Opportunity For Reform Within Building Codes
By: Hannah Gable, Director of Strategy and Operations
The Impact of Outdated Building Codes on Housing Costs
As discussion intensifies around how best to address rising housing costs, some have identified obsolete or redundant building codes that significantly impact construction costs as an opportunity for reform. Building codes govern how buildings must be constructed and help ensure homes are safe to live in for their residents. For example, seismic building codes ensure buildings can adequately resist seismic forces during earthquakes. Emergency residential codes mandate a clear 36-inch-wide path for emergency exits.
The Need for Building Code Reform in Housing Affordability
It is evident many kinds of building codes, like those above, are necessary for health and safety. However, there are other codes that some believe are excessive and outdated, and can be modified while still maintaining the same standard of health and safety.
Most building codes are adopted at a state level, and depending on the state, can be amended by local jurisdictions. States and cities typically use a “model code” as a starting point, and then make adjustments from there. The International Code Council (ICC) has the most widely used model code – specifically, their International Residential Code (IRC) is used by almost all jurisdictions in the U.S. to govern single family home construction.
Single Stair Reform: A Key Opportunity for Housing Innovation
One such code reform that is gaining attention is single stair reform. Single stair reform would change egress rules around how many stairs are required in small, mid-rise apartment buildings. Current code mandates that buildings with more than three stories include two stairwells, which creates a “double-loaded corridor” or a hallway with apartments lining either side. This double stairway requirement explains why so many new apartment buildings look the same all over the country and also makes it difficult to build family-sized units because of space and cost constraints.
How Single Stair Reform Could Increase Housing Affordability
Allowing for single vs. double stairwells would provide architects greater flexibility in building design and make it easier to build mid-rise apartment buildings on small infill plots of land.
The graphic below – from the Center for Building in North America, an organization leading the charge on single stair reform – illustrates the difference between a double-loaded corridor (on the left) and a point access block design (on the right), which is much more common in Europe.
Exploring Other Building Code Reforms
Aside from single stair reform, there are other building code reforms being discussed – eliminating aesthetic mandates and materials bans and allowing for smaller, cheaper, and simpler elevators, to name a few.
The Role of Zoning Reform in Housing Development
There has been significant progress in the last 5-10 years with zoning reform that has made it easier to build a greater diversity and density of housing types in more areas – and there is the potential to push similar reforms with building codes. Such reform would not only diversify our housing stock, but improve housing outcomes (fewer stairwells means more buildable space for additional units) and housing affordability.