[HN Gopher] The case for single-stair multifamily
___________________________________________________________________
The case for single-stair multifamily
Author : jbrins1
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-01-18 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thesisdriven.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thesisdriven.com)
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| The Boston triple decker should be the standard home of North
| America and nobody can tell me otherwise.
| hk__2 wrote:
| Can you explain this for the non-US audience?
| pimlottc wrote:
| Or just the non-Boston audience
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I suspect they're referring to this type of buildings
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)
| kevsim wrote:
| Yep, that's what tons of houses outside of the immediate
| city center of Boston look like.
| drcongo wrote:
| Those look a little like the Mansion Blocks we have in
| London - https://welcomehome-
| london.com/architecture/mansion-blocks/
| Steltek wrote:
| A little trolling going on in that Wikipedia page. It
| captions the Cambridge photo as "Three-decker", where
| locals would call it a triple-decker. It then captions the
| Worcester photo as "triple-decker", where locals would call
| it three-decker.
| alexb_ wrote:
| The issue with regard to single stair buildings are for things
| taller than 3 stories. IIRC in America 3 stories is the most
| common limit by far, and in Canada it's even worse with most
| regulations having 2 stories as the limit for a single stair
| complex.
| pomian wrote:
| We need two exits in Canada. Because a snow drift can easily
| block one exit. That's why there are exits on each side of a
| structure, not two, on the same side.
| ghaff wrote:
| There was a so-so movie based on this one exit theme once.
| Forget where it was set.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Two exits do not require two stairwells - in any case, this
| is a very weak argument for denying people the ability to
| buy housing. Especially in Canada, where there is an
| absurdly large housing crisis due to an extremely small
| supply.
| ghaff wrote:
| Boston and immediate environs is still pretty expensive but,
| at least historically, these sort of multi-unit houses tended
| to be in less expensive neighborhoods (many of which are now
| pretty expensive).
| bluGill wrote:
| It is generally understood that at 4 floors you need an
| elevator which is expensive. This is partially the ADA (which
| doesn't say this from what I can tell, but is generally
| understood to suggest it), and partially 4 floor is enough
| stairs few people would agree to walk up them.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| Which ties into a second problem: the US especially
| requires elevators to be too large, which limits how many
| are built because they take up so much square footage,
| which drives up the cost to install.
|
| In Spain and France you'll find single staircase, 4 story
| buildings that have one meter-by-meter sized elevator.
| Often even as retrofits in older buildings! In NY you'll
| find these too, but they're only in pre-war (1930s and
| older) buildings. It would make many apartments much more
| accessible and desirable to live in if we could drive down
| the cost of elevator installations for smaller buildings.
| tylermw wrote:
| The word you're looking for is "cheaper," not
| "accessible." Those 1x1m elevators certainly aren't
| accessible for wheelchair users. ADA requirements require
| the following minimum dimensions for an elevator:
|
| "The width of the elevator car is a minimum of 80 inches
| (2030 mm). The depth of the elevator car measured from
| the back wall to the elevator door is a minimum of 54
| inches (1370 mm). The depth of the elevator car measured
| from the back wall to the control panel is a minimum of
| 51 inches (1291 mm)."
| kvmet wrote:
| 100% agree. Somerville (city outside of Boston) is 19th on this
| list of densest cities in the US and I attribute it mostly to 2
| and 3-family homes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
| whartung wrote:
| Many of the new town houses in Orange County/Irvine area are
| following this plan.
|
| They do not appeal to me, as I'm not fond of having to scale
| several flights of stairs, and the individual floors seem quite
| small, smaller than my first studio apartment.
|
| My first town house was essentially three stories. The garage
| level, main living level, and a loft. But the main living space
| was the majority of the square footage so there was little
| routine need to scale the stairs.
|
| Also the main living/dining/kitchen area shared with the loft
| offering a nice, high ceiling, and a roomy experience.
|
| While I can certainly appreciate the benefits of the density
| these provide, the idea of living in several 400-500 sq ft
| boxes, especially connected with stairs, just doesn't appeal to
| me, particularly as I age.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| boston triple deckers are not sliced vertically
| alexb_ wrote:
| Land Value Tax being the main method of taxation would encourage
| municipalities to adopt things like this.
| bequanna wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| So 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Maybe. I'd like to see something like that run as a
| simulation over a city to see effects for varying high
| value uses.
| Aunche wrote:
| Luxury apartments will depreciate into regular apartments
| over time. Allowing demand for luxury apartments to be
| pent up just means that rich people will capture more
| regular apartments instead.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Why would that happen? Demand will be satisfied as that
| would be the most high value thing to do, driving the
| land tax wherever the process starts.
| Aunche wrote:
| You mean why luxury apartments will become regular
| apartments? Most of the "luxury" apartments these days
| aren't really that special besides being newer and
| trendier. Of course, the truly iconic buildings will
| always be considered luxurious, but even the above
| average ones depreciate. In Manhattan, you can see a lot
| of buildings from a century ago with degraded
| ornamentation that would have been beautiful in their
| heyday, but they're actually more affordable than their
| neighbors that are plainer, but more renovated.
| toast0 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| If you're being taxed on hypothetical improvements and not
| just the value of the land, why is it called a Land Value
| Tax, rather than a Hypothetical Best Use Tax? People assume
| the name means what it says and get confused.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I don't know why they name stuff what they do, but it's
| dumb to simply read the name of something and then make
| assumptions based on no further information about that
| thing. Maybe you should have read the Wikipedia about it
| before assuming stuff?
| toast0 wrote:
| Well, that doesn't really help, because Wikipedia says
|
| > A land value tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land
| without regard to buildings, personal property and other
| improvements upon it.
|
| In my mind, the value of the land without regard to
| buildings, etc, is what you would pay for an empty lot.
| But you said the value is what you would pay for the lot
| with improvements. Theoretically, real estate property
| taxes I've paid have been divided into the land value and
| the improvements value (although it's mostly conjecture;
| the total value is all that matters and that generally
| approximates market value of the lot with the
| improvements, at least in CA and WA, where I've paid
| property taxes; although CA has Prop 13 that distorts
| assessments over time). Washington even states the land
| portion is assessed based on the best use, not the
| current use, unless it's in some special categories like
| farm, forestry, and open space.
|
| Now I'm even more confused. Which speaks to the GP's
| confusion.
|
| > I have yet to understand why people have made land
| value tax a thing.
|
| If the whole concept is so confusing, starting with the
| name, it's no wonder advocacy isn't effective.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Not everybody does a half-hour of research before every
| HN comment. Nor should they be expected to.
|
| LVT was named (I presume) by the _advocates_ of it. If
| their name is misleading, don 't blame the people reading
| it who are getting confused.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You're looking at it the wrong way. They're not looking
| at the hypothetical improvements and charging as if you
| built them. They're saying "this land could reasonably
| support a skyscraper, therefore it is very valuable
| land".
| nostrademons wrote:
| Or the other way to look at it is "This land has lots of
| valuable community improvements like nearby restaurants,
| shops, parks, good schools, walkability. Therefore, _the
| land_ itself is worth more. It is more economically
| efficient if more people get to benefit from the positive
| externalities of a good location, and so we should
| incentivize development in the locations that are most
| valuable. "
|
| Most areas _can_ support a skyscraper, but it doesn 't
| really make sense to build one in the middle of nowhere.
| Conversely it doesn't make sense to keep prime real
| estate next to shops & public transit a surface parking
| lot. LVT incentivizes developing the parcels that are in
| good locations into high-density, high-value uses. A
| traditional improvement-based property tax reverses those
| incentives: if you develop your parking lot into a
| skyscraper, you pay much more in taxes, which may be
| unaffordable for smaller non-corporate owners, which
| gives them an incentive to hold onto them and keep them
| as marginal low-productivity uses.
| toast0 wrote:
| On the other hand, I would say, "this land has very high
| taxes compared to its price; therefore it's not very
| valuable land."
|
| If you implement a land value tax, as I understand it,
| the parking lot and the skyscraper next to it should be
| taxed the same if they have the same footprint. All
| things being equal, that means a very large tax burden
| for the parking lot owner, and that certainly is an
| incentive to transfer it to someone who will do something
| with it, which is what you're advocating for.
|
| But at the same time, it makes the price you can get for
| the parking lot much lower. And I'm having a hard time
| not equating sales price and value. And once I've seen
| that under a LVT, the parking lot has no or little value,
| because it can't be sold for much money, it's more
| confusing --- if the value is low, and the tax rate is
| based on value, why are the taxes so high?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| That's a classic example used by proponents of LVT. But
| what is another example?
|
| Terry buys a house in a run down, blighted, poor/cheap
| neighborhood, and along with other neighbors, starts to
| revitalize it. 15 years later, the formerly blighted
| neighborhood has become hip, due to the work and care Terry
| and others put in to it. Property prices increase as rich
| people want to move to the cool neighborhood, and now Terry
| has a hard time affording the taxes, and is forced to sell
| and essentially evicted from the neighborhood he helped
| build, because a rich person would rather live there.
| Aunche wrote:
| First of all, LVT are designed to be replacement for
| property taxes, which already have the problem you
| describe.
|
| Also, Terry isn't forced to sell to a rich person. He
| _is_ a rich person. The type of people who like to live
| in hip neighborhoods tends to be recent graduates
| starting their high paying career. While they may have
| more income than Terry, Terry is significantly wealthier
| than most of them. If he really wants to stay on there,
| he can easily pay off any property /land taxes with the
| equity of his home.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| They have that problem, but there are frequently programs
| or legislation designed to reduce that burden. Eg, >10%
| of Americans are (theoretically) covered by Prop 13.
| Other municipalities may have laws on the books limiting
| property tax increases to a certain percent per year.
| Many other places offer property tax relief programs for
| people with low income, or the disabled, or the elderly,
| or generally by increasing exemptions.
|
| As I understand it though, you wouldn't want these
| programs with a LVT system, because they would just
| distort the market in a similar manner that it is now?
|
| Yes, because of the property appreciation, Terry can say
| that on paper, he is rich-ish, but a weird kind of rich
| where he has nothing but a house in a nice neighborhood,
| and otherwise has very little money.
|
| How does he pay off the taxes with the equity of his
| home? A HELOC could work, but he already can't afford the
| increased taxes with his income alone, so a HELOC would
| just delay the inevitable and based on his income he
| probably wouldn't qualify for one.
|
| Or he could do a reverse mortgage, be able to pay the
| taxes, but put himself at a major risk of losing his home
| entirely if he lives long enough. Also, reverse mortgages
| are only available to people over 62.
| COM9 wrote:
| 1. That still happens with the classic property tax, but
| 2. at least there's more housing supply / less empty lots
| with LVT.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, one system taxes land value and improvement and the
| other taxes only land value. In the first system, all
| improvements have a tax cost of x * value(improvement). In
| the second system, they have a tax cost of 0. There's three
| possible outcomes: this increases improvements, this keeps
| them the same, and this decreases improvements. It depends on
| whether you think moving one cost component from positive to
| zero puts us in the first, the second, or the third worlds
| there.
|
| I just tried it out and ChatGPT helps if you want to
| understand this. It is quite patient and will provide instant
| responses.
| kilotaras wrote:
| Someone buys a property:
| +-------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Type | Land Value | Cover Value | Total Value |
| +-------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Parking Lot | 100 | 0 | 100 |
| | Dump | 100 | -20 | 80 |
| | Skyscrapper | 100 | 100 | 200 |
| +-------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
|
| Land increases in price and buyer sells it:
| +-------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Type | Land Value | Cover Value | Total Value |
| +-------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Parking Lot | 150 | 0 | 150 |
| | Dump | 150 | -20 | 130 |
| | Skyscrapper | 150 | 100 | 250 |
| +-------------+------------+-------------+-------------+
|
| In all 3 cases there's a profit of 50, but dump payed the
| least taxes followed by parking lot and then skyscrapper. In
| places where land increases in value it incentives to hold
| the land while NOT developing it.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| When money is growing on trees, _pick it_.
|
| If you have an undeveloped piece of land worth X, and it
| becomes worth Y if you put a skyscraper on it, then you do
| it as long as the cost of construction is less than Y-X.
|
| Sure, you can make money by doing nothing, if the price of
| land is going up. But you can make that money plus the
| money you make by building the skyscraper by, you know,
| building the skyscraper.
|
| If you're not willing to do that because of the increased
| taxes on the skyscraper, then either you're refusing
| dollars to avoid spending a dime, or the tax regime in your
| city is really out of control.
|
| So I'm not buying your argument here at all. Developers
| develop because they _make money doing it_. The absence of
| a land-value tax isn 't what stops them.
| kilotaras wrote:
| > Developers develop because they make money doing it
|
| Not all property is owned by developers. I would go even
| further and say that most properties are owned by non-
| developers.
|
| Some people use land as store of value. We as a society
| would be better off if they used, e.g. gold instead.
| kemotep wrote:
| It is the case now that it is profitable to purchase a
| rundown building, pay the property taxes for years, and
| then sell it for a significantly higher value.
|
| This is the rent seeking behavior that a Land Value Tax
| seeks to eliminate. By taxing the _unimproved_ value of
| land, it becomes more and more burdensome to sit and do
| nothing with your property. By making improvements
| (building a high rise, running a productive farm, etc.)
| you reduce your tax burden and, as you mentioned, profit
| from the improvements.
|
| So a more productive and efficient land use is encouraged
| by land value tax compared to property taxes which since
| they are based on total value (including improvements)
| you could potentially be punished for being more
| productive than just doing nothing.
| jlhawn wrote:
| it would increase the tax rate on land to be much higher. In
| the most extreme case, the annual tax on land value would so
| high that vacant land could be purchased for close to zero
| purchase price because the holding cost of the tax is high
| enough to capture all the value which is capitalized into a
| purchase price.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Correct, but that's the point really. In an extreme case,
| such as an empty lot in Manhattan, it would cause the
| property to change hands to someone who could be more
| productive with it.
|
| Even though it wouldn't be worth as much without LVT, it
| would still be worth a lot in such an extreme case, so it's
| not devastating for the owner either.
| idontpost wrote:
| Because improvements aren't taxed. So if you add improvements
| (read: more housing), you don't pay taxes and you become more
| profitable (more rent, same taxes).
|
| So you move all tax to just the land value at a higher rate
| than present, then let people build to offset the tax.
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's about _incentives_. In general, the best incentive
| scheme is one where people are incentivized to do things that
| other people find valuable. The worst incentive scheme is one
| where you get punished by a third party for doing things that
| others find valuable. Economists call this "deadweight
| loss", the number of beneficial transactions that do not
| happen because with the addition of a tax, the transaction is
| no longer beneficial for both parties. Ideally, the perfect
| tax is one where you are taxed on things that are negatively
| valuable for society (an externality or sin tax, as a way of
| disincentivizing you from doing those activities) or that you
| don't have control over (i.e. it doesn't alter your behavior
| at all), while _not_ taxing any activities that are
| beneficial for others.
|
| LVT is very close in structure to this perfect tax. There is
| a finite amount of land available, and no way to make more of
| it; taxes on land don't disincentivize land production, they
| just take a cut of the _rent_ that you get from having
| conquered that land first or bought it from someone who did.
| And the land _value_ (exclusive of improvements) is usually
| set by its _location_ - what else is nearby, what community
| improvements have been made, is it in a pretty place, is
| there lots of pollution or crime? These too are things that
| the owner has no control of; arguably they are reaping the
| benefits of things that the rest of the community has built,
| and so they should be taxed on it so the fruits of those
| labor go back to the community.
|
| By excluding the _improvements_ , you let the land owner
| capture the fruits of their actual labor. So if they build a
| new apartment building and provide housing to those who need
| it, they can charge rent, and they won't be taxed on that
| rent, and so they capture the full benefit of those
| improvements. If it's a _nice_ apartment building, they get
| to charge _more_ in rent, and they can capture that money
| too.
| phkahler wrote:
| Sounds like a cost savings for those buying up all the real
| estate in the US and renting it out.
| timdev2 wrote:
| Lower costs for everyone. Including people you don't like. Yes.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Lower costs for everyone. Including people you don't like.
| Yes.
|
| Touche. They are two different contributors to costs, and I
| wouldn't have commented if I weren't currently frustrated by
| high housing costs.
| throw0101d wrote:
| The province of British Columbia (BC) seems to be considering it:
|
| * https://morehousing.substack.com/p/bc-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....
|
| * 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 wrote:
| The 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.
| ponector wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Which cities? Why 25?
| deadbabe wrote:
| This dovetails nicely with the push for WFH.
| munchler wrote:
| Hard disagree. With WFH, cities now have beautiful but empty
| office buildings near public transportation. Those should be
| turned into housing first.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Why? They could be used as really cheap offices eventually
| as demand falls.
| munchler wrote:
| With 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 wrote:
| People can never live there, it's not up to code.
|
| You can rent the offices really really cheap.
| novagameco wrote:
| Change 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
| ghaff wrote:
| In 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 wrote:
| A 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)
| munchler wrote:
| How to ruin existing suburban neighborhoods in one easy step!
| ponector wrote:
| Of course it is not realistic. To reduce housing crisis mean
| to decrease demand, to decrease prices of already built
| houses. No one will vote for that. Housing situation will be
| only worse.
| fnimick wrote:
| You 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 wrote:
| And 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.
| hobs wrote:
| No mention of the ADA in the entire article - I guess people with
| mobility issues should go fly a kite.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| you can have single-stair with elevators.
| pmontra wrote:
| Which 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.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Living in boston with a broken leg certainly made me very
| proficient in the {carry crutches while hobbling up and down
| countless staircases using only the railing to lift my entire
| body up and down with one arm} waddle.
|
| Anyone with anything more debilitating should steer clear.
| ghaff wrote:
| Although a lot of houses outside of cities require you to go
| up a flight of stairs. I own a house with a single staircase
| and the only bathroom is on the second floor. Was on crutches
| for 6+ months once.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I 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.
| timdev2 wrote:
| I'm not understanding how two staircases are more accessible
| than one. Can you elaborate?
| sonic45132 wrote:
| It does mention buildings can be a single stair with an
| elevator. 2 stairwells vs 1 stairwell doesn't need affect ADA
| compliance.
| ghaff wrote:
| It does mean disabled residents are sort of screwed if
| there's a fire alarm and the elevators are shutoff--as a
| friend told me recently--unless the neighbors can help. But
| that's sort of ignored given lack of realistic options.
| estebank wrote:
| Isn't that the same situation whether there's a single
| staircase, staircase + fire escape or two staircases?
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes. Multi-stories are generally an issue with people
| with people in the case of fire.
| estebank wrote:
| That's a factor of how many units are serviced by a set
| of stairs. On the same surface area you can have one
| large building with two staircases and one long corridor
| that splits the building down the middle, or you can have
| two separate buildings with a single set of stairs each
| and a better layout for apartments with more than one
| bedroom. The peak egress traffic will the the same for
| each case.
|
| But all of this is unrelated to
|
| > It does mean disabled residents are sort of screwed if
| there's a fire alarm and the elevators are shutoff--as a
| friend told me recently--unless the neighbors can help.
| masklinn wrote:
| How exactly do two staircases improve _accessibility_ compared
| to... one staircase?
|
| The norm in europe is one staircase and one elevator. The
| elevator is the accessible bit.
| baq wrote:
| European here.
|
| I can't even put to words my embafflement upon having learnt that
| you US folks need two staircases.
| nadermx wrote:
| The US has some very interesting requirements when building. In
| some cities, regardless of destiny, new buildings are required
| to have 1.x parking spots per unit or something of the sort as
| well. Which basically assures all buildings have to be designed
| for car centric life.
| andix wrote:
| It's the same for many European cities and towns. Many cities
| started to reduce it down to 0.5 parking spaces per flat or
| less, because many of those parking spaces tend to be empty
| in bigger cities. And just increase prices for housing.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was just visiting a European friend for a couple weeks.
| They have a car but parking was a sufficient drama that
| they took the Uber equivalent within the city most of the
| time. Busses but minimal metro.
| andix wrote:
| I honestly don't see the drama in most European cities,
| it's not like in NYC. Street parking is very limited in
| bigger cities, so you might need to park in expensive
| parking garages. Or use other methods of travel.
|
| Only in areas with a lot of old houses (built before cars
| were a thing) there might be a lack of garages.
|
| Owning/driving a car is generally very expensive in many
| European countries. Not like in the US where wages are
| rather high, but cars and gas extremely cheap, because
| there is no substantial tax on them.
|
| Edit: this might not apply to southern Europe. In some
| southern European cities it's impossible to go by car.
| That's why everyone drives a scooter.
| phatskat wrote:
| We've really done a number to cater to cars and the auto
| industry in the United States. Some More News does a great
| job on outlining the history of cars, roads, and what can be
| done to make things better - https://youtu.be/sayw3TOhykg
| cal5k wrote:
| How do you think we feel about cookie notices?
| oblio wrote:
| Yes, housing and web cookies, equally important for one's
| life.
| andix wrote:
| There 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 :)
| speeder wrote:
| Another 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/
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| That ain't us.... kind of. That's the websites deciding to
| follow the letter of the law (or a spiteful, capitalist
| interpretation, taking it right to the line) instead of the
| spirit of the law.
|
| OK, unintended consequences of legislation. But those cookie
| banners are not mandated, exactly. They don't need to be
| there. It's the companies deciding to do it that way, so they
| can keep gobbling data.
|
| It's like if the building companies implemented the 2nd
| staircase, but only so they could measure who is going up and
| down it. Not for saving lives.
|
| If they were opt in, or unnecessary tracking wasn't
| implemented in the first place, then the banners could be
| elegant or gone.
|
| But I do agree that the legislation (especially the ultra
| focus on cookies specifically) was... blinkered & short
| sighted.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No, that's entirely Europe. The outcome of the legislation
| was easy for anyone to see. As you say, it was blinkered
| and short-sighted. And I still have to click 20 popups away
| on mobile every day.
|
| If only a few websites had the banner, then maybe I'd blame
| those websites. But when they virtually _all_ do, I blame
| the law.
| drcongo wrote:
| Just out of interest, you prefer to have your data
| harvested and sold?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| How about: Don't harvest and sell my data, and don't show
| me a bunch of popups about exactly what data you can
| collect on me?
| drcongo wrote:
| That is of course the ideal, but what, you're just gonna
| trust them?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't trust a popup a single bit more than no popup.
|
| So it's not like I trust anything either way. Get rid of
| the popups. Any solution needs to be legal and not
| involve popups.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Actually the legislation is fine, much better than
| before. It's the enforcement that's lacking.
|
| I'd say >90% of cookie banners break the law. It's just
| that enforcement is only slowly catching up. We have
| already seen a couple of cases and I expect that as soon
| as there have been more rulings banners will start to
| dissappear or become much simpler.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What basis do you have for saying they would disappear?
|
| I've never heard anyone suggest that.
|
| (And them becoming "simpler" is irrelevant. As far as
| unwanted interruptions go, a popup is a popup.)
| mandibles wrote:
| The year is 3157. Each time you access a new resource on the
| shared data substrate, you are required to accept something
| called a "Cookie." You have no idea what they are or why.
| Your crewmates say it has something to do with the homeworld,
| but you just shrug and prepare for the hyperspace jump.
| mzs wrote:
| Most housing was wood framed and there was tragedy after
| tragedy from inescapable fires.
| screye wrote:
| Oddly, this is already a solved problem.
|
| NYC fire escapes are world famous. If every sub-10 floor
| building can have a 2nd window fire escape.... then you can
| have your cake and eat it too.
| crazygringo wrote:
| NYC stopped building fire escapes a long time ago. There are
| still tons of them, but all on older buildings.
|
| It certainly would be interesting to see them make a comeback
| though.
| kazinator wrote:
| Embafflement? Oh US buildings have that too: fire-proof doors
| divide those long hallways that connect the staircases.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| American here.
|
| I can't even put to words my embafflement upon learning that 72
| people died in the Grenfell Tower fire in Europe in 2017.
| estebank wrote:
| Fire deaths per 100k in 2019:
|
| US .82
|
| UK .38
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fire-death-rates
| anthonypasq wrote:
| you understand that 1/3 of the country lights on fire
| annually?
| adrian_b wrote:
| That had little to do with stairs, but it was caused by the
| use of inappropriate combustible materials, which were
| forbidden for buildings of that height in many countries of
| continental Europe, but they were allowed in Great Britain
| were regulations were much more lax.
|
| So that event is strictly specific to UK and not
| representative for Europe in general.
| drcongo wrote:
| We (UK) had banned those materials too until the tories
| decided to unban them because many of them are also
| property developers.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| That was due to missing stairs? And there is a difference
| between skyscrapers and 3-6 story multi-apartment buildings
| where in the worst case you can even exit fine with fire
| truck ladders or assisted jumps, but the article says even
| required for those, which would really feel ridiculous for
| those kind of buildings here. No need to be salty, we find
| each other alien on many levels :D
| quickthrowman wrote:
| The cause is irrelevant, 72 people died in a building fire
| in 2017. That didn't need to happen.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Didn't doubt that, but that tragedy was not the point of
| the "embafflement"-response to the
| "embafflement"-statement actually, what was my point, so
| pointless in total, same as you now calling that out
| again...
| rconti wrote:
| Yes, our insanely burdensome health and safety regulations in
| the US often baffle the devil-may-care freewheeling folks over
| in Europe.
|
| /s
| nineplay wrote:
| I'm often surprised when posters identify themselves as
| "European" which encompasses such a broad range of cultures,
| biotypes, and ecosystems that it makes any comparison of the US
| way vs the European way virtually impossible.
|
| That said, when looking at the reasons for fire safety in the
| U.S., there are many factors to consider which may or may not
| apply in parts of Europe
|
| -- Frequency of wildfires. They are not uncommon in my
| southwest corner, so fire safety is taken very seriously
|
| -- Proximity of emergency services. It can't be assumed that
| the local fire department is a few minutes drive away
|
| -- Building materials. Materials that are fire-proof are rarely
| earthquake proof.
|
| Any of these may or may not apply in any particular case but
| "embafflement" seems pretty extreme.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > I'm often surprised when posters identify themselves as
| "European" which encompasses such a broad range of cultures,
| biotypes, and ecosystems that it makes any comparison of the
| US way vs the European way virtually impossible.
|
| Many people in Europe do indeed identify as European. This
| has become more and more prevalent as people increasingly
| move around in Europe. I'd also argue that you are ignoring
| the cultural differences in the US (e.g. New Jersey vs Utah)
| something which I find Europeans are often guilty of.
|
| > That said, when looking at the reasons for fire safety in
| the U.S., there are many factors to consider which may or may
| not apply in parts of Europe
|
| > -- Frequency of wildfires. They are not uncommon in my
| southwest corner, so fire safety is taken very seriously
|
| We are talking about multi (>4) story, multi family apartment
| buildings, how are wildfires relevant?
|
| > -- Proximity of emergency services. It can't be assumed
| that the local fire department is a few minutes drive away
|
| Again we are not talking about requirements for some cottage
| in the woods, these are city buildings. The whole argument is
| for buildings where you have space constraints.
|
| > -- Building materials. Materials that are fire-proof are
| rarely earthquake proof.
|
| Again I don't see the relevance, we are talking about a
| national building code, but only a tiny fraction of US cities
| are earthquake zones. The article also asserts that most
| Asian countries (which presumably includes Japan) have only
| one stairwell requirements.
|
| > Any of these may or may not apply in any particular case
| but "embafflement" seems pretty extreme.
|
| I actually agree if one needs to grasp for straws like these
| for reasons for the 2 stairwell rule, it is pretty baffling.
| The article actually nicely described the history and why
| it's outdated.
| nineplay wrote:
| > Many people in Europe do indeed identify as European
|
| I'll admit my surprise. US has a lot of variety, still I'd
| have expected that residents of Anchorage and Manhattan
| have more more in common than residents of Iceland and
| Malta.
|
| > We are talking about multi (>4) story, multi family
| apartment buildings, how are wildfires relevant?
|
| > Again we are not talking about requirements for some
| cottage in the woods, these are city buildings. The whole
| argument is for buildings where you have space constraints.
|
| > Again I don't see the relevance, we are talking about a
| national building code, but only a tiny fraction of US
| cities are earthquake zones. The article also asserts that
| most Asian countries (which presumably includes Japan) have
| only one stairwell requirements.
|
| I think you are underestimating the population densities of
| US cities. I live in a major city and wildfires have burned
| homes a few miles from me. Residential areas are vast and
| fire departments are few. I'm also not sure how you can say
| few US cities are in earthquake zones - maybe if you squint
| at the numbers, but most if not all of the west coast,
| Alaska, and Hawaii are in earthquake zones. That's a pretty
| large chunk to hand-wave away.
| baq wrote:
| The point was that Europe has all of these but no double
| staircases.
|
| Don't want to comment on missing emergency services in
| densely built areas but hope it isn't the case it's so bad
| you need an extra flight of stairs.
| alwa wrote:
| Of course, as you allude, the US is a large and diverse
| country too, where those features may or may not apply in a
| given locality.
|
| I suspect, though, that on both continents, when we're
| talking about these problems with the dual staircase
| requirement in this context, we're talking mainly about
| relatively high-density developments in space-constrained
| urban settings.
|
| If, as the article claims, we've arrived at comparable fire
| fatality rates under the two policy regimes, it does seem
| like their prevailing standards neatly capture a tradeoff: it
| seems like you can add safety either by socializing a fire
| response infrastructure capable of quicker response, or you
| can privatize that extra margin of safety by imposing these
| second staircase costs on individual developments. I'd be
| curious how the total costs add up, I'm almost inclined to
| donate to the guy's nonprofit just to get the answer to that.
|
| I'd be curious how these changes would affect the economics
| of apartment blocks on huge greenfield suburban tracts, where
| parking requirements rather than staircase requirements seem
| to be the limiting factor space-wise. I'm thinking of the
| kind where space is cheap enough that they do surface lots
| rather than building parking decks into the structure. It
| seems like they tack exterior staircases on the edges of the
| building at not too much extra cost in those situations, but
| I suppose the floor plan implications must still come to
| bear.
| carabiner wrote:
| > I can't even put to words my embafflement
|
| That's because the word is "bafflement."
| crazygringo wrote:
| Why would you choose to write something here with a snarky
| attitude like that?
|
| There's a reasoned discussion to be had around fire safety
| regulations, but when you instantly make it about cultures and
| don't even try to understand, you're not being part of the
| solution -- you're part of the problem.
| baq wrote:
| Maybe I should say I'm from abroad instead? European seems to
| trigger something in some folks around here.
|
| That aside, I fail to see any cultural or other reason to
| require twin staircases nowadays other than 'that's how we
| always did it here'. I admit it openly and state that I'm
| from somewhere where we don't do that, and the world works
| just as well, except buildings have a higher useful to total
| area ratio.
| drcongo wrote:
| I'm baffled at the phrase "single stair" when what they
| actually mean is "single staircase". I had to read most of that
| article to work out what it actually meant, while at the same
| time imagining buildings with only one stair.
| bombcar wrote:
| Us Americans are very wide.
|
| The second staircase is for the oversized pickup truck.
|
| (And anyway the dual staircase thing isn't even universal in
| the US).
| exabrial wrote:
| No.
|
| 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.
| piombisallow wrote:
| Safetyism will be the death of civilization.
| Gabriel54 wrote:
| Of _a_ civilization.
| kabouseng wrote:
| Pedantry will kill the rest...
| lanewinfield wrote:
| profits 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 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| You 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)
| cjwilliams wrote:
| I wonder if building second stairwells in multifamily buildings
| is really a cost effective way of mitigating stalking.
| phatskat wrote:
| Mitigation isn't the end result - the OP (as I read it) is
| saying that two exits provides for not being trapped by a
| stalker. You may still be stalked or approached by a
| malicious group of actors, but a second exit makes it much
| more difficult to be cornered.
| ajuc wrote:
| It's fucked up that you have problem with society and you think
| the way to solve it is building code.
| pjmorris wrote:
| Maybe, but there's a long tradition that suggests maybe it's
| necessary...
|
| "229 If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not
| construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in
| and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to
| death."
|
| - Hammurabi's Code, ~1750 BC
| oblio wrote:
| It's one thing to ensure the builder doesn't skimp on
| mortar and an entirely different thing to try to mitigate
| stalking with 2 stairwells...
| quickthrowman wrote:
| This is why an architect and/or engineer(s) supervise a
| general contractor. A few things have changed in the
| construction industry over the last 3800 years.
|
| I'm not sure why I even bother reading HN threads about
| construction.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| And if you don't supervise well enough, should it be
| legally fine to give you a defective house?
|
| If yes, that's a horrible idea. If no, then I don't see
| how "things have changed" in a way that's relevant to the
| comment you replied to.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Please respond in good faith instead of trying to
| 'gotcha' me.
|
| There are building inspections periodically during
| construction by the authority having jurisdiction, with
| the important trades (MEP, civil, structural) having
| their own specialized inspections.
|
| When you buy a new house (or a new building), you will
| receive a warranty for workmanship from the builder who
| should have corresponding workmanship warranties for all
| their subcontractors, and the materials will also have
| warranties from the manufacturer.
|
| Lastly, you can sue the builder if all other options are
| exhausted.
| ajuc wrote:
| I meant solving stalking and general violence level of the
| population with staircases :)
| baq wrote:
| Who would've thought that the way you house citizens has an
| impact on their interactions.
| carabiner wrote:
| "Think of the children"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children) has
| morphed into "think of the helpless women." Tell me, in places
| that do not have this building regulation, is stalking an
| epidemic at apartment buildings? In what other ways are they
| suffering? Would you support adding a two-stair requirement in
| those locales?
| standardUser wrote:
| Yeah, that'll happen when no one thinks about women for a few
| hundred years. What year did your state make it illegal for a
| man to hit his wife?
| oblio wrote:
| > In what other ways are they suffering?
|
| In Europe they are also suffering from too long toilet stalls
| and as a result there are mass drug use problems as well as
| all sorts of unsavory characters having sex in there.
| adameasterling wrote:
| You are free to choose buildings with multiple stairways if
| that's a requirement for you! We're talking about easing
| mandatory regulations, allowing builders to meet demand. We're
| not saying that all buildings must only have one stairway.
| prpl wrote:
| you might want to entertain the possibility that, due to these
| limitations, there's much less families in the city, as a 3BR
| apartment is rare and a 4 BR apartment unheard of. In Europe
| and even south America, that's not typically the case.
|
| Having lived in both Santiago, Chile and San Francisco with a
| family, I'd say generally the quality of life is higher
| (schools, restaurants, opportunities) in major cities in the
| US, but it's easier live as family (without a car) in Santiago.
| Having relatives in Europe I think this is also true.
|
| I'm not sure if removing this limitation fixes that, but
| without high density 3+ bedroom housing you don't get families
| (especially middle class families)
| ksenzee wrote:
| The two-staircase requirement leads directly to apartment
| buildings being big, with long corridors. Given my choice of
| living in a small building with a few families, with one
| staircase, where people know each other (the one-stair
| architecture does in fact lend itself to residents knowing each
| other) or living in a big building, with long corridors, where
| people don't get to know each other, I'd feel a lot safer as a
| woman living in the smaller building.
| Retric wrote:
| A 2nd set of stairs split across multiple units is a trivial
| matter from a cost perspective. Height restrictions, adding
| more office space than housing, mandatory parking etc are the
| real issues.
|
| Tiny increases in construction costs get wiped out when
| there's insufficient housing stock.
| r00fus wrote:
| There is a strong correlation between construction costs
| and housing stock.
| Retric wrote:
| Not in locations where there's a housing shortage.
|
| Outside of skyscrapers building housing is cheap, it's
| land and permission that's the issue.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| Double loaded corridors fundamentally change the
| composition of buildings. If you look at example
| floorplans, single staircase buildings typically feature
| 2-3 bedroom apartments, because giving every bedroom a
| window is easier, while double loaded corridors end up
| mostly with deep studios and 1-beds.
|
| Building new housing in the US is not cheap, and reducing
| the leasable or buyable square footage by 10% can move
| projects from being profitable to build to not.
| Especially when the quality of the remaining square
| footage goes down (as it does when you have 30' deep
| units with only one wall with windows).
| Retric wrote:
| There's a multitude of options here for various floor
| plans. One of the classic solutions is an external fire
| escape which is cheap per apartment and isn't impacting
| floor space. People may dislike the aesthetics though.
|
| Construction costs scale to the market segment you're
| targeting. It's common to aim up market with new housing
| but the cost of marble isn't the same as the cost of
| housing. So be careful you're looking at the minimums not
| what it takes to attract high end buyers.
| closeparen wrote:
| The staircase itself is not the issue, it's the double-
| loaded corridor (hotel style) layout that it forces on the
| entire building.
| ksenzee wrote:
| I can't tell whether you're unfamiliar with the single- vs.
| double-staircase architectural arguments, or disagreeing
| with them: https://slate.com/business/2021/12/staircases-
| floor-plan-twi...
| Retric wrote:
| The floor plans being compared in that example are
| terrible. Nobody is going to give an interior hallway
| windows on both ends if they don't need to.
|
| You also need to consider external fire escapes etc.
| r00fus wrote:
| Aren't there other ways to address these safety issues without
| ballooning the cost of the building? When safety regulations
| come with minimal extra cost/efficiency (think: ABS or
| seatbelts in cars) then it's a great idea. When it mandates
| massive inefficiencies, it must be questioned.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not only fire that's a hazard, but a personal safety thing_
|
| Affordable housing. Every edge case preference accommodated.
| Pick one.
| nicole_express wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| A few cities (with wood framed construction) in NA have allowed
| this for decades with no apparent issues
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The 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.
| jlhawn wrote:
| also fire suppression system (sprinklers) and pressurized
| stairwells are mandated.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| And fireproof walls between units. It takes a long time for
| a fire to penetrate two layers of drywall.
| nineplay wrote:
| > 1. the height is generally determined by the height of the
| fire ladders available, providing a second means of egress
|
| This is an interesting requirement and makes me wonder if
| some of the need for two staircases comes from the proximity
| - or lack thereof - to fire services. I'd be sitting in a
| burning home for a long time if I had to wait for a fire
| ladder.
| flandish wrote:
| Ground fire ladders are about 35' max. Aerial apparatus
| (trucks/quints) around the US are normally around 80-110
| feet in length.
|
| My current tower rig is 85', our next will be 105.
|
| Consider that is ladder length and the "true" height is
| really a hypotenuse on a right triangle with one side the
| building.
|
| We can generally reach most of our properties just fine, as
| our tallest is about 5 stories. However there are some
| across a river with access harder in front, and a ladder
| across the river is the way to go.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| A lot of the requirements make sense in _bigger_ buildings.
| It 's not easy to evacuate a large office building taking
| up a city block using only ladders. And some of it is
| reactive; for example, there is a distance separation
| requirement for stairwells, because during 9/11 the three
| North Tower stairwells were only 70 feet apart and enclosed
| only with gypsum, so they were all severed on impact,
| dooming the people above the impact zone. But none of this
| is really relevant for a building with six floors and 24
| units total.
|
| The American city topology is basically office towers
| surrounded by single family homes; in the midcentury we
| demolished a lot of the in-between building stock, which is
| now referred to by urbanists as the "missing middle".
| Compare this to Europe or Japan which is largely buildings
| in between those sizes.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Fire escapes are still a thing, right??
| crazygringo wrote:
| Fire escapes haven't been a thing in a long, long time. Not
| in new construction.
|
| Older buildings only.
| paulddraper wrote:
| I guess I've lived in old, old buildings :/
| crazygringo wrote:
| They have their charm!
|
| Nothing quite like hanging out on a fire escape on a hot
| humid summer night with a cold beer and charming company.
|
| Along with the contortions involved climbing through the
| window in both directions...
| multjoy wrote:
| Grenfell is what happens when building regulations are poorly
| enforced.
|
| In principle, each apartment in Grenfell should have been able
| to burn out completely while the neighbouring units were
| untouched, so there was no need for a second stair as any
| evacuation would have been limited to units adjacent rather
| than the entire population.
|
| What actually happened is that years of neglect had seen
| firebreaks and bulkheads repeatedly compromised and then a load
| of flammable cladding added to the outside, because the
| building industry is basically rotten.
|
| Had the same incident taken place when the building was first
| constructed, the damage would have been limited to the one
| apartment.
| slyall wrote:
| Unfortunately people from the US (including those who have
| never lived in an apartment or thought about fire regulations
| before) instinctively get really worried about this whole idea
| and assume people are just going to get killed.
|
| Happens in this thread and whenever it is brought up in social
| media. The original article talks about statistics, various
| extra measures to ensure safety and limiting to buildings 6
| stores or less.
|
| But US commentators have trouble getting past their initial
| reaction. They also do the usual US thing of discounting
| anything from overseas as "not applicable to US conditions".
| kccqzy wrote:
| I totally agree with you that it's definitely instinctive.
| The article has a link to mass timber construction for fire
| officials. Coincidentally there is an office building near me
| with mass timber structure but whenever I tell people about
| it, they instinctively think of it as less safe than steel
| and concrete.
| macNchz wrote:
| The new construction single-staircase building in NYC that I
| used to live in was metal and concrete framed, fitted with
| sprinklers throughout, and had double fire doors separating
| each apartment from the (all tile/metal/concrete) staircase
| with little vestibules. It didn't give me pause in the
| slightest, really I felt like it was safer from a fire
| perspective than a typical wood frame single family home, or an
| older building with a rickety old fire escape.
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| > Wood construction is generally a good thing from a
| sustainability perspective
|
| This is something a lot of people get confused about^. To
| summarize, each ton of wood used in constructions takes approx
| 1 ton of CO2 _out_ of the atmosphere (cellulose is basically
| solidified carbon and oxygen), whereas each ton of concrete
| used in construction puts approx 100kg of C02 _into_ the
| atmosphere.
|
| ^ "You're _cutting down treeees_ , oh the humanity!"
| briantakita wrote:
| > I'd like to see more discussion of the safety impact;
|
| Another concern is building stability, whether or not the
| actual construction process followed code, whether or not
| structural maintenance is adequate, & the age of some high
| rises. Florida recently had a condo collapse. There are many
| old tall buildings built on shifting water permeable ground in
| the US.
|
| China has issues with tall buildings as well, particularly in
| it's river flood plains. It is quite surreal to see an entire
| high-rise being carried down a river. Look it up.
|
| Edit:
|
| I was unable to find the video with today's search...so here is
| the video. Apparently there was censorship with the Chinese
| government over the video.
|
| https://youtu.be/MCC7C5PJrOI?si=TAgIKOYbIpr8VAM0&t=154
| smithsj619 wrote:
| That's what I'm trying to raise money to do! ;-)
|
| Basically through an analysis of fire loss history combined
| with open property data. The fire engineering field hasn't
| traditionally had access to great data, for a few different
| reasons, but now the data is actually potentially available to
| answer the question - but it does need a bit of time and
| investment.
|
| (I'm the author of the article.)
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >US housing stock is also much more wooden and therefore at
| higher risk to begin with.
|
| Fire compromising the structure of a building, or the structure
| itself burning is almost never the cause of death or injury.
| The primary killer in structure fires is hydrogen cyanide gas.
| Wood does emit hydrogen cyanide but the primary source is
| synthetic materials like upholstered furniture, wall and floor
| coverings, cabinetry, and other personal belongings.
|
| If you have two houses, one made of gypsum-covered 2x4 walls
| and the other made of stone and steel and a faulty space heater
| ignites a sofa or some polyester curtains, the buildings are
| equally lethal. The hydrogen cyanide will have killed you long
| before the fire burned through the drywall. Non-flammable walls
| don't even necessarily slow a fire's spread if synthetic
| materials are involved. The high heat of by their combustion
| and their dirty combustion causes flashover which ignites all
| flammable materials in a given space.
|
| I have been a volunteer firefighter for almost 20 years. I have
| experienced too many fatalities but none of them have ever
| burned to death. All victims have been dead due to asphyxiation
| (CO/CO2) or cyanide poisoning.
|
| The differences in death rates aren't as stark as the author
| contends (for example 0.2 deaths per fire in Great Britain, 0.3
| in the US) and my gut tells me the main differentiation between
| the US and European deaths is the smaller, more
| compartmentalized nature of European dwellings (which limits
| the spread of smoke) coupled with their greater level of
| urbanization which leads to faster emergency services response
| (the faster a fire is knocked down the less gas it produces).
|
| Open floorplans kill.
|
| All of that being said, wooden construction does cause more
| firefighter deaths-- especially if engineered wood is used. But
| by the time the floor of a house has been weakened enough by a
| basement fire to fail and kill a firefighter, all of the
| occupants are already dead.
| LandoCalrissian wrote:
| Why 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 wrote:
| As 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 wrote:
| When 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 wrote:
| European 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| a passive house in germany would not even meet the
| minimun requirments for Minnesota where it wouldn'd be
| passive. Climate matters.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| To be fair, crisis is when you suspend existing laws so you can
| move fast and break stuff.
|
| See: martial law as a legal precedent.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I think we've hit peak density already and the rest of the 21st
| century will be defined by people moving into former farmlands
| standardUser wrote:
| I don't see why fire escapes aren't the better answer here.
| adameasterling wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| Don't forget about street widths being determined by the
| ability to turn around fire equipment.
| bombcar wrote:
| If 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.
| logifail wrote:
| Mostly 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 wrote:
| >(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 wrote:
| >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/, "The seasons--winter, spring, summer and fall--
| do not require capitalization."
| from-nibly wrote:
| We 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| There 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.
| rolph wrote:
| multiple streams of people converging on a choke point exit is
| poor planning in general, but often lethal in the case of fire.
| slyall wrote:
| Except there are often fewer people per exit in single-exit
| designs and the exits are closer to each apartment
| rsync wrote:
| 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.
|
| It does not gratify me in any way to have foreseen this.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Please 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.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| Looking 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
| quickthrowman wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| > 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)
| closeparen wrote:
| It's true that five stories is an economic sweet spot, but
| the idea is we could get five story point access blocks
| instead of double loaded corridor layouts.
| ponderings wrote:
| I see these things in movies, sometimes the last part is a
| ladder?
|
| Why isn't it one big ladder?
| yellow_lead wrote:
| I imagine time to get down it is a factor
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Interesting 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 wrote:
| I'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
|
| 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.
| cycomanic wrote:
| After 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 wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| Fire codes aren't a point system, but they do often have "X is
| required if Y is missing" type rules.
| spanktheuser wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| New york has air rights. Many existing buildings cannot build
| taller, thus redevelopment removes leasable space instead of
| modernizing and/or bifurcating it.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| I 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.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-18 23:00 UTC)