Shane Phillips’ Post

More residential building in Coney Island

Proposed apartment project at Willow and Kotenberg in Willow Glen:

Residential Tower in South Harlem

I walked to the School of Architecture everyday in Athens; and walked past these tenements. They were always full of life, with shops on the ground floor and deep balconies and overhangs. It is interesting that such a model of development is so organic and fluid, but works wonderfully for its citizens. This is the best kind of affordable housing. Greeks created their own funding system called antiparochi, in which developers saved themselves the cost of buying land by giving landowners a share of the constructed units when they were completed. “The best translation of the term is probably ‘flats for land,’ or as some people say, ‘quid pro quo,’” says Panos Dragonas, an architect and professor at Greece’s University of Patras. “The system saw landowners hand over their property, and in return get, say, two to five apartments back in the completed building to live in, or rent or sell. It was a bottom-up system of housing development not created by any law change by the government, though the state did offer motives for construction by granting tax breaks. To keep costs down, developers adopted a modernist construction model — the Le Corbusier-developed Dom-Ino system, in which reinforced concrete pillars freed a building of the need for load-bearing interior walls. In Athens, this permitted the creation of a sort of modernist tenement. Industrial in construction, it was still aligned to a traditional street in densely packed urban neighborhoods, with differing building heights and lengths giving a haphazard, un-regimented impression.

Interesting read but I'm not sure if I agree with the premise of this article. They are advocating a change in building codes to remove the requirements for multiple stairwells in apartment buildings of a certain size. One would ask, what happens if there is a fire in the stairwell and the elevator goes out? Should people be expected to jump from their 6th or 7th floor apartment if there are two points of failure?

Five new apartments to be delivered in two separate city centre developments

Five new apartments to be delivered in two separate city centre developments

Since the late 1800s, two staircases have been required for new apartment buildings above three stories by America’s model International Building Code. They must sit on opposite ends of a building and must be fully enclosed. It's the same in Canada, since 1941. It was rooted in fire safety, which made sense decades ago. Like parking and development charges, the rule makes less sense today. Single-stair buildings – also known as point access blocks – are now common around the world, and are in accordance with modern fire-safety standards. In countries like Germany, single-stair buildings of up to seven stories are permitted. Canada is now reconsidering this limitation and it's time that we reconsider it in the United States as well. We need more housing and removing this restriction would help immensely to allow for more density and greater flexibility with floorplans.

British Columbia’s next building code will allow single-staircase buildings: a design element common in much of the world, but banned in Canada for decades. The building types are touted as a simple design solution that allow for denser housing on smaller lots, which could help bolster “missing middle” housing stock (multiplexes, townhouses, and apartment buildings less than five storeys) while delivering climate benefits. A report commissioned by B.C.’s Ministry of Housing and released last week provided research and recommendations on how the buildings could be safely allowed in the next provincial building code, due this upcoming fall, explained Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon in an interview with Canada’s National Observer. “We are going to allow them. We're moving forward. We're going ahead,” he said. “What we have to finalize is the specifics of the code. What are the parameters within the code that we need? That work is going to happen all through summer, and we'll make public the new code this fall.” Currently, low- and mid-rise apartment buildings in the province (and most of North America) require two staircases. The rule dates back about 80 years ago to building codes largely based on what American cities, such as Chicago, were doing at the time. In the 1940s, buildings were built mostly with flammable timber, and two staircases were required with evacuation in mind. The province has decided to allow the builds primarily because they allow for more family-friendly units, said Kahlon. Instead of apartment buildings mostly made up of studios and one-bedrooms, single staircase buildings – also called point access blocks – typically include three-bedroom units that can accommodate families and other living arrangements. “Right now, when someone goes to build housing, they have to assemble so much land because of the structure of the building, and it takes years for housing to get built,” explained Kahlon. “Having the ability to have a smaller lot, and a smaller building, I think not only will be appreciated more in communities, it will also build the type of units that we need more of in our communities.” There are also important climate adaptation benefits, explained Kahlon, such as buildings being more livable during extreme heat because their layouts allow for cross breezes in units: something now reserved for those living in single-family homes or townhouses. While the province is confident they will find a way to allow the builds, what specifically will be required by builders and developers in the code isn’t set in stone. As a prime example for the province to look toward, Kahlon points to Seattle, which has allowed single-stairway buildings up to six storeys since the 1970s, with a limit of four apartments per floor with requirements around sprinkler systems. It’s also the style of building frequently seen in older parts of cities like Montreal, and dense European cities like Paris or Berlin. [excerpt]

In my view, having access to sunlight and natural airflow in one’s abode is not an optional extra, it is a right, and not an unressonable planning consideration. In the City of Sydney, where FSR may be transferred from a heritage protected site to a site elsewhere within the city, such a trasfer must also consider the additional impacts it is likely cause to pre-existing buildings and public open space that would be overshowed by its extended “long” shadows, when more height or bulk are permitted to be added to existing site specific controls. https://lnkd.in/gYwBdj5R ……. Smh article A future of dead plants’: Pitch to scrap unit sunlight standards criticised By Julie Power, 9/10/24 A call by the NSW Productivity Commission to remove a requirement that most apartments have some direct sunlight would create two classes of residents, critics say: those who can afford to live in the light and those who will dwell in the dark. The commission’s review of housing supply last month backed the relaxation of design requirements for apartments that its stakeholders, mostly builders and developers, argued would reduce costs and improve supply and affordability. Among its recommendations was a proposal to scrap the “solar access” requirement for apartments. Currently, the NSW Apartment Design Guide requires most apartments in a building to receive at least two hours of direct sunlight a day in main living areas. Committee for Sydney chief executive Eamon Waterford said the removal of standards would be like going back to the bad old days of windowless units, similar to the so-called “dog box apartments” banned in Victoria eight years ago.