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Comment by biggieshellz | Hacker News Reader

That's more due to exclusionary zoning than building codes. There is no reason why we couldn't build, for instance, a boarding house under modern building codes, which would create more affordable housing on the low end. The reason that doesn't get built is that the zoning doesn't allow it.

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That's partially true, but it's really a combo of both. Things like dual staircase requirements, elevator size requirements, and sprinkler requirements make it extremely expensive to build any sort of housing.

A recent affordable building in SF cost over $1 million per unit. That's completely unsustainable.

> Things like dual staircase requirements, elevator size requirements, and sprinkler requirements make it extremely expensive to build any sort of housing.

And you want and need precisely that in a house with fluctuating occupants of which a high percentage will have some sort of mental health issue.

Cutting corners on boarding houses will lead to fire catastrophes.

> Cutting corners on boarding houses will lead to fire catastrophes.

Nobody denies this. The question is whether said fire catastrophes really claim more lives than homelessness and wintering on the street. (Obviously fire catastrophes are a bigger PR problem and get more media attention, but is that really the appropriate metric for human suffering?)

They don't, but fire catastrophes are one of the most gruesome ways to die - and worse, a fire can always spread around and endanger even more people. There are reasons why fire codes are among the oldest laws in humanity.

A good advice is to remember that in case of fire what kills people most of the times, is the smoke. Having extinguishers -and- breathing bottles could help. Maybe there is room for designing a new product that would act as two in one?.

No but here's the thing: for all of those regulations, the US still has more fire deaths than most of Europe. So they're not working anyway!

https://twitter.com/MarketUrbanism/status/160882533241258393...

Defense in depth at work.

Setback, minimum square footage, minimum parking are all part of “building codes”, and can be used to enforce zoning and restrict development without sounding as political as “zoning”.

And those can be safety issues too.

Or just regular medium density housing, like say 4-story 8 unit buildings. The stuff that makes up the majority of the housing stock in most Western countries, but seems impossible to build in most of the US due to zoning.

> The reason that doesn't get built is that the zoning doesn't allow it.

The problem is not just zoning. A boarding house simply doesn't generate noticeable income compared to standard residential housing, and with exploding land prices it simply makes no sense financially to cater to poor people.

If only there were some sort of organization that didn't need make a profit and wasn't "run like a business". One that everyone gave money to, for the benefit of all society, to make things better all, but especially for the lowest on the totem pole. If only such an organization existed! It could be in charge of governing the people, and the people could choose who runs it with some sort of choosen-ing procedure.

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