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The case for single-stair multifamily

thesisdriven.com

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Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#411

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Spivak wrote: post #369
fires10 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have minimum lot size of 5 acres. Can't see the wisdom in that one. I also have a minimum square footage size. $20,000 impact fee just to build a house and I receive no utilities or city/ county services.

I wish more than anything we could legislate the fee structures backwards. If the government wants an environmental impact study then the government is footing the bill for it. Putting it on the builder is stupid and just a way of hiding the budget item in other people's wallets.

Ok, the government will fund your environmental impact study so you can build, but...oh...given their budget they will have it done sometime in 2100.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#412

Post by thatfrenchguy »

snakeyjake wrote: post #222
nicole_express wrote: post #21

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 Gr…

>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, an…

> and the other made of stone and steel

Not to mention european houses also have drywall over the concrete these days, the days of barren concrete or plaster over concrete have been over since at least the 90s.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#413

Post by thatfrenchguy »

ajmurmann wrote: post #363
davidw wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concrete is probably not a great thing in much of the US for lower-rise buildings. Definitely not here in Oregon. And the fire suppression stuff is mandatory in multifamily housing anyway.

Why is concrete bad in Oregon? Autoclaved, aerated concrete is common in Germany which has a slightly harsher version of our Oregon climate.

Earthquakes

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#414

Post by thatfrenchguy »

nineplay wrote: post #181
cycomanic wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 d…

> 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 ar…

Multifamily are almost never built in fire-prone areas, especially on the west coast.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#415

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ksplicer wrote: post #370
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By building their buildings out of brick rather than wood. Though its probably overkill here in the states and canada.

Even our wood has so much fire safety chemicals baked in now that it's not nearly as flammable as it used to be. The safety standards should be reevaluated. Plus, I'm sure that there are some developers who would happily build the whole MFH out of concrete if it lets them only use a single stair.

Concrete construction is expensive in the states, although I'm not sure why. 4+1s are common here in Seattle: first story is concrete and commercial, 4 stories on top of that are wooden (we also have the more liberal stair requirements, so I'm not sure what is really going on).

Concrete construction is the common way to build in China (and anywhere in Asia sans Japan), but the techniques they use require a bit of overbuilding and limit their towers to around 34 or so stories. Still, they have two stair cases side by side in those buildings (but I guess given the height, they need them by Chinese fire code standards).

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#417

Post by eru »

defrost wrote: post #404
eru wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Yes, reputation and legal liability are two different things.

Either the subsidiary shares in the reputation, but then also passes on damages to the reputation. Or it ain't.

The same is true for legal liability: if the parent company is legally liable for the subsidiaries debts, then the subsidiary can (all else being equal) borrow cheaper. If that chain is severed, the subsidiary borrows only as cheaply as a stand-alone small company, or perhaps even worse, because severing that liability also serves as a signal to potential creditors to better watch out for shenanigans.

With a clever enough PR department (respectively legal department), you can try to have it both ways. But a sufficiently clever PR department can do anything.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#418

Post by eru »

davidw wrote: post #359
eru wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just add that as an option to the housing regulation: Either build in the traditional American style out of wood, or (new option) build out of stone and add a robust fire suppression system, but in return we let you get away with a single staircase and other features that increase density.

Concrete is probably not a great thing in much of the US for lower-rise buildings. Definitely not here in Oregon. And the fire suppression stuff is mandatory in multifamily housing anyway.

Allowing non-wooden construction (and then a different fire safety regime for it) is not the same as mandating it.

Developers in Oregon would presumably stick to wood, then. No harm done.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#419

Post by eru »

rootusrootus wrote: post #348
eru wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steel can be recycled. And we are sitting on a giant ball of matter, so making more bricks or glass is easy. (Glass can be recycled, but it's not really worth it.) You are right that wood captures carbon. But you have to think about the opportunity costs: the same land that you use to slowly grow your wood could be used to eg run wind turbines or solar panels to replace fossil fuels. (You could also stick a nuclear p…

> You'd have to run the numbers, it's not obvious to me which effect dominates Perhaps this is a perspective thing? Take one state in the western US that happens to have farmed timber, PV, and turbines: Oregon. Slightly larger than the United Kingdom, 6% of the population. There's not even a tiny amount of opportunity cost being lost by farming timber.

> There's not even a tiny amount of opportunity cost being lost by farming timber.

Does that mean you can buy land for 0 dollars per squaremeter in Oregon? Wow.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#420

Post by eru »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #410
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Density is a way to deal with expensive housing. Not a cause of it.
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