Comment by RC_ITR | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RC_ITR | Hacker News Reader

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There's the theory that building codes are used similarly (and complimentarily) to zoning laws to limit the supply of new housing (and therefore raise property values).

A great example being fire walls and mandatory self-latching doors between garages and living spaces - definitely a logical thing (cars and their gas are flammable, so let's isolate them from the house).

When you look at the data [0], garage fires are 2% of residential fires because cars don't really catch on fire in garages (fires happen in garages, but usually because of intentionally set fires getting out of control)

So now, in the midst of a housing affordability crisis (or a the end of a great run for real estate, depending on your outlook), we have construction workers using special fire-resistant drywall (that must be cut specially and cannot have holes in it), placing solid steel doors, and generally spending a lot of hours and materials building spaces that people don't even live in, when really, adding smoke detectors in garages solves the problem.

[0] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v14i12.pd...

The 2% is a bit misleading because the fire severity depends on how well it's contained. ~50% of fires are "confined" to an object, mostly cooking fires inside pots. Garages are 5% of non-confined fires, which is similar to living rooms (6%) and attics (5%) [0]. The numbers also go slightly up when apartment buildings are excluded[1], taking garage fires to 6% of non-confined residential fires.

[0] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v21i2.pdf

[1] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v21i6.pdf

Thank you for the clarification, but it still seems arbitrary to single out garages (I think it was chosen because it’s simply the most palatable)

This even extends to stuff added to builds that are mandated by law and have little reasonable justification. For example, a city might demand all new apartment units need to have a balcony, and all new apartment buildings might need to have some open courtyard space. Now you've increased the cost per unit by a huge amount by mandating these balconies and also the unrentable voidspace.

And this is part due to the fact that real estate has to (at least in part) be valued on hypothetical replacement cost.

Can’t have apartment buildings reading hands for $100mn when a new one costs $20mn (or have the land sell for $80mn when you only allow 2 stories to be built on it).

That's not the root cause. The Root cause is needing a house for your car.

I disagree.

The root cause is that homes are in part appraised (for mortgage purposes) on hypothetical rebuild costs, so this is a way to make those rebuild costs higher (and justify why you’re paying $500k for something that cost $40k in 1980).

If it weren’t car garages, it would be kitchens.

Cars are a separate problem, as evidenced by the extreme housing prices in some of America’s least car reliant cities (NYC, SF, Boston, DC, etc.).

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