Dive brief:
- A California bill headed to committee this month would direct the state Department of Housing and Community Development to propose new construction rules which would allow single-story multi-family buildings of up to six stories. California currently requires two staircases in multi-family buildings over three stories.
- Rep. Alex Lee, a sponsor of the bill, said eliminating the second-story mandate for buildings up to six stories tall, as cities such as New York and Seattle have done, will make it easier to build homes and lower construction costs.
- A report from March 2 Office of the State Fire Committee maintained the importance of a second staircase for firefighters and recommended individual staircases in buildings up to four stories, one story higher than currently allowed, instead of the proposed six stories.
Diving knowledge:
As local governments look at how they can ease the time and expense of building homes, measures are being stepped up to ease longstanding two-step requirements.
last year, seven states passed reforms of a single scale, according The Pew Charitable Trusts. Culver City, California, it became the first city of the state allow individual scales last year. Pew found that these reforms could reduce construction costs by up to 13%.
“Stairway requirements can have a profound effect on what gets built and doesn’t get built in our neighborhoods,” Lee said in a news release. “Many countries around the world have already legalized mid-rise apartments with a staircase that maintains robust and modern fire prevention measures.”
The California State Fire Marshal’s report recognizes that modern fire safety measures such as sprinkler systems, smoke detection and passive smoke control strategies can reduce risks. However, these measures “do not fully replace the redundancy of two independent scales,” according to the report. “The presence of an additional exit is important to maintain safety against unforeseen failure, fire spread or structural compromise.”
Another Pew study last year found that single-story apartment buildings remain strong safety records.
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that the single-scale research was conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
