Last fall, B.C. revised the B.C. Building Code to allow developers to build residential buildings under six storeys to have one staircase
Vancouver city council will consider a staff recommendation Wednesday to push back against new provincial rules allowing multi-family residential buildings under six-storeys to be built with single set of fire escape stairs.
Last fall, the provincial government revised the B.C. Building Code to allow developers to build residential buildings under six storeys with one staircase, as long as they had sprinklers, smoke-management systems and wider hallways. The change was made to encourage the construction of more housing on smaller lots.
Previously, the building code stipulated that buildings three storeys and higher needed to have two sets of stairs.
Under provincial law, Vancouver is allowed to have its own building code, with the rest of the province guided by the B.C. code.
In a report going before city council, Vancouver’s chief building official, Saul Schwebs, said that the “proposed features (of the revised provincial code) are not well suited to the Vancouver context.”
His recommendation is for council to decline adopting the provincial code as revised, consult with the fire chief, and to “report back with recommendations to safely densify sites across the city.”
Schwebs wrote in his report that the single-egress stair design now allowed by the B.C. Building Code “increases life safety risk to the residents by removing alternatives for emergency response and evacuation.”
He said that staff have “convened a group of experts and determined that there are possible alternative ways to safely densify smaller residential lots without having to remove the second exit stairs or by providing additional design parameters that will reduce the risk of a single stair.”
There are other jurisdictions around the world which allow single stairs in buildings that are higher than two storeys, but the staff report said that research “by the National Fire Protection Association (in the U.S.) and others have pointed to differences in data collection, regional design and construction materials choices and other factors that can lead to different conclusions when interpreting the available data.”
According to the staff report, fire chiefs and other safety professionals in North America have raised concerns, such as a lack of an alternative if the only exit is compromised, congestion in the single stair during firefighting, and the inability of first responders to access a fire floor without putting occupants at risk due to toxic smoke.
Seattle has allowed single stairs in multi-family buildings since the 1970s when it also mandated installing sprinklers, but the staff report said, “It is notable that the Seattle fire department does not support broader expansion of the single egress stair provisions.” Additionally, the Seattle department has said going with single stairs requires more “substantive firefighting capabilities.” Such capabilities, the Vancouver report said, is rare across North America, and does not exist in Vancouver.
Bryn Davidson, a housing advocate and founder of Lanefab Design, thinks city staff’s pushback on allowing single stairs is misguided.
“I think one of the main misconceptions is that, in people’s minds, you’re taking away a stairway, but that’s not actually what’s happening at all. You’re creating something entirely different” with the single-egress stair designs, he said.
He gives the example of his own building, which has five floors and two staircases that are separated by a hallway that is almost 100 metres long.
This, he said, isn’t necessarily safer than having three smaller buildings with hallways that are just over 30 metres long and one stair in each, serving a smaller number of residents.
“If the fire department wanted to use one staircase for the firefighters and everyone else is going out the other staircase, that would mean that the grandma (living) at the end has to walk down 100 metres to access the staircase and then crowd down a stairwell with four times as many people.”
He hopes that council does not shut down the conversation about allowing single stairs.
“There isn’t any evidence that they are less safe, and I think in many cases they are safer because you’re not having to walk down this long hallway and cram in with as many people.”