 1 stairwell (note that's different to exists, many have at least 2 exits). From what I have seen they apartments (like the article asserts) tend to have much nicer layouts with more light.
- xnx 3y agoIt would seem sensible if fire codes were something like LEED certifications, where different elements scored different points toward certification. Example: You don't need a second staircase if you have a sprinkler system. Non-flammable materials like brick and stone earn more points that wood and asphalt. etc.
- advisedwang 3y agoFire codes aren't a point system, but they do often have "X is required if Y is missing" type rules.
- spanktheuser 3y agoI’m curious whether this is really the issue in most US cities. In Chicago we achieve significant density with a two staircase requirement. If the goal is to unlock greater density in Manhattan I accept that single-stair multifamily may be necessary. However, it seems to me that the greater need is to bring more density to urban areas such as Houston, Dallas and Phoenix. All of which seem to have ample opportunity for increasing density in a manner that preserves multiple egress options.
- BanjoBass 3y agoNew york has air rights. Many existing buildings cannot build taller, thus redevelopment removes leasable space instead of modernizing and/or bifurcating it.
- RecycledEle 3y agoI worked on a design (only as a hobby) for a group of units in a pentagon or hexagon shape that would surround a central room. The landlord can quickly sheetrock over some doors while cutting others open. The idea is to be able to expand or contract units to accommodate different tennants. The most hilarius objection I could imagine is "nobody can have 2 refrigerators and 2 kitchens," coming from my brother who spent a fortune to renovate for exactly that. A second laundry room can be handy, as can a second bathroom. A third laundry room can be converted to a closet with minor work to cover the washer/dryer connections and some shelves. The central area would be another bedroom that has one doorway cut open and all the other doorways sheetrocked over. One last thought, if you have never considered buying a duplex for a growing family and cutting in a door or two between the sides, you should. The "you can't do that" usually turns into "that's so cool" after a few hours.
- senkora 3y agoDo you have any pictures of your design that you can share? It sounds cool.
- kjellsbells 3y agoThere's logic, and there's what is politically feasible. I assert that people generally understand building safety codes to have been written in blood: the rule exists only because once upon a time it didnt, and people died. Fire exits and Triangle Shirtwaist, that sort of thing. Coupled with the equally strong perception that property developers and builders will take any shortcut to make a buck, and the ideas in this article are simply dead on arrival. The public will vote with their wallets and stay away.
- amluto 3y ago> The common hallway that must connect the two stairs in a modern American code-compliant building cuts the structure in two, cutting off the possibility of floor-through apartments found in traditional American multifamily architecture like the New York City tenement or the Los Angeles dingbat. What requires a common hallway? The example single-stair plans seem like an equal number of staircases could be bolted on the back, giving every unit a second egress.
- ska 3y ago> What requires a common hallway? Effectively, the building code they are talking about the value of changing. Fully enclosed stairways at the back for each "slice" would be cost prohibitive, and exterior "fire escape" type stairs are not allowed either.
- Pxtl 3y agoEven as a compromise you could make a pretty good small building with 2 units per floor, single walk-up stairwell+landing+elevator on the front, and an exterior fire-escape on the back.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- colatkinson 3y agoThis is a super common setup in my part of NYC (minus the elevator). It seems to work fairly well, especially since it makes it viable to have lots of buildings in a row with minimal wasted space between them. It's definitely not the densest design possible, but it certainly seemed to let them fit a lot of fairly spacious 1-2 BRs in not a lot of space back in the early 20th c., and the height can scale up pretty well (though the elevator probably becomes at least a soft requirement above 4-5 floors).
- Pxtl 3y agoI'm thinking more of a 10-floor building because I stayed in one with family in Buenos Aires that was like that several times.
- massysett 3y agoThe evidence the author gives is not compelling. "Almost every country in Western Europe—where single-stair apartment buildings can rise many times the IBC’s three-story height limit—has fewer fire deaths per capita than the US." There is no analysis of where these fire deaths are occurring: are they in single-family homes? Commercial buildings? Car wrecks that caught on fire? Trailer parks? More compelling would be to compare apartment deaths in other countries with those in the US or, at a minimum, explain why the available statistics advance this thesis even if they are not completely comparable.
- rootusrootus 3y agoIndeed, going by this [0] information from FEMA, it seems like the US is mid-pack. [0] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v12i8.pdf https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v12i8.pdf
- elzbardico 3y agoEnclosed stairways are the default in a lot of countries. I prefer having a single enclosed stairway with fire-doors than multiple stairways.
- neilv 3y ago> But when architects try to design apartments with two or more bedrooms, the apartments balloon in size, since every 10-foot-wide bedroom ends up coming with 30 or more feet in unit depth. Try to add a single 120-square foot bedroom and you’ll end up having to add another 180 square feet on top that you need to fill some other way—probably with walk-in closets and en-suite bathrooms, adding the expense of more plumbing, fixtures, and tiles. Can any architects say whether that's absolutely true, within the constraints, or are solutions with different desirable properties possible? Reason I'm asking: I've been looking at floorplans and renders for new condo and apartment buildings recently, and I wonder whether some of the decisions in layouts might've been phoned-in, without lots of creative or problem-solving work happening. (Maybe it's like software, in which brilliant isn't normally demanded, so sometimes the work is approached more like a huge bulk of tediousness to slog through?) (Or maybe some of the confusing decisions are due to solving larger constraints, like a $1M condo gets an inexplicably badly-positioned kitchen because the $3M condo above takes priority for where pipes run, and they're generally trying to minimize plumbing costs?)
- maxglute 3y ago>absolutely true, within the constraints Basically. Possible geometries relative to site limitations and building codes have been programmatically optimized to death to maximize number of units. There's not much hacking when living room + bedroom need windows. Occasionally there's a plot large enough where carving light wells / atriums makes sense. But developers would rather work on smaller plots that doesnt require wasting interior space, or larger plots where they can fit multiple buildings.
- chubot 3y agoWow very interesting! This is what I come to Hacker News for
- ryukoposting 3y agoIn many cities, the second staircase is used as an amenity. Chicago is chock-full of old houses converted to three-flats. Most of those flats have large balconies on the back... with a staircase. These balconies provide fresh air and nice views at a price point where both of those things are otherwise impossible to find. So yes, my counterpoint is "but I like the second staircase." But, I really do - a lot of people do, and I don't see why landlords would build those things if they weren't required to.
- secabeen 3y agoYeah, there's also a large collection of existing stock that does this as multi-family construction with a back porch: https://chicagoreader.com/best-of-chicago/business-in-the-front-party-on-the-back-porch/ https://chicagoreader.com/best-of-chicago/business-in-the-fr...
- breischl 3y ago>Most of those flats have large balconies on the back... with a staircase. It sounds like you're describing an external staircase - loosely speaking a fire escape. I could be wrong though, I'm not sure. The article was discussing the requirement for _fully enclosed_ internal staircases, which is different.
- ryukoposting 3y agoI mean, yes, legally, it's a fire escape. But, there's a full size door leading out to it, it's typically made of treated wood, and the staircase is a normal wood staircase, not some rickety metal thing. These also have the added bonus of being generally a nicer staircase than the one that's actually built into the house. The interior, retrofitted staircases tend to be narrow with lots of awkward, angled steps.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoIn Japan it seems like some buildings use those as primary stair cases. They have elevators also, but too many people need to use them to be very useful, so its up and down the outside fire escape.
- Duanemclemore 3y agoHi, architect here. I have a lot to say about the issue, but I'll just start with a comment that the place with the highest rate of fires in residences and deaths from these per capita is Mississippi, which has one of the lowest rates of people living in multifamily buildings. In addition to the rural nature of the state, and prevalence of non-professional fire departments in these areas (these two items moot to this discussion), a simple version of the biggest contributors to this outcome are: the housing stock here starts out as poor quality - there are a lot of mobile homes, which have a separate, less restrictive and more dangerous building code. Plus the lack of skilled labor leads to worse initial quality over the entire built sector. The other major factor is lax or nonexistent enforcement of existing building codes and housing regulations. So already poor housing degrades quickly and badly. A relatively wealthy small town I'm familiar with went two years without a Building Code enforcement official. But in contrast to the average American city, the average "European" city (let's just go with the generality) is much more "regulated" in this area. Planning permission is much harder to come by, and questions like whether a building can get by -safely- with a single stair is part of that vetting process. But it's very definitely just one aspect of the review. I have extensive experience with California, having worked there for over a decade and even having passed the California Supplemental Exam. Folks are absolutely 100% correct that environmental and community planning review processes are routinely abused by those with clout to maintain scarcity of the resource they possess. "Those with clout" typically means wealthy homeowners and large developers who want to shut smaller parties out of the process. Anyway, much more to say about this and I might chime in if I get the chance. But I love that the discussion is happening. The system in the US is pretty universally broken. But TL;DR the cause is not as simple as "less regulation good!" or "more regulation good!"
- TacticalCoder 3y agoSingle-stair multifamily: why not. I live in one now (wife, daughter and me) after having spent time in a rural area (detached house in the middle of nowhere). But why take Barcelona as an example? These superblocks are horrible. Barcelona is noisy, stressful and impersonate (plus there are shitloads of pickpockets and serious issues between independentists and nationalists). There's a middle ground between one house per family and these fugly superblocks. You know why people like me suffocate so much in Barcelona? Because Franco (a dictator) allowed the Comarcal plan: cheap housing and allowing buildings to become much higher. And unsurprisingly it all turned to shit. Superblocks came much later and were an answer to that past SNAFU where these high, gigantic blocks created an unlivable city. Superblocks are at best a band aid which doesn't fix Barcelona's root issue: these blocks (no matter if they're grouped by 9 in superblocks) are simply completely oppressive. Where I live (another EU country) all the buildings are semi-detached (so it's always two buildings together), four stories / eight apartments per building. So sixteen families for two "attached buildings". And, contrarily to Barcelona, people can breathe here. There's five times two attached buildings, disposed in an "U" shape. So it's open (not closed like these fugly blocks in Barcelona). There's a shared park and below the buildings are the parking spaces (all shared). There are I take it about 80 apartments altogether. Next block: repeat something similar. But there's room. It's not suffocating. It's not alienating. And all these blocks are facing a "Natura 2000" protected forest: nothing shall ever be constructed there. Nature: I'm sure some city planners have at least heard the word "nature". You know what I did today? I didn't use the car. I left my single-stair multifamily and went for a walk in that forest, with my family, walking in the snow (there's been a snowstorm last night). Explain me, when I'm in block 298 in superblock XKY, surrounded by countless superblocks, how do I get to nature? I mean, yeah: it's nice to try to fix housing. But it's 2024 and by now people have figured out better arrangements than those created under a dictator in Spain.
- gabesullice 3y agoI spent a little less than a year as a digital nomad living/working for about three weeks at a time in various cities in Italy, France, Austria, and Spain during my twenties. Barcelona's housing was my least favorite and not representative of any other place I stayed. I stayed in those 'superblocks', not near the old city where most tourists stay. It was the most 'American' feeling in terms of its walkability and how impersonal it felt.
- BurningFrog 3y agoMaybe the biggest problem with regulations is that even if they're very positive when enacted, there is usually no mechanism to reevaluate them during the following decades. And so the effects of a fire 164 years ago screws up housing across the US today.
- philsnow 3y ago> there is usually no mechanism to reevaluate them during the following decades One of my favorite parts about Texas, at least on paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Advisory_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Advisory_Commission
- nine_k 3y agoRe-evaluation is hard, costly, and risky: what if you actually degrade the safety a tiny bit? Or maybe you don't, but an incident happens, and your changes are going to be blamed by media? Doing nothing and groaning is safer for career.
- anikan_vader 3y agoThe author does not even attempt to analyze the safety impact of removing the second stair. The only evidence they provide is that Western Europe has fewer fire deaths than the US. Which suggests that perhaps the US should be increasing fire safety standards rather than removing them…
- Seattle3503 3y agoSeattle also allows for single stair multifamily. It hasn't been a problem for us yet.
- wolverine876 3y agoWhat is the rate of injuries per fire in single stair multifamily buildings?
- jojobas 3y agoNaturally the authors don't live in dangerous shoeboxes, dorm rooms or co-living pods they advocates the plebs should race to the bottom to. Every time someone nudges "the workforce" closer and closer to the 2-penny hangovers you can be sure he has a downtown penthouse, a suburban mansion, or both, and hope to scalp bottom-feeder market once regulations are laxed.
- jmacd 3y agoAn excellent video was recently published on this topic, although it focuses laregly on Vancouver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM
- pottertheotter 3y agoI've been hoping that this would change because the type of mid/low-rise multifamily housing we have in the United States is horrible. What I really hope happens is that ownership of multifamily real estate becomes much more fragmented. Imagine multifamily housing where each lot is the same as a single family lot. You can have varied types right next to each other (one building could house several seniors in small apartments, another could house several young people in smaller apartments, another could be the owner in a two floor "house" on the top to floors with rentals below, another could be a building comprised of entire floor flats that are each owner-occupied). They can be redeveloped so much more easily or repurposed. When an entire block is a huge multifamily building, it's pretty much impossible to change anything about it. But, we really need to also change how we finance these buildings. A big reason everything is the same these days is because the finance system underwrites them. The system is there for these other types of smaller buildings.
- istillwritecode 3y agoThe case for burning up in a fire.
- anovikov 3y agoIt feels ridiculous that a huge country with so much good land and widely spread cities, has problems like this. Just nix zoning guys. You have infinite land to build on.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoSee also a related video by About Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM which mentions this very pertinent section of the US National Housing Association Proceedings (1913), p.212: "Do everything possible in our laws to encourage the construction of private dwellings and even two-family dwellings, because the two-family house is the next least objectionable type, and penalize so far as we can in our statute, the multiple dwelling of any kind... if we require multiple dwellings to be fireproof, and thus increase the cost of construction; if we require stairs to be fireproofed, even where there are only three families; if we require fire escapes and a host of other things, all dealing with fire protection, we are on safe grounds (compared to zoning regulations based on race), because that can be justified as a legitimate exercise of the police power[...] In our laws let most of the fire provisions relate solely to multiple dwellings, and allow our private houses and two-family houses to be built with no fire protection whatever"
- gabesullice 3y agoI can speak to and endorse this kind of unit from personal experience. I was born, raised and lived most of my life in Denver, CO. Now, I live in France in a 'single-stair multifamily'. Growing up I mostly lived in single family homes, but in college my dad moved into a townhouse and I lived with him for a couple years. Before moving to France, my wife and I lived in single family homes and a '5-over-1' apartment. Now, we live on the 7th floor, end-unit of an apartment building. It's a 'single-stair multifamily,' 'floor-through' apartment (thankfully with an elevator). Meaning our apartment a large balcony one one side and windows on three sides. The only side without a window leads to the stairwell. Every room has a window, even the bathroom and toilet (often separated in France). Without a doubt, this place is one of the best types of housing I've ever occupied. In the summer we can open up windows on either side of the apartment and get a fantastic breeze. The concrete structure does a great job regulating the temperature for most of the year. We get sunlight in the morning and evening. I hate yardwork and there's none to do. No sidewalks to shovel snow from either. I also experience neighborliness on par with most single family homes. Very similar to my dad's townhouse actually (probably not by coincidence if you think about the incentive structures). We have a 5 year old son and we don't miss having a yard. There are parks nearby with playgrounds and paths where he can safely ride his bike without worrying about any cars. Admittedly, I do miss having barbecues in the backyard. I also miss having a garage to use as a workshop. The 5-over-1, on the other hand, was easily the worst type of housing I've occupied. Poor lighting, anonymous, ugly corridors. No sense of neighborliness. Poorly maintained and constructed. Nowhere near a good park without walking along a nasty arterial surface street. I frequently ask myself, 'why can't we have this in the States?!' and now I know why. Building codes, zoning and city planners strike again.
- munksbeer 3y ago> Admittedly, I do miss having barbecues in the backyard. I also miss having a garage to use as a workshop. This is something that Singapore seems to do quite well. Many blocks of flats have shared outdoor facilities like a bbq, childrens playground, pool, etc. I've never lived there but have friends who do and when I visit we'll have a bbq. I live in the UK. The housing here is notoriously poor quality, even (or sometimes especially) new build blocks of flats. And even in the expensive places I'm not sure they offer this.
- TomK32 3y agoThere's point about the whole fire risk that has been missed so far: Denser settlements allow fire fighters to repsond and arriver faster and the chance for a neighbour to spot the fire in a house is much higher if there are more neighbours.
- gumballindie 3y ago> great urban fires by the 19th century were mostly confined to smaller or poorer cities on the continent’s edge that hadn’t yet made the transition to brick, stone, metal, and concrete. London's Grenfell Towers would like to have a word with you.
- earino 3y agoWhat a wonderful article. I've lived in single family homes and apartments in USA, Switzerland and Spain. I never understood why the apartment buildings in the USA felt so different, and now it makes sense. Even in my 15 story apartment in Zurich, there was a single stair. It made the apartment layouts much better, made it easier to make apartments with a lot more light, and many of the things this article talks about. Now I live in Spain in a building from the 1960s. A 4 story apartment building, retrofitted in the 1980s with a tiny elevator. It's a really efficient design, though my wife and I have discussed that from an accessibility standpoint, it leaves a lot to be desired. Now I understand the constraints of apartment designers in the USA a bit better!
- ardaoweo 3y agoAside from getting rid of unnecessary regulation, letting everyone who can work remotely to do so is a great way to bring down house prices in most in-demand areas. Way too many people are forced to move into big cities simply for work, even though they really wouldn't want to. It's bad for them, and bad for those who actually want to live in those areas, but can't afford it.
- Gabriel54 3y agoI know I'm going to get a lot of pushback for raising this point, but I'm somewhat incredulous to see people bring up safety as the reason for these restrictions, when this country simultaneously (in many places) allows young adults to buy a gun (or lots of guns!) simply by walking into a store and asking for one. But heaven help you if you want to build a three story building with one stairway.
- cmmeur01 3y agoNice another uneducated take that shows no understanding of the firearms buying process.
- Gabriel54 3y agoIn the great state of Texas, as I understand the process: -walk into a licensed firearm dealer -show government ID (e.g. drivers license) -fill out ATF form 4473 (approx. two pages) -wait for background check (called NICS, Near Instance Criminal Background Check System) -pay for firearm Did I miss any steps?
- cmmeur01 3y agoLittle bit different than “ simply by walking into a store and asking for one” no? Almost like anti-gun people are purposely disingenuous when they state stuff like this and ignore the background check.
- wscott 3y agoThat article gave an example of a "typical European floorplan". It did have multiple stairs they were just not normally accessible from all apartments. If you had some emergency-only provision to enter your neighbor's apartment and then bust their wall to access the apartment behind it, more than one egress would be possible. Some emergency doors where an alarm would sound perhaps? I come up with all kinds of problems with this, but that was my thoughts looking at that floorplan.
- Symbiote 3y agoPart of the fire safety of the European design will be containment: firewalls between the apartments, which would be compromised by emergency doors.
- ip26 3y agoWhy is this debate being simplified to "single-stair vs double-stair"? I am not seeing anyone even attempt to pitch a return to single-stair plus fire-escape, which seems odd.
- rainbowzootsuit 3y agoExterior exit stairs are still allowed by the International Building Code, but as mentioned in the article they aren't going to be too similar to the classic fire escape stair particularly if there are accessible units because a second egress has to be accessible too.