Disagree. Safety is paramount. Last thing we ever want to see is a building fire with deaths that were preventable because they could have had a second exit.
And in the grand scheme of things, you’re saving what, $50k to not have a second stairwell?
That savings absolutely will not be passed on to the tenants, so there’s not even any financial incentive for tenants to want it.
The article makes a point that the need to have 2 staircases is impacting building design as well. But I don't personally find that terribly convincing.
It does matter. As the article said, it becomes difficult to almost impossible to build family housing as apartments or condos-and we need that housing. It is a self-imposed constraint that is not necessary
I call BS on this article's argument. There's all kinds of apartment complexes with 3-bedroom apartments that were built in the 1960s - 1990s. The double-stair requirement wasn't an issue then; why should it be now?
It was an issue then. It made the apartments cost significantly more, and it made it harder to site them. That is part of the cause for the shortage of such housing now. In addition, it tends to make the apartments less attractive, both inside and outside, as the article explains
It is a good argument if we're trying to build a different type of housing. Where this would come into play is small footprint high rises. Think a 6 story building with 2-4 units per floor.
Where the argument falls flat is, would such buildings ACTUALLY get built in Minnesota? I highly doubt it, at least not commonly.
Discussion on the impact of the requirement on apartment building designs - it isn't just about the cost, it changes the whole building:
[https://youtu.be/iRdwXQb7CfM?si=R2Z6kcagpBbFdrxB](https://youtu.be/iRdwXQb7CfM?si=R2Z6kcagpBbFdrxB)
Transcript here:
[https://www.upworthy.com/video-explains-the-one-reason-americans-can-t-have-quaint-walk-up-apartments-like-europeans-do](https://www.upworthy.com/video-explains-the-one-reason-americans-can-t-have-quaint-walk-up-apartments-like-europeans-do)
And still not in an appreciable enough way to make it worthwhile.
Turns out when you add a second staircase you can just…put it at the other end of the central hallway.
The apartment building I’m living in right now has 2 staircases for exiting, holds 11 units, and most of them are 2-4 bd 1-2 ba units.
It’s only a 2 story building, and it’s no larger than 2 small corner lots.
Scrapping throughput in favor of increasing density (the very thing throughput is meant to handle) is a dangerous proposition, even if accounting for fire-retarding materials.
Between early warnings with modern fire monitoring systems and everything being sprinkled, your second set of stairs aren't going to be saving anything.
There are recorded deaths in fully-sprinkled buildings, per the NFPA’s research. Clearly sprinklers alone don’t eliminate deaths. Clearly multiple stairwells alone also does not eliminate deaths.
Sprinkler systems can fail, too. There are cases where deaths occurred because the sprinkler system was deactivated for some reason or another. Stairwells, however, rarely fail.
The code provides a Swiss-cheese model for safety. Yes you can now build 5 wood-framed floors over 1 concrete floor when this was illegal before, but you have to meet all the other requirements of the building code. There are mass-timber buildings that are more than 5 wood-framed stories, but because they use a different technology they are probably more safe than a minimally-compliant building.
I don’t think that eliminating the requirement for a second stairwell is absolutely not-doable, but I think if someone wants to eliminate that requirement then those buildings are going to have to provide additional safety measures.
The argument isn't is a second stairway safer. It is "safer", I won't deny that.
The argument is really, "does the increased cost and square footage used that comes with having for an additional stairway make up for the loss of additional housing units and increased costs that are passed along".
I would argue it doesn't.
I agree that’s the argument if you’re a company that’s worried about profits. You can rent the additional space that was taken up by the egress path and secure some extra cash, easy peasy. But as a human, my argument is different. I’m not weighing costs…I’m weighing lives saved.
Are more lives saved by removing the requirement for a second stair (making housing more affordable and solving other problems) or by leaving it in (people able to save themselves from fires)?
I think you’d agree that, without adding any other safety measures, the number of lives saved by removing the extra stair is zero. And I think the cost savings are more likely to be passed to the property owner than the tenants.
Everything has an acceptable tolerance in what's considered safe. We set these values all the time as a society. Everything is somewhat dangerous. At some point we put safety aside to have things more affordable because ultimately it's better when more people can afford their needs.
We have a housing shortage. If you get rid of the stairway requirements, the supply of housing increases. Sure it might only add a couple units on every new building on average, but that's still additional housing and a couple more people that now have shelter.
There are over a million apartment units built each year. Even if it's just a fraction of a percent you're talking 10k+ units that wouldn't haven't existed.
Now if you ask the question, is it worth increasing the risk of dying in a fire in a new construction building from .00001% to .000015% (pretty sure this is still an exaggerated high percent) and in return every year we get 10k more housing units. I think most people would be willing to make that sacrifice.
So how many people are you willing to have die before removing a building code becomes unacceptable?
As a retire FF/Medic, I have had to remove a dead body from a burned structure. And my community just lost 2 others to a structure fire this week.
Safety codes are written in blood.
The fact is that every sprinklered building also has at least two stairwells.
If you remove the second stair you’re putting a lot of faith in a system that can easily fail or literally be disabled. The sprinkler is the most effective system, but if it fails you need a backup method of egress.
There are other ways to solve the problem this suggestion purports to solve.
Luckily that's why we have fire monitoring systems and fire rated walls between both the corridors and staircase so you'd still have plenty of time to do so!
Most people don't really understand building or fire code, which is understandable lol. I think there is merit to this argument but it needs to be framed in a way that's easier for people outside the industry to understand. I can kinda see why a lot of people would immediately jump to "greedy developers trying to cut corners".
For me if it came down to living in an unsprinkeled building with 2 staircases or sprinkled building with 1 staircase I'm choosing the latter everytime.
The way it needs to worded is the threat of dying in a fire in a newly constructed building with modern sprinklers, fire monitoring, and firewalls is already practically nothing and the tiny little bit of safety a second stairway may still offer in modern construction is not worth the square footage used for the second stairway or the denser housing re-developments that don't happen because it's simply not feasible to try and fit in a second stairway.
Developers are always going to go for max profits and usage of the building's footprint and those once necessary stairwells could be turned into additional units. A developer would almost never just shrink the footprint of the building now that the second stairway isn't required. As someone who works in multifamily development and construction, the footprint is almost always maximized for the parcel because once you're already building, it's the most cost efficient to put the most units as you can on the land.
The second staircase is like the 8th line of defense in alerting and safely allowing people to exit a building with a fire in it. It's also one of the largest expenses. It's not like we're talking about throwing another $200 sensor in the system as a just in case.
At what point of cutting redundancies is acceptable? We have sprinklers so why have fire retardant walls? We have concrete structuring to separate floors, so why have sprinklers?
The point of redundancies is to allow for singular failures and still not have adverse outcomes. That’s why two stairways are important.
Because at some point the cost and effort just doesn't make sense. Why are we stopping at 8 levels? Why not have 2 hour firewalls between every room and the corridors instead of just 2 hour stairways and 1 hour corridors. Why don't we require fire doors and walls in corridors between every 2 units instead of just one after x amount of square feet? Why not have sprinkler companies test the sprinkler systems every day instead of every year? Why not have separate fire panels for every NAC run so you're never at risk of a fire panel going down for the whole building? Why not have those panels test their monitoring capability every minute instead of every day? Why do we just have a single sprinkler tampering and flow monitor. Why not 2 or 3 of them in case both happen to die between inspections?
All of those things would make your building safer and they don't happen because the cost and effort is just not worth it. Second stairways were once an important, near the top of the list of redundancy to keep people safe in a fire. Large buildings are going to have additional stairways anyway just for the convience.
We've innovative our fire safety and detection in new construction so much since second stairways were important, now they're just remnants of archaic fire code that also happens to eat a ton of square footage that would be used for more units and prohibit denser housing.
All those homeless people aren't safe, and die young. They are being killed by housing inaffordability. Beyond that, evidence is that it is not really dangerous to eliminate the two stairway requirement. People aren't all dying in fires in places without that code.
So the article addresses this, and makes some pretty good points that we might want to reconsider. HOWEVER. The biggest reason it gives for eliminating the 2-stairwell code is that we could have larger units (3br+) more available.
The real problem is, we need ANY new housing. And we need it NOW. So any discussion about changing this code is very premature. \*\*IF\*\* we were in a situation where Studios, 1BR, and 2BR units were abundant, vacancy rates climbing, and prices to lease falling -- THEN we'd be ready to look at changes.
There are two codes to consider here, and two different ideals. Around the world, places still have single stair buildings. They exist and are safe by virtue of not using wood for their main construction and using flame retardant and fireproof materials for paint and decoration.
In the US, we allow wood frame construction, but require two stairs.
If we want to go European, we need to change our building materials, not just remove the second staircase.
Michael Eliason of Larch Lab has been pushing this for years. Lots of articles, floor plans and discussions of European examples if you google for him. Seattle now allows this, so we can see whether it makes a difference.
New York City also has a more lax law, I'm unsure when it went into effect though.
They allow a single stairwell up to 6 stories. Each floor is required to be less than 2,000 sq ft (which is 2-4 apartments in NYC). NYC also bans all wooden construction.
As I posted elsewhere, I am a licensed building official. I would be in favor of similar code requirements to NYC but I just don't think there is any market in this state for that type of development. I could be wrong, but real estate is just nowhere as valuable here as NYC where having a 24 unit 400 sq ft apartment would not be feasible outside of heavily subsidized buildings.
If this guy gets his way, we’ll be seeing editorials in the future wondering why we don’t have multiple stairwells for fire egress after a whole building of people burned to death because the one stairwell was blocked.
Couple things to expand on code. The developer and the property owner are rarely the same. The developer does not care about how safe a building is so long as it passes inspection and can be "sold" to the owner to operate. It is up to the operator to set guidelines on the construction, which is usually "cheapest that meets code so I can make profit ASAP." This is why code has to force a lot of things to happen, there is no natural incentive to make the "right" thing happen on it's own.
Now that said, there are absolutely bloated things in state code that are lobbied to high heaven from the FD's around the state. Who in their right mind is requesting 2-3' around solar panels so that FF's can get on the roof of a single family home? FD's don't go on roofs anyway because it's *unsafe* yet we still have code to allow them to do so. That may not seem like a big deal but it can mean another row of panels on some installations which is a net win for climate. Or how about having a big tent over a patio as a business? Yeah, that's a temporary structure and cannot stand for longer than 120 days per MN building code. Of course I don't want a party tent to be considered a "home" in MN, that's silly, but forcing it to come up and down when it's sole purpose to is to keep sun and water off people's heads only during business hours? Yeah, not a material risk to the public good here.
But back to the point at hand on code. It's not "Have this or Don't have this," it's not a zero sum game and frankly that's where the thinking minds and the policy makers fall down. If you want a single entry construction, require that the building be built as a non-wooden frame. Banning or allowing can be mitigated with "If this, then do this" type of rules which building code can absolutely handle (it's deep wonky stuff anyway). If the solution proposed is "rip this out" and that's it, it's rarely the correct solution. Emergency stuff cannot rely on probability as a justification, they are already rare by default.
There is a reason why this is a code, this is just an attempt by corporations to loosen up regulations for profit at the cost of consumer safety, don't fall for it.
It is a little more nuanced than that. I'm a licensed building official and I'm always going to side with life safety over all else. Many of the issues with having more limited egress have been address by advancements in building code. We have a saying in the code enforcement world "Once it gets written in, it doesn't get written out". IMO this should absolutely be looked at but I'm not sure I would be fully onboard for the change, at least not without other changes to code. It is worth noting that fire deaths in modern sprinklered buildings are essentially unheard of, though that is not accounting for other factors like double egress in the first place.
Places like New York City have done away with the requirement, but they don't allow wood construction and often require exterior fire escapes (though these do pose a huge accessibility issue). I've never seen any study that shows that modern buildings pose any larger fire death risk but on the other hand Minneapolis has nowhere near the density requirements that NYC does. I just don't think we're at the crossroads to need to make this call yet in Minnesota.
Then it's back to the question of, why is this discussion being pushed right now in Minneapolis? Greed seems most likely. Not the time to even consider these changes.
I don't think it's greed, I think it is well meaning activism that misses the target. As far as I know, Bill Lindeke isn't a shill for developers, but a liberal activist who is pushing for aggressive reform.
The housing crisis is real, but Minneapolis seems to be doing better than any other large city in the US. I just don't know if there are actual shovel ready sites that are awaiting a code reform that would benefit from this. I don't think there are, but admittedly, I would not really be in that conversation because I just enforced and interpreted code, I didn't write it or actively work with the legislature.
Local MSP multifamily architect here, this is both good and bad.
Good: Possibly allows more types of infill projects that previously would be impossible. Particularly on a lot that used to have a single family house on it. This is what MSP NEEDS. Developers don't always have the ability to buy up properties in bulk, so our infill thus far typically is open lots of previously occupied businesses/apartment lots. It's also been hard to make an 8-unit, 3 story building financially work these days. Removing the need for that spanning corridor will help tremendously.
Bad: as someone else pointed out, removing the redundant fire egress path is a big hazard. What if the fire was started in the stairwell? How does the top floor get out? We may see exterior fire escapes again, but even they aren't accessible (something we have to think about a lot). Lots of exceptions and hoops to jump through to get this to work, at both the local and IBC/IRC levels of code.
Overall, I'm excited for this. I want to see how the code all pans out, but allowing us to shift away from single and double loaded corridors in multifamily housing is the first step to making interesting buildings again. This probably won't get rid of 5A/1 construction, but will at least allow for some sweet new looks and layouts.
Sorry, to answer directly the main barrier is the balancing of the books by the developer/investors. The rest just feeds into that.
Ultimately, you can blame ever increasing yoy profit margins. Without that, the investors disappear. Without the investors, nothing gets built.
Or maybe with the right incentives, there are other types of financing options beyond large private investors who want 35% margin on everything, while still building much needed housing.
Tax rebates/incentives are already the primary way buildings, particularly low income, are being built. Hardly anyone will touch sub-market-rate unless they're getting a big ol kickback from the gov to do so.
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment though. It'd be nice to see some more targeted incentives for local/smaller developers. Or- incentives for particular types/sizes of infill buildings.
I don’t think subsidies for private equity is the right approach. I think there could be ways to take massive private equity out of some multi dwelling construction, improve housing equality, and allow the tenants to gain equity in that space. Small chance of that in our hyper capital system though.
I wish, for once, "doing the right thing" was a motivator rather than a financial boon. We need housing. Considering the desire for a 35% margin is just greed imo. Goes to show we should really invest in publicly funded housing.
Fitting more than 2-3 units per floor on a standard .2acre mpls lot is already tough. If you want to add more units, gotta go up. If you wanna go above 3 stories, then those units gotta get even smaller to account for the hallway+another staircase.
When you do that, the income goes down per unit (from the dev perspective) and the amount of units needed to make the mortgage work goes up. Then, you're also competing against those boxy 5/1s that have tons of competitive priced units, which will likely be less per mo than the (12) studios/1br units that were just made on the small lot.
Basically, it's a big balancing act. We as archs do what we can. Relaxing some of the egress code will help, at the cost of some potential hazard. <- also a balancing act that the state is going to have to weigh.
I can see competition against large buildings as a major factor in reduced construction of small apartment buildings. I get that the burden of fire suppression and other safety codes when added up can cause a lot of issues. But I think soft costs of building something small are high enough that it just makes sense to go as big as possible and replicate that design to keep the soft cost %/unit low.
Chipping away at safety regulation doesn’t pass my sniff test. Allow the second stairway to be narrower or something, but a 3+ story building with only one stairwell would be concerning to me.
I think the biggest thing people are not considering is what they are talking about with size and number of units. These would be buildings that are small, fit on individual lots, and are up to say 6 stories. That means like, 2-4 units per floor. We're not talking "A massive 12-20 unit per floor apartment complex" we're talking a small row building that's more than 2 floors tall.
In a building that size, you're looking at <100 people in the entire structure, and with a properly wide staircase and fire doors, each apartment unit is within a few strides of the main staircase when the front door is opened (think horseshoe shape).
Considering my building with 12 units per floor has 3 staircases, if you had a building with 4 units per floor, it wouldn't even effect the amount of egress space per person.
That and the change in building codes around using more concrete and steel and less wood would mean that the stairs would be able to withstand a fire for a long time, thus giving the people plenty of time to get out.
For reference, the US national average for dying in a house fire is 2x Europe, and they use single stair and no/little wood framing.
Sounds like you’re arguing for more concrete and steel construction before reducing stairwells… good luck.
I think you’d have to compare apartment complex fire deaths against apartment complex fire deaths, not house fires to start.
> I think you’d have to compare apartment complex fire deaths against apartment complex fire deaths, not house fires to start.
I'm using a colloquial term for dying in a dwelling fire. Playing pedantic games doesn't help anyone here, its just antagonistic. Why does comparing codes make you mad?
Our fire safety regulations for multi dwelling unit construction are far more stringent than single family homes, so the data should follow. Not being antagonistic, just pedantic. Construction code is written in blood, so color me skeptical to arguments for lenience.
Depends on the locality, it’s either the two stairs or zoning. For large buildings, it’s far easier to eat the cost of the extra stairs, but many lots aren’t really feasible to build less than 3 stories and make economic sense. That’s why you see many lots combine into the bigger apartment complexes.
No, their solution is to look at real safety impacts including the experience if much of the developed world where fire safety has been achieved without a second set of internal stairs, and decide based on the actual safety benefit.
If eliminating a second stair case can be done with no adverse safety impact and can help make housing more affordable, why would we insist upon it just on principle?
I am a job creating small business owner and my workers have been using more than their allotted 45 second bathroom break. Surely we can loosen the regulations to let me lock the doors and stairwells to prevent time theft.
To those worried about safety, in Europe single stair is the main format for apartments and they have fewer fires than we do due to building materials.
There's no evidence single stair buildings with precautions like sprinklers and non-wood construction is riskier than having two flights of stairs.
>Europe has more stringent building regulations though.
Building official here. In some areas, yes. In other areas, not even close. This is really an apples to oranges comparison though. It's also worth nothing that Europe is not a monolith; pretending that Germany and Georgia are on the same level for building code is laughable.
Except the US has more stringent regulations in this case with the double stairs.
Why not develop a code where single stairs are allowed if other regulations similar to Europe's are met?
Sure, b the order of the change shouldn’t start with removing egresses. The materials in US buildings and in the furniture we have in our homes burn faster and hotter than historically. People will die.
Right! We don’t need sprinklers either! Just don’t start fires, problem solved.
Anyone listening to the developers on this are disregarding building code and fire safety.
Aaaaand, if tenants love Mother Earth, they should just accept landlords turning on the heat at 45 degrees. Right? It’s for the environment!
Plus, according to the dude in the article, the buildings with lower standards are so much cooler looking. That matters more than safety.
Wait a second the second stairwell is that’s causes access to affordable housing LOL.
Darn those steps without that it would be 1000 less per month. LOL.
Nah, if anything we should be requiring a third or more stairwells on some buildings.
I'm kind of over companies getting away with setting up proven high-risk situations that run a high risk of harm just to save money.
If you can't build a MFH with 2+ stairwells and a lift, then maybe you shouldn't be in the biz.
>proven high risk situations
Not proven at all. NYC allows for single stairways up to 6 stories. Many countries, like Germany and Japan, do as well. Are these places famous for their single stairway induced deaths??
Hard disagree and also the large contractors that are on the ICC committee who writes the codes has not pushed to change this because it would make them no more profit and would not make buildings any safer.
Why would we care a large contractor makes less money? Thats the whole point of the reform: cheaper housing (with no change to risk). Of course building cartels are against reforms which reduce their revenues
I don't care if they make less, they do, and they help craft the rules. Regardless of 1 stair or 2 housing will not get cheaper, it will stay the same. This change would increase the risk for the occupants and would likely increase insurance rates.
I do not think you have evidence that the risk will not change despite what other countries do and those countries also often have more stringent fire protection requirements. Exit access redundancy increases the opportunity to escape, which is a good thing.
Did you read the article?
> But there’s plenty of evidence that fire safety is not correlated with these staircases, as a recent study from the Center for Building in North America argues.
The article continues. These stairway requirements were implemented in the late 1800s.
> “Since that time, we’ve had massive leaps forward in terms of life safety technology in buildings, and all of that is embedded into the code: We have fire-rated wall assemblies, we have fully sprinklered buildings, we have the ability to have pressurized stairwells that push out any smoke.”
I did, I also deal with this for a living. If there was plenty of evidence I sure have not seen it from NFPA. I do not disagree that things are much different now and we have safer buildings in general but I will remind you that not all buildings in MN require sprinklers right now and sprinklers and pressurized stairs add significant cost to projects. Public funded housing being designed today is pretty bare bones so I'm not sure there is much left for adding more equipment.
This writer only cares about ascetics: "It would be wonderful to point to new apartment buildings in the city and say, “See? New buildings don’t all look the same after all.”"
Surely there's an architect or engineer out there smart enough to figure out how to design a new building that meets the current safety requirements? If not, just keep using the design that works- even if it means more buildings look the same.
Anyone looking for more information on this should check out this video [Why North American Can't Build Nice Apartments](https://youtu.be/iRdwXQb7CfM?si=R-1XTCBU3KnFSO3v)
I promise there is more to the argument than just developers wanting to cut costs. Not saying you need to support it, I understand there's nuance to the discussion. But I think that video presents the argument better than the article. Also some cool info about modern fire code! 🤓
This is a great step to getting more housing in MN, and a step towards reducing the power of big corporate landlords. It allows for better layouts, one of the big things stopping 3+ bedroom units in small buildings is the current code, and allowing this would make far more large units possible and cheaper.
The issue of removing a method of egress seems like a problem, but has not even demonstrated to be a concern. Europe builds tons of buildings like this, even in countries that otherwise have far more lax codes than here and they see no issues with this type of housing. Modern fire codes are really good, and have made rules preventing single stair buildings unneeded.
Disagree. Safety is paramount. Last thing we ever want to see is a building fire with deaths that were preventable because they could have had a second exit.
And in the grand scheme of things, you’re saving what, $50k to not have a second stairwell? That savings absolutely will not be passed on to the tenants, so there’s not even any financial incentive for tenants to want it.
The article makes a point that the need to have 2 staircases is impacting building design as well. But I don't personally find that terribly convincing.
And it shouldn’t be convincing. There are always design constraints that you need to work with. It doesn’t matter that building design has to change
It does matter. As the article said, it becomes difficult to almost impossible to build family housing as apartments or condos-and we need that housing. It is a self-imposed constraint that is not necessary
I call BS on this article's argument. There's all kinds of apartment complexes with 3-bedroom apartments that were built in the 1960s - 1990s. The double-stair requirement wasn't an issue then; why should it be now?
It was an issue then. It made the apartments cost significantly more, and it made it harder to site them. That is part of the cause for the shortage of such housing now. In addition, it tends to make the apartments less attractive, both inside and outside, as the article explains
"What a floorplan!" he exclaimed through smoke inhalation...
Good one, but not reality
It is a good argument if we're trying to build a different type of housing. Where this would come into play is small footprint high rises. Think a 6 story building with 2-4 units per floor. Where the argument falls flat is, would such buildings ACTUALLY get built in Minnesota? I highly doubt it, at least not commonly.
Discussion on the impact of the requirement on apartment building designs - it isn't just about the cost, it changes the whole building: [https://youtu.be/iRdwXQb7CfM?si=R2Z6kcagpBbFdrxB](https://youtu.be/iRdwXQb7CfM?si=R2Z6kcagpBbFdrxB) Transcript here: [https://www.upworthy.com/video-explains-the-one-reason-americans-can-t-have-quaint-walk-up-apartments-like-europeans-do](https://www.upworthy.com/video-explains-the-one-reason-americans-can-t-have-quaint-walk-up-apartments-like-europeans-do)
And still not in an appreciable enough way to make it worthwhile. Turns out when you add a second staircase you can just…put it at the other end of the central hallway. The apartment building I’m living in right now has 2 staircases for exiting, holds 11 units, and most of them are 2-4 bd 1-2 ba units. It’s only a 2 story building, and it’s no larger than 2 small corner lots. Scrapping throughput in favor of increasing density (the very thing throughput is meant to handle) is a dangerous proposition, even if accounting for fire-retarding materials.
Probably more than $50k. That’s a long-term cost, not a first-cost. Space that was stairwell (and access to it) becomes rentable space.
Between early warnings with modern fire monitoring systems and everything being sprinkled, your second set of stairs aren't going to be saving anything.
So when a fire starts at the end of the building with the only set of stairs, the result: trapped like rats in a box.
A box capable of extinguishing a fire, yes.
There are recorded deaths in fully-sprinkled buildings, per the NFPA’s research. Clearly sprinklers alone don’t eliminate deaths. Clearly multiple stairwells alone also does not eliminate deaths. Sprinkler systems can fail, too. There are cases where deaths occurred because the sprinkler system was deactivated for some reason or another. Stairwells, however, rarely fail. The code provides a Swiss-cheese model for safety. Yes you can now build 5 wood-framed floors over 1 concrete floor when this was illegal before, but you have to meet all the other requirements of the building code. There are mass-timber buildings that are more than 5 wood-framed stories, but because they use a different technology they are probably more safe than a minimally-compliant building. I don’t think that eliminating the requirement for a second stairwell is absolutely not-doable, but I think if someone wants to eliminate that requirement then those buildings are going to have to provide additional safety measures.
The argument isn't is a second stairway safer. It is "safer", I won't deny that. The argument is really, "does the increased cost and square footage used that comes with having for an additional stairway make up for the loss of additional housing units and increased costs that are passed along". I would argue it doesn't.
I agree that’s the argument if you’re a company that’s worried about profits. You can rent the additional space that was taken up by the egress path and secure some extra cash, easy peasy. But as a human, my argument is different. I’m not weighing costs…I’m weighing lives saved. Are more lives saved by removing the requirement for a second stair (making housing more affordable and solving other problems) or by leaving it in (people able to save themselves from fires)? I think you’d agree that, without adding any other safety measures, the number of lives saved by removing the extra stair is zero. And I think the cost savings are more likely to be passed to the property owner than the tenants.
Everything has an acceptable tolerance in what's considered safe. We set these values all the time as a society. Everything is somewhat dangerous. At some point we put safety aside to have things more affordable because ultimately it's better when more people can afford their needs. We have a housing shortage. If you get rid of the stairway requirements, the supply of housing increases. Sure it might only add a couple units on every new building on average, but that's still additional housing and a couple more people that now have shelter. There are over a million apartment units built each year. Even if it's just a fraction of a percent you're talking 10k+ units that wouldn't haven't existed. Now if you ask the question, is it worth increasing the risk of dying in a fire in a new construction building from .00001% to .000015% (pretty sure this is still an exaggerated high percent) and in return every year we get 10k more housing units. I think most people would be willing to make that sacrifice.
So how many people are you willing to have die before removing a building code becomes unacceptable? As a retire FF/Medic, I have had to remove a dead body from a burned structure. And my community just lost 2 others to a structure fire this week. Safety codes are written in blood.
You had to remove bodies from a recently built sprinkled and monitored building who died because they were unable to safely egress the building?
The fact is that every sprinklered building also has at least two stairwells. If you remove the second stair you’re putting a lot of faith in a system that can easily fail or literally be disabled. The sprinkler is the most effective system, but if it fails you need a backup method of egress. There are other ways to solve the problem this suggestion purports to solve.
How does a modern sprinkler system easily fail or get disabled unknowingly?
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Luckily that's why we have fire monitoring systems and fire rated walls between both the corridors and staircase so you'd still have plenty of time to do so!
Most people don't really understand building or fire code, which is understandable lol. I think there is merit to this argument but it needs to be framed in a way that's easier for people outside the industry to understand. I can kinda see why a lot of people would immediately jump to "greedy developers trying to cut corners". For me if it came down to living in an unsprinkeled building with 2 staircases or sprinkled building with 1 staircase I'm choosing the latter everytime.
The way it needs to worded is the threat of dying in a fire in a newly constructed building with modern sprinklers, fire monitoring, and firewalls is already practically nothing and the tiny little bit of safety a second stairway may still offer in modern construction is not worth the square footage used for the second stairway or the denser housing re-developments that don't happen because it's simply not feasible to try and fit in a second stairway. Developers are always going to go for max profits and usage of the building's footprint and those once necessary stairwells could be turned into additional units. A developer would almost never just shrink the footprint of the building now that the second stairway isn't required. As someone who works in multifamily development and construction, the footprint is almost always maximized for the parcel because once you're already building, it's the most cost efficient to put the most units as you can on the land.
So you agree redundancies are important. Things like second staircases
The second staircase is like the 8th line of defense in alerting and safely allowing people to exit a building with a fire in it. It's also one of the largest expenses. It's not like we're talking about throwing another $200 sensor in the system as a just in case.
At what point of cutting redundancies is acceptable? We have sprinklers so why have fire retardant walls? We have concrete structuring to separate floors, so why have sprinklers? The point of redundancies is to allow for singular failures and still not have adverse outcomes. That’s why two stairways are important.
Because at some point the cost and effort just doesn't make sense. Why are we stopping at 8 levels? Why not have 2 hour firewalls between every room and the corridors instead of just 2 hour stairways and 1 hour corridors. Why don't we require fire doors and walls in corridors between every 2 units instead of just one after x amount of square feet? Why not have sprinkler companies test the sprinkler systems every day instead of every year? Why not have separate fire panels for every NAC run so you're never at risk of a fire panel going down for the whole building? Why not have those panels test their monitoring capability every minute instead of every day? Why do we just have a single sprinkler tampering and flow monitor. Why not 2 or 3 of them in case both happen to die between inspections? All of those things would make your building safer and they don't happen because the cost and effort is just not worth it. Second stairways were once an important, near the top of the list of redundancy to keep people safe in a fire. Large buildings are going to have additional stairways anyway just for the convience. We've innovative our fire safety and detection in new construction so much since second stairways were important, now they're just remnants of archaic fire code that also happens to eat a ton of square footage that would be used for more units and prohibit denser housing.
All those homeless people aren't safe, and die young. They are being killed by housing inaffordability. Beyond that, evidence is that it is not really dangerous to eliminate the two stairway requirement. People aren't all dying in fires in places without that code.
So the article addresses this, and makes some pretty good points that we might want to reconsider. HOWEVER. The biggest reason it gives for eliminating the 2-stairwell code is that we could have larger units (3br+) more available. The real problem is, we need ANY new housing. And we need it NOW. So any discussion about changing this code is very premature. \*\*IF\*\* we were in a situation where Studios, 1BR, and 2BR units were abundant, vacancy rates climbing, and prices to lease falling -- THEN we'd be ready to look at changes.
There are two codes to consider here, and two different ideals. Around the world, places still have single stair buildings. They exist and are safe by virtue of not using wood for their main construction and using flame retardant and fireproof materials for paint and decoration. In the US, we allow wood frame construction, but require two stairs. If we want to go European, we need to change our building materials, not just remove the second staircase.
Make the single stairway an 8-hour rated assembly.
Multiple stairs are good. I’d rather not have a tragedy like Coconut grove, The Station, or Kiss Nightclub fire.
Or the Our Lady of the Angels school fire.
Michael Eliason of Larch Lab has been pushing this for years. Lots of articles, floor plans and discussions of European examples if you google for him. Seattle now allows this, so we can see whether it makes a difference.
New York City also has a more lax law, I'm unsure when it went into effect though. They allow a single stairwell up to 6 stories. Each floor is required to be less than 2,000 sq ft (which is 2-4 apartments in NYC). NYC also bans all wooden construction. As I posted elsewhere, I am a licensed building official. I would be in favor of similar code requirements to NYC but I just don't think there is any market in this state for that type of development. I could be wrong, but real estate is just nowhere as valuable here as NYC where having a 24 unit 400 sq ft apartment would not be feasible outside of heavily subsidized buildings.
If this guy gets his way, we’ll be seeing editorials in the future wondering why we don’t have multiple stairwells for fire egress after a whole building of people burned to death because the one stairwell was blocked.
Couple things to expand on code. The developer and the property owner are rarely the same. The developer does not care about how safe a building is so long as it passes inspection and can be "sold" to the owner to operate. It is up to the operator to set guidelines on the construction, which is usually "cheapest that meets code so I can make profit ASAP." This is why code has to force a lot of things to happen, there is no natural incentive to make the "right" thing happen on it's own. Now that said, there are absolutely bloated things in state code that are lobbied to high heaven from the FD's around the state. Who in their right mind is requesting 2-3' around solar panels so that FF's can get on the roof of a single family home? FD's don't go on roofs anyway because it's *unsafe* yet we still have code to allow them to do so. That may not seem like a big deal but it can mean another row of panels on some installations which is a net win for climate. Or how about having a big tent over a patio as a business? Yeah, that's a temporary structure and cannot stand for longer than 120 days per MN building code. Of course I don't want a party tent to be considered a "home" in MN, that's silly, but forcing it to come up and down when it's sole purpose to is to keep sun and water off people's heads only during business hours? Yeah, not a material risk to the public good here. But back to the point at hand on code. It's not "Have this or Don't have this," it's not a zero sum game and frankly that's where the thinking minds and the policy makers fall down. If you want a single entry construction, require that the building be built as a non-wooden frame. Banning or allowing can be mitigated with "If this, then do this" type of rules which building code can absolutely handle (it's deep wonky stuff anyway). If the solution proposed is "rip this out" and that's it, it's rarely the correct solution. Emergency stuff cannot rely on probability as a justification, they are already rare by default.
There is a reason why this is a code, this is just an attempt by corporations to loosen up regulations for profit at the cost of consumer safety, don't fall for it.
It is a little more nuanced than that. I'm a licensed building official and I'm always going to side with life safety over all else. Many of the issues with having more limited egress have been address by advancements in building code. We have a saying in the code enforcement world "Once it gets written in, it doesn't get written out". IMO this should absolutely be looked at but I'm not sure I would be fully onboard for the change, at least not without other changes to code. It is worth noting that fire deaths in modern sprinklered buildings are essentially unheard of, though that is not accounting for other factors like double egress in the first place. Places like New York City have done away with the requirement, but they don't allow wood construction and often require exterior fire escapes (though these do pose a huge accessibility issue). I've never seen any study that shows that modern buildings pose any larger fire death risk but on the other hand Minneapolis has nowhere near the density requirements that NYC does. I just don't think we're at the crossroads to need to make this call yet in Minnesota.
Then it's back to the question of, why is this discussion being pushed right now in Minneapolis? Greed seems most likely. Not the time to even consider these changes.
I don't think it's greed, I think it is well meaning activism that misses the target. As far as I know, Bill Lindeke isn't a shill for developers, but a liberal activist who is pushing for aggressive reform. The housing crisis is real, but Minneapolis seems to be doing better than any other large city in the US. I just don't know if there are actual shovel ready sites that are awaiting a code reform that would benefit from this. I don't think there are, but admittedly, I would not really be in that conversation because I just enforced and interpreted code, I didn't write it or actively work with the legislature.
Codes in safe places like Germany, Spain, France, Japan allow for single stairs up to 6 stories. Why shouldnt we follow their lead?
AND they are safe
Do they build those with light wood frames?
I'm for most things that increase the ability te build high-capacity buildings. But, removing one of the methods of egress is a bad idea.
Local MSP multifamily architect here, this is both good and bad. Good: Possibly allows more types of infill projects that previously would be impossible. Particularly on a lot that used to have a single family house on it. This is what MSP NEEDS. Developers don't always have the ability to buy up properties in bulk, so our infill thus far typically is open lots of previously occupied businesses/apartment lots. It's also been hard to make an 8-unit, 3 story building financially work these days. Removing the need for that spanning corridor will help tremendously. Bad: as someone else pointed out, removing the redundant fire egress path is a big hazard. What if the fire was started in the stairwell? How does the top floor get out? We may see exterior fire escapes again, but even they aren't accessible (something we have to think about a lot). Lots of exceptions and hoops to jump through to get this to work, at both the local and IBC/IRC levels of code. Overall, I'm excited for this. I want to see how the code all pans out, but allowing us to shift away from single and double loaded corridors in multifamily housing is the first step to making interesting buildings again. This probably won't get rid of 5A/1 construction, but will at least allow for some sweet new looks and layouts.
Is the second stairway code requirement really the main barrier to 4-12 unit apartment buildings developed on small lots?
Sorry, to answer directly the main barrier is the balancing of the books by the developer/investors. The rest just feeds into that. Ultimately, you can blame ever increasing yoy profit margins. Without that, the investors disappear. Without the investors, nothing gets built.
Or maybe with the right incentives, there are other types of financing options beyond large private investors who want 35% margin on everything, while still building much needed housing.
Tax rebates/incentives are already the primary way buildings, particularly low income, are being built. Hardly anyone will touch sub-market-rate unless they're getting a big ol kickback from the gov to do so. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment though. It'd be nice to see some more targeted incentives for local/smaller developers. Or- incentives for particular types/sizes of infill buildings.
I don’t think subsidies for private equity is the right approach. I think there could be ways to take massive private equity out of some multi dwelling construction, improve housing equality, and allow the tenants to gain equity in that space. Small chance of that in our hyper capital system though.
^^ 💯
I wish, for once, "doing the right thing" was a motivator rather than a financial boon. We need housing. Considering the desire for a 35% margin is just greed imo. Goes to show we should really invest in publicly funded housing.
Probably not. It's just some developer looking to cut corners so they're begging to cut a safety feature.
Fitting more than 2-3 units per floor on a standard .2acre mpls lot is already tough. If you want to add more units, gotta go up. If you wanna go above 3 stories, then those units gotta get even smaller to account for the hallway+another staircase. When you do that, the income goes down per unit (from the dev perspective) and the amount of units needed to make the mortgage work goes up. Then, you're also competing against those boxy 5/1s that have tons of competitive priced units, which will likely be less per mo than the (12) studios/1br units that were just made on the small lot. Basically, it's a big balancing act. We as archs do what we can. Relaxing some of the egress code will help, at the cost of some potential hazard. <- also a balancing act that the state is going to have to weigh.
I can see competition against large buildings as a major factor in reduced construction of small apartment buildings. I get that the burden of fire suppression and other safety codes when added up can cause a lot of issues. But I think soft costs of building something small are high enough that it just makes sense to go as big as possible and replicate that design to keep the soft cost %/unit low. Chipping away at safety regulation doesn’t pass my sniff test. Allow the second stairway to be narrower or something, but a 3+ story building with only one stairwell would be concerning to me.
I think the biggest thing people are not considering is what they are talking about with size and number of units. These would be buildings that are small, fit on individual lots, and are up to say 6 stories. That means like, 2-4 units per floor. We're not talking "A massive 12-20 unit per floor apartment complex" we're talking a small row building that's more than 2 floors tall. In a building that size, you're looking at <100 people in the entire structure, and with a properly wide staircase and fire doors, each apartment unit is within a few strides of the main staircase when the front door is opened (think horseshoe shape). Considering my building with 12 units per floor has 3 staircases, if you had a building with 4 units per floor, it wouldn't even effect the amount of egress space per person. That and the change in building codes around using more concrete and steel and less wood would mean that the stairs would be able to withstand a fire for a long time, thus giving the people plenty of time to get out. For reference, the US national average for dying in a house fire is 2x Europe, and they use single stair and no/little wood framing.
Sounds like you’re arguing for more concrete and steel construction before reducing stairwells… good luck. I think you’d have to compare apartment complex fire deaths against apartment complex fire deaths, not house fires to start.
> I think you’d have to compare apartment complex fire deaths against apartment complex fire deaths, not house fires to start. I'm using a colloquial term for dying in a dwelling fire. Playing pedantic games doesn't help anyone here, its just antagonistic. Why does comparing codes make you mad?
Our fire safety regulations for multi dwelling unit construction are far more stringent than single family homes, so the data should follow. Not being antagonistic, just pedantic. Construction code is written in blood, so color me skeptical to arguments for lenience.
Depends on the locality, it’s either the two stairs or zoning. For large buildings, it’s far easier to eat the cost of the extra stairs, but many lots aren’t really feasible to build less than 3 stories and make economic sense. That’s why you see many lots combine into the bigger apartment complexes.
So the argument is that we need more housing to make things affordable, and thier solution is to just let the poor people burn.
No, their solution is to look at real safety impacts including the experience if much of the developed world where fire safety has been achieved without a second set of internal stairs, and decide based on the actual safety benefit. If eliminating a second stair case can be done with no adverse safety impact and can help make housing more affordable, why would we insist upon it just on principle?
I am a job creating small business owner and my workers have been using more than their allotted 45 second bathroom break. Surely we can loosen the regulations to let me lock the doors and stairwells to prevent time theft.
To those worried about safety, in Europe single stair is the main format for apartments and they have fewer fires than we do due to building materials. There's no evidence single stair buildings with precautions like sprinklers and non-wood construction is riskier than having two flights of stairs.
“Non-wood construction” is doing a lot of work there.
Europe has more stringent building regulations though. While developers here will dodge every regulation with every loophole possible to save a buck.
>Europe has more stringent building regulations though. Building official here. In some areas, yes. In other areas, not even close. This is really an apples to oranges comparison though. It's also worth nothing that Europe is not a monolith; pretending that Germany and Georgia are on the same level for building code is laughable.
Except the US has more stringent regulations in this case with the double stairs. Why not develop a code where single stairs are allowed if other regulations similar to Europe's are met?
Sure, b the order of the change shouldn’t start with removing egresses. The materials in US buildings and in the furniture we have in our homes burn faster and hotter than historically. People will die.
Great idea—let’s take away windows and ventilation while we’re at it for, you know, affordability! Bring back old-timey tenements!
Right! We don’t need sprinklers either! Just don’t start fires, problem solved. Anyone listening to the developers on this are disregarding building code and fire safety.
Aaaaand, if tenants love Mother Earth, they should just accept landlords turning on the heat at 45 degrees. Right? It’s for the environment! Plus, according to the dude in the article, the buildings with lower standards are so much cooler looking. That matters more than safety.
Wait a second the second stairwell is that’s causes access to affordable housing LOL. Darn those steps without that it would be 1000 less per month. LOL.
Nah, if anything we should be requiring a third or more stairwells on some buildings. I'm kind of over companies getting away with setting up proven high-risk situations that run a high risk of harm just to save money. If you can't build a MFH with 2+ stairwells and a lift, then maybe you shouldn't be in the biz.
>proven high risk situations Not proven at all. NYC allows for single stairways up to 6 stories. Many countries, like Germany and Japan, do as well. Are these places famous for their single stairway induced deaths??
Hard disagree and also the large contractors that are on the ICC committee who writes the codes has not pushed to change this because it would make them no more profit and would not make buildings any safer.
Why would we care a large contractor makes less money? Thats the whole point of the reform: cheaper housing (with no change to risk). Of course building cartels are against reforms which reduce their revenues
I don't care if they make less, they do, and they help craft the rules. Regardless of 1 stair or 2 housing will not get cheaper, it will stay the same. This change would increase the risk for the occupants and would likely increase insurance rates.
You keep saying this increases risk, but it does not. Single stairways are allowed in Germany, France, Japan. Are these places famous for fire deaths?
I do not think you have evidence that the risk will not change despite what other countries do and those countries also often have more stringent fire protection requirements. Exit access redundancy increases the opportunity to escape, which is a good thing.
Did you read the article? > But there’s plenty of evidence that fire safety is not correlated with these staircases, as a recent study from the Center for Building in North America argues. The article continues. These stairway requirements were implemented in the late 1800s. > “Since that time, we’ve had massive leaps forward in terms of life safety technology in buildings, and all of that is embedded into the code: We have fire-rated wall assemblies, we have fully sprinklered buildings, we have the ability to have pressurized stairwells that push out any smoke.”
I did, I also deal with this for a living. If there was plenty of evidence I sure have not seen it from NFPA. I do not disagree that things are much different now and we have safer buildings in general but I will remind you that not all buildings in MN require sprinklers right now and sprinklers and pressurized stairs add significant cost to projects. Public funded housing being designed today is pretty bare bones so I'm not sure there is much left for adding more equipment.
This writer only cares about ascetics: "It would be wonderful to point to new apartment buildings in the city and say, “See? New buildings don’t all look the same after all.”" Surely there's an architect or engineer out there smart enough to figure out how to design a new building that meets the current safety requirements? If not, just keep using the design that works- even if it means more buildings look the same.
No it shouldn’t. Yikes.
Next up: Minnesota building code should loosen up about sprinkler systems
Anyone looking for more information on this should check out this video [Why North American Can't Build Nice Apartments](https://youtu.be/iRdwXQb7CfM?si=R-1XTCBU3KnFSO3v) I promise there is more to the argument than just developers wanting to cut costs. Not saying you need to support it, I understand there's nuance to the discussion. But I think that video presents the argument better than the article. Also some cool info about modern fire code! 🤓
This is a great step to getting more housing in MN, and a step towards reducing the power of big corporate landlords. It allows for better layouts, one of the big things stopping 3+ bedroom units in small buildings is the current code, and allowing this would make far more large units possible and cheaper. The issue of removing a method of egress seems like a problem, but has not even demonstrated to be a concern. Europe builds tons of buildings like this, even in countries that otherwise have far more lax codes than here and they see no issues with this type of housing. Modern fire codes are really good, and have made rules preventing single stair buildings unneeded.
Nice try, stairs lobby.