Tall and sprawl is a defining feature of Canadian cities: a bunch of towers surrounded by an ever-widening expanse of detached houses.
This is by design. Such a result was dictated by policies that tightly prescribed what sort of homes gets built and where. Cities accommodated a growing population in sprawling suburbs and on some plots of land where tall buildings were permitted. For decades, there was little else in between.
That’s started to change, with rising public and political support for the missing middle of housing – from fourplexes to small apartment buildings. Such changes are long overdue and represent the start of where cities need to go to help stabilize housing markets for decades of growth ahead.
The details matter. It’s one thing to allow for more density; policies also need to help establish the conditions where building a lot of new homes makes economic sense. There are a bunch of old rules that generally went unnoticed for years that need rethinking, such as parking minimums and development charges.
Then there’s the matter of stairs.
Apartment buildings of three or more storeys require two exits. This has been part Canada’s building code since 1941. It was rooted in fire safety, which made sense decades ago. Like parking and development charges, the rule makes less sense today. It also makes Canada a global outlier.
Single-stair buildings – also known as point access blocks – are common around the world, and in accordance with modern fire-safety standards. In countries such as Germany, single-stair buildings of up to seven storeys are permitted.
Such designs, whether there’s an elevator or stairs, allow for more family-friendly housing with multibedroom homes, something the missing middle is supposed to deliver. The homes are grouped around a stairwell, without the long hallways familiar in North America, and those dwellings have more windows, for light and ventilation. Single-stair buildings can also be built on smaller lots.
Requiring two staircases forces builders of apartments to a hotel-style layout, that long hallway with homes on either side. The result is usually a row of one-bedroom homes.
It also means builders have to assemble more land to make a project feasible. Like parking and development charges, two staircases can quietly make housing more expensive – and the homes less pleasant to live in.
The idea for single-stair buildings has percolated in recent years and while it was once the domain of advocates deeply interested in housing, it is, suddenly, somewhat hot.
B.C. is the first province to consider the change.
In January, the B.C. NDP sought input from industry experts of how the provincial building and fire codes could be updated to allow for single-stair buildings of up to eight storeys. B.C. cited “more flexibility for multi-bedroom apartments” – exactly the type of housing the province, and the country, needs.
A few other jurisdictions are considering the same path. The California state legislature last year passed a bill to start work on updating building standards to include single-stair designs. In Ontario, the idea is on the table, proposed in early 2022 by an expert panel, but no further action has occurred.
One of the leading voices for reform is Conrad Speckert at LGA Architectural Partners in Toronto. He grew up near Zurich in a single-stair building and after moving to Canada was surprised to see the “hostility with which small apartment buildings have been actively discouraged in this country.”
A century ago, apartments flourished in Canadian cities – before strict zoning rules disallowed them on most civic land. In recent years, apartment buildings have been unfairly consigned to busy arterial roads. The same thing continues to happen, as Toronto city council this week debated allowing small apartment buildings on what it calls “major streets.”
New housing is needed throughout cities. Fourplexes are welcome but more is necessary. Parks and schools should be surrounded by small apartment buildings. Instead, such amenities are too often in neighbourhoods of detached homes with declining populations, where density is restricted or prohibited.
As provinces and cities begin to allow for more density, they must also reconsider long-standing rules that no longer make sense. Single-stair buildings are no panacea but offer a type of housing that could rapidly flourish, if given the chance.