Mildly Interesting

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This obscure rule is one reason San Francisco can’t build more housing (www.sfchronicle.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If the fire department is happy with one staircase, great.

Fire departments make for very poor authorities on these matters, unfortunately. See the issue of them mandating completely oversized roads, since they can't imagine smaller fire engines that have precedent around the world.

It just doesn't sound plausible that 6-15% premium for additional staircases is a root cause of the housing crisis, when developer profit opportunity is clearly the greater constraint.

That's the thing though - there is no single root cause for the housing crisis. It's just a bunch of small issues stacked on top of each other, and each has to be addressed individually.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I'm still not sure if we're disagreeing even. Yeah, there are lots of issues at play, and I don't have strong feelings about stairs either way. I just think among all the issues, start with the most egregious, which is the commodification of housing. Beyond that, sure, tackle all the issues of inefficiency including outdated stair laws. The stair issue just feels like a scapegoat to avoid talking about societal issues.