Legalizing Mid-Rise Single-Stair Housing in Massachusetts

There is a growing recognition that zoning reform alone won’t solve the housing crisis. It can certainly create an onramp for more, and better, housing construction but it’s clear we need to work on other fronts as well. With this report, conducted by the design firm Utile in partnership with the Center and Boston Indicators, we begin an exploration of other barriers to creating abundant, diverse, affordable housing. Looming large among them is the building code. It is an amalgam of regulations that should evolve with time and technology but old concerns and considerations live on in the building code long after technological or architectural advances have overridden their safety value. Here we start by diving into staircases and the common building code requirement that projects between three and six stories include two separate means of egress (i.e., staircases) and explore the reasons for, and potential impact of changing this requirement in Massachusetts.