Lyle Solla-Yates
“I want us to have a building code that’s motivated by science and informed by trade-offs,” Eriksen said. “I’m worried we’re building a world that’s too expensive to live in.” https://slate.com/business/2025/02/housing-crisis-apartments-development-single-stair-reform-codes.html #SingleStair #BuildingCodeReform #Housing #Elevator #FireSafety #Science #Architecture #EvidenceBasedPolicy
A New Way to Fix the Housing Crisis

One man’s quest to fix the way we build.

Slate
Feb 28 at 4:09pmWeb
Show threadLyle Solla-YatesFeb 28
I'd quibble only with Grabar's excessively kind summary of building code history. While there were some good intentions, there was a chunky stew of nonsense and superstition and bias and morality policing also https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/10/18/early-zoning-and-the-war-on-multifamily-housing
Early Zoning and the War on Multifamily Housing

Most of your city’s zoning likely prohibits multifamily housing—even of a modest form, like triple-deckers. If so, you have the arrogance of early zoning reformers to thank for it.

Strong Towns
Show threadLyle Solla-YatesFeb 28
I like this quote from NYC architect I.N. Phelps Stokes, who wrote many of these original building codes while serving on the Tenement Housing Commission in 1900: "Strict, detailed regulatory codes...could not cope with the central problem of reducing housing costs or rentals, and they stifled architectural experimentation and originality" https://www.jstor.org/stable/988162
I. N. Phelps Stokes: Tenement Architect, Economist, Planner on JSTOR

Roy Lubove, I. N. Phelps Stokes: Tenement Architect, Economist, Planner, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1964), pp. 75-87

Show threadBenjamin RossFeb 28
@Lyle We're only a few years past excessively kind descriptions of the motivation of early zoning codes.
Show threadLyle Solla-YatesFeb 28
@BenRossTransit It’s true! By land use regulation standards we are racing forward.
Show threadMichael BaconFeb 28

@Lyle My take on this is going to be much like my take on zoning codes. Five years ago we had outdated zoning and building codes based on a combination of racism, nonsense, and anti-urban bias, and we have a housing crisis.

In five years I worry we'll have much better zoning and building codes based on empirical work and affection for multifamily housing and a worsening housing crisis that's maybe a bit better than it would have been.

All this is good. I don't think it's nearly sufficient tho.

Show threadLyle Solla-YatesFeb 28
@MichaelTBacon You are again frustratingly correct. It's stacking problems.
Show threadMichael BaconFeb 28

@Lyle Yeah, and I hate being like this. Like, the work Stephen Smith is doing on code reform is great and I want to applaud it. But there's this parallel political track in his advocacy that kind of says, "and all this is the problem and why we don't have good housing."

And I'm like yes, yes, yes, wait NO! If we don't deal with land policy and housing finance (specifically federal tax and finance policy) it's not dealing with the bulk of the problem.

Show threadMichael BaconFeb 28
@Lyle And I know you're on board here, but I always want to point out that the UK has extremely permissive building codes (too permissive, ahem Grenfell) allowing single staircase access in much taller buildings and still has a terrible housing crisis.
Show threadLyle Solla-YatesFeb 28
@MichaelTBacon Oh yeah, they are my go to example for horrible tax codes. They are like geniuses of bad taxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Tax
Council Tax - Wikipedia

Show threadMichael BaconFeb 28
@Lyle And just like Americans with bad codes, they have no idea why it's bad. I'm like, "you know you could actually charge taxes based on how much a property costs" and they're like "oh yeah we do that, see our council tax." And I'm like you have no idea how much of a tax haven for rich people this is, do you?