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The case for single-stair multifamily

thesisdriven.com

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Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#401

Post by Schiendelman »

sokoloff wrote: post #285
loeg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setbacks, parking minimums and floor area ratios have nothing to do with safety. Community reviews have absolutely nothing to do with safety.

Side setbacks absolutely have an effect on fire safety (a greater distance gives less propensity to ignite the neighboring building and provides access with which to fight the original structure fire). Front setbacks and lot area coverage ratios have a more minor version of this same effect from fires across the street. It takes a pretty good sized fire to ignite the building across a street, but as density increases…

And yet other areas let buildings be physically against each other if they're built not to spread fire. Just let everyone do that.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#402

Post by eru »

defrost wrote: post #350
eru wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that Grenfell was the responsibility of the local council. It was not run by eg a multinational corporation, which usually have better management and a commercial reputation to defend (and deep pockets to go after in a law suit). Big business gets a lot of flak, but they are honestly better on average than small businesses and many local governments institutions.

Unregulated | poorly enforced "big business" is no better and arguably worse. The crux appears to be adequate resources to enforce standards > a commercial reputation to defend (and deep pockets to go after in a law suit). Meanwhile, in "the real world" sufficiently large businesses are routinely silo'd into seperate sub companies and those that are associated with disaster, product liability, deaths, etc are often m…

If you do that siloing, you don't benefit from reputation, yes.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#403

Post by Klaster_1 »

hammock wrote: post #351
adameasterling wrote: post #63

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 work…

How is double stair MFH overzealous? I can’t control if my neighbor blocks the stairwell with a couch that gets stuck while he’s moving in and now I have no egress if my other neighbor starts a fire. I’m in favor of greater freedoms, and the freedom to choose a single stair MFH if I want. But I don’t want.

Check out this video, which argues against double stair MFH - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#404

Post by defrost »

eru wrote: post #402
defrost wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unregulated | poorly enforced "big business" is no better and arguably worse. The crux appears to be adequate resources to enforce standards > a commercial reputation to defend (and deep pockets to go after in a law suit). Meanwhile, in "the real world" sufficiently large businesses are routinely silo'd into seperate sub companies and those that are associated with disaster, product liability, deaths, etc are often m…

If you do that siloing, you don't benefit from reputation, yes.

It wasn't a question.

If BigWellKnownCompany uses TLASubsidiary (Delaware) LLC to handle contracts then they are still BigWellKnownCompany with reputation and in the event of litagation the buck (generally) stops with the bankrupcy of TLASubsidiary (Delaware) LLC.

There are exceptions (see, for example, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and it's failure to shield behind LTL Management) but it works in the real world often enough to be Standard Operating Procedure.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#405

Post by m463 »

twiddling wrote: post #152
adameasterling wrote: post #63

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 work…

Don't forget about street widths being determined by the ability to turn around fire equipment.

looks like building heights haven't been held back...

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#406

Post by closeparen »

autoexec wrote: post #252
Animats wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why the article's call for "reform of defect liability laws that drive insurance costs up for condo developers" makes his whole position deeply suspicious.

Exactly. If modern day advances make single-stair multifamily homes perfectly safe than there's zero reason to give condo developers a free pass for designs that are found to have led to families burning death.

Europe is a lot more sophisticated about both regulation and multi-family housing then we are, I’m not sure we should interpret North America’s quirks as advances.

If they are advances, we might ask to what end: most building and planning code was created with the express purpose of engineering a suburban single-family detached homeowner-driver society, not to create safe or pleasant urbanism.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#407

Post by notatoad »

autoexec wrote: post #269
notatoad wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that were put in place to save human lives There's an assumption here that the code was put in place to save lives. There's a whole lot of regulation that exists simply to make it difficult to build. Lots of people profit when housing is scarce (or unavailable to certain demographics), and want to keep it that way. It is always worth asking what the point of a regulation is, and whether it accomplishes the thing it…

I think it's a much bigger assumption that the fire code which requires people have somewhere to escape to when a stairwell is on fire was put in place to make it difficult to build instead of for helping to keep families from burning alive. I fully agree that if after careful and thorough examination it's determined that the codes are outdated and can be removed without endangering people that they should be, even i…

>I think it's a much bigger assumption...

i don't think it's that big of an assumption. there's a long history of discrimination being enforced through building codes. will a second stairwell save a life at some point? almost certainly yes, but it wouldn't be an effective blocker if it obviously didn't. the question isn't whether it improves safety, it's whether it improves safety enough to be worthwhile. a second stairwell would also almost certainly save a life if it were required for single-family homes too, but we don't do that because there's some line somewhere where we decide making things 100% safe is silly, and compromise the edge case of safety for the sake of practicality. and there's a lot of forces trying to move that line away from practicality when it comes to multi-family housing.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#408

Post by nadermx »

rootusrootus wrote: post #273
nadermx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The requirement is because if you don't mandate a minimum amount of parking, developers won't create it. Then the neighbors of your fancy new building can no longer find parking near their own home because the new building tenants take it. So they justifiably get angry and start voting in politicians that will enforce minimum capacity for new development.

Your conclusion seems wrong in pratice. Seems in fact quite the opposite happens, more affordable housing, etc. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/...

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#409

Post by seanmcdirmid »

eru wrote: post #338
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't really have shanty towns in the states. We definitely don't have a Kowloon Walled City, which is an example of what can happen when no regulations are involved (and somewhat remarkably not burn down and kind of thrive even if still a slum). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

> We don't really have shanty towns in the states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tent_cities_in_the_Uni...

Tent cities != shanty towns. Shanty towns are like semi-permanent buildings, tents are just...tents you buy at REI and then set up at the park with your stuff. We had one nearby my house at the Seattle Ballard commons that lasted during COVID (and is gone now). I wouldn't have called it a shanty town like I saw in the Philippines.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#410

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #365
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't really have shanty towns in the states. We definitely don't have a Kowloon Walled City, which is an example of what can happen when no regulations are involved (and somewhat remarkably not burn down and kind of thrive even if still a slum). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

If only we can have something between a McMansion filled North American suburb and Kowloon Walled City.

Hong Kong is super dense and super expensive, Shanghai is similar, but at Mainland Chinese prices. I'm all for density, but anyone who thinks that density alone solves affordability issues simply hasn't travel enough.
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