The Los Angeles City Council adopted a motion Wednesday that would remove a requirement for apartment buildings to have double stairwells.
The motion, introduced by Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Katy Yaroslavsky, looks to create more space for more affordable family-sized units.
“These requirements, born out of early 20th century planning concerns – have since become a hindrance to creating larger units with greater natural light and ventilation and buildings with enhanced green space,” the councilmembers stated in a media release.
Wednesday’s legislation begins the process of updating the city’s building code to allow for multifamily residential buildings up to six stories to be built with a single stairwell instead of a double stairwell.
This provides “greater flexibility in housing construction across the city,” the councilmembers’ release said.
City lawmakers criticized L.A.’s current building code, calling it outdated and claiming it is a significant barrier to building larger units. The city’s most recent Housing Element estimates that less than 15% of rental homes in Los Angeles have three or more bedrooms as compared to 70% of owner-occupied residences.
“As a majority renter city, the lack of available family-sized apartments has resulted in severe overcrowding, with most apartment units housing more people than there are rooms,” officials said. “Studies have shown that increased safety features, like sprinklers and fire-resistant materials, have rendered the need for multiple staircases obsolete, and major cities across the country, such as New York and Seattle, now allow for the development of single-stairwell buildings over three stories.”
Following Wednesday’s vote, the L.A. Department of Building and Safety, Los Angeles Fire Department and Department of City Planning will have 90 days to present modifications to the city’s building code in order to allow for single-exit, single-stairway multifamily unit residential buildings up to six stories.
