Item, whistling, booing, shouting, or other loud
utterances are not permitted when in the judgment of the meeting's
chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazards, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12,
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in a
manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the
meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council or
any of its committees. All individuals and their belongings are
subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose.
Or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazards, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in a
manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these rules
will be subject to removal from the remainder of the meeting by
the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose.
Or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazards, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.Such
items include, but are not limited to, one, any pointed
objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace, pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in
a manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these rules
will be subject to removal from the remainder of the meeting by
the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose.
Or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when, in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazard, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace, pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in a
manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these rules
will be subject to removal from the remainder of the meeting by
the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose.
Or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when, in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazard, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12
are permitted and subject to search.And five,
firearms, ammunition, fireworks, laser pointers,
stun guns, tasers, mace/pepper spray, and toy
weapons. Cell phones and other small handheld recording
devices must be placed in silent mode, can only be
used while seated, and can only be used in a manner
that does not interfere with the ability of other individuals to
view or hear the proceedings. Individuals or
groups failing to adhere to these rules will be subject to
removal from the remainder of the meeting by the Sergeant at
Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing gallery
or room is open for a meeting of the City Council or any
of its committees. All individuals and their belongings are
subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery,
two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose,
or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when, in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazard, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind,
two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage,
three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters, four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 16 inches,
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace/pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in
a manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the
meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council or
any of its committees. All individuals and their belongings are
subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting.
Morning, ladies and gentlemen.
It is 10:43 on June 4th, 2026,
and this subject matter hearing for the Chicago City Council's Committee on Zoning,
Landmarks, and Building Standards is called to order.
Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no votes taken.
We will start off with a roll call.
Alderman Spata.
Alderman Hopkins.
Chair Dow.
Alderman Hall.
Chair Harris.
Alderman Beale.
Alderman Ramirez.
Alderman Moore.
Alderman Mosley.
Alderman Cesar Lopez.
Alderman Fuentes.
Alderman Burnett.
Alderman Cruz. Alderman Conway.
Alderman Quesada.
Alderman Riley.
Alderman Knutson.
Alderman Clay.
Vice Chair Lawson.
Chair Villegas is here. We have a quorum.
Aldermen Harris, Mosley, Knutson, and Quesada have requested to attend
this meeting by remote means under the provisions of Rule 59.
I will confirm their presence, then take a motion. Chair Harris.
Alderman Mosley.
Present, Chair.
Alderman Knutson.
Present, Chair.
Alderman Quesada.
Present.
Thank you. Vice Chair Lawson makes a motion to approve the aldermen's request.
All in favor, please say aye.
Opposed, nay. And if you're in the chair, the ayes have it.
At this time, we'll be in the public comment period.
In accordance with the City Council's rules of order and procedure, public comment
today will be limited to 40 minutes as we have 20 speakers.
Since there are more than 15 speakers signed up to speak, public comment will be
limited to two minutes per person.
The Committee on Zoning will call as many speakers...
No, strike that. We will have all speakers have an opportunity to speak today,
limited to two minutesOur first speaker is Eric Steinmetz.
Good morning. My name is Eric Steinmetz.
I'm the proud president of Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2.
Today, I stand before you in opposition to the proposal that would allow
residential apartment buildings up to six stories in height to be
constructed with only a single stairwell for evacuation.
As firefighters, we're asked to prepare for the day everything goes wrong.
We don't judge a building by how it performs during a routine inspection or a
small, easily controlled fire. We judge it by what happens at 3:00 in the
morning when residents are asleep, smoke is spreading, visibility is
gone, and people are desperately trying to get out.
A second stairway is not an architectural luxury.
It is a life safety feature. It is a second chance when a first path
fails. We have learned this lesson through tragedy.
In 2003, just around the corner, six people died in the Cook County
administration building at the fire at 69 West Washington.
They were not killed by flames. They died because the means of escape was
compromised by smoke and firefighting operations.
That disaster forever changed how the city thinks about stairwells, evacuation,
and life safety.
And we learned another painful lesson in 1993 with the Paxton
Hotel fire. 19 people lost their lives.
Firefighters performed extraordinary rescues from ladders and windows, risking
their own lives to save others. But despite those efforts, there were more people
trapped, and occupants could not be reached in those critical first minutes.
This is important for this council to understand.
When we discuss six-story buildings, some of you assume that if residents become
trapped, firefighters can simply rescue them from windows using aerial ladders.
Ladder rescues are affected by parked vehicles, utility lines, trees,
weather, and other building setbacks.
Even when a ladder reaches a window, occupants are likely removed one at a
time. Aerial rescues are an emergency measure only.
Additionally, firefighters use stairways to advance hose lines, carry
equipment, and can become congested.
Movement slows,
smoke exposure increases, by and large increased risk.
Skipping to the end. On behalf of Firefighters Local 2 and residents, we are all
sworn to protect. I want to be clear, this ordinance will-
Thank you, Mr. Steinmetz.
Our
next speaker is Colin Schultz,
followed by Jasmine T-
Tasnim Tanveer.
Good morning, Chairman and members of the committee.
One of the most fundamental principles of fire safety is redundancy.
We teach children to have two ways out of a building in the event of a fire because
fire conditions are unpredictable.
Smoke, heat, and fire can rapidly render one escape route unusable, leaving
occupants dependent on an alternate route.
This proposed amendment would permit these buildings to rely on a single stairwell
as the primary means of egress. While modern building construction includes
numerous safety features designed to reduce risk, this proposal removes a layer of
redundancy that has long been considered a critical life safety feature.
Chicago has a long history of learning difficult lessons from devastating fires
that have claimed far too many lives.
We're all familiar with the Great Chicago Fire, resulting in approximately 300
deaths and nearly a third of the city.
The Iroquois Theater fire killed more than 600 people.
The Paxton Hotel fire claimed 20 lives, and the Our Lady of Angels School
fire, which started at the base of a stairwell, resulted in the deaths of three
nuns and 92 children. Each exposed critical deficiencies in
fire and life safety protections.
In response, significant improvements were made to building codes and fire safety
standards, starting right here in Chicago and spreading across the
nation. The question before this committee is whether the City of Chicago will
continue to prioritize life safety, or will we choose to erode the standards
developed through more than 150 years of hard-earned experience and painful
lessons? I respectfully ask that consideration be given to the
operation realities faced by emergency responders, but also the
potential consequences that arise when a single means of egress becomes a point of
failure during a fire.
History has repeatedly shown that when escape options are reduced, the margin for
error disappears. The standards we adopt today should reflect not only what is
convenient or economical, but what best protects human life when conditions are at
their worst. Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Next
is Tasnim Tanveer, followed by Jessica Jackson.
Hello. My name is Tasnim Tanveer.
I live in the West Loop.
I'm a mom to a toddler.
Allowing for single-stair buildings would allow for more housing to be built,
helping to fix our city's housing shortage, and it would
allow specifically for more family-sized units.
I have lived in single-stair buildings before.
When I was a kid, we lived in England for a year because of my
dad's job. We lived in an apartment, and I remember
even now how much light and how much air we got from multiple sides.
Even without AC, we kept cool during the summer by opening the windows and
getting a cross breeze.
In contrast, today, my husband, son, and I live in a
three-bedroom where the light in the second and third bedrooms comes from
a light court, basically a hole that they punch in the middle of the
building.
We wish that we could have had the windows face the
outside, but there's not a lot of selection for family-sized
units, and this was the best for our budget.
Not every family wants to move to the suburbs to raise kids.
Not every family wants to
live in a big tower.
There should be more options and less expensive options for families,
and single-stair reform would allow for those family-sized apartments to be
built at a lower cost.
I encourage the committee to approve this ordinance when it comes to a vote.
Thank you.
Before we move on, I'd like to
add Alderman Riley to the quorum.
Jessica Jackson, followed by Austin Bush
Okay, so first of all, we're not going to have immigrants coming here and tell us
how we need to live with substandard conditions. Solidboom.com, okay?
Anybody in their right mind know we need two ways in and out of buildings and all
this and that. Just because they come from places where the lifestyles and
housing is all inadequate, they don't get to bring that lifestyle and mentality
over here and tell them to build behind it.
Now, as it pertains to the safety of buildings and stuff, my
question to this body is, what do you do when it's
the public officials that's putting your building in
danger with fire hazards?
Marlene Hopkins, you know what I'm talking about.
You know for a fact
that the Office of Public Administrator intervened in my
probate case
to stop me from fixing my building that had building code
violations on it that I was desperately trying to fix.
The Office of Public Administration could care less
that my building and my life was in danger.
They could care less.
They refused to get those squatters out of my
building. They let them squat for three years,
depriving me of income, depriving me of my safety for me
and my daughter. You know that. You and
Kimberly Roberts know it.
And then to pseudo-fix the problem, you all
dismissed the violations case. However...
Oh, don't you look like you don't know I'll pull that document out.
Don't you do it.
That building,
I'm working on it to get it fixed now because it's mine by
deed. It's mine by my mother's will.
It's mine, and I'm going to fix it. Y'all going to stay the hell
away from it,
and I don't care how you cheat in court.
You're going to stay the hell away from my stuff.
Y'all need to fix these buildings.
Thank you, Ms. Jackson.
We have Aus-
You look like you know.
Austin Bush, followed by Dr. Chloe Groom.
Hello, I'm Austin Bush from the 25th Ward.
I am here today to support Chicago's effort to modernize the building code based on
ample evidence of the benefits and safety bona fides of single stairway,
mid-rise, small floor plan residential buildings.
Cities like Seattle, Honolulu, and New York have allowed buildings up to six
stories to have a single stairwell and have not seen any reason to go back
to the restrictions limiting their construction.
When you look over the data and where these buildings have been allowed, you'll
find that single stairway buildings built within these proposed constraints
would be far safer to live in than the century-old housing stock that I, and
so many other Chicagoans reside in today.
Modern buildings are safer to live in, and our building code should reflect that
by making it easier to live in one. Constraining production of new housing by
requiring useless space, like a redundant stairwell or hallway, makes it
more expensive and prices neighbors out of higher quality and safer living
spaces. I am glad the city council has decided to review this issue with the
scrutiny it deserves. It is understandable to be cautious around fire
safety and seek to understand the evidence behind these changes.
But we should also be prepared to adopt a change that reflects the long history of
advancements in building safety our city has made, especially when it can
improve the living spaces of so many Chicagoans. Thank you.
Dr. Chloe Groom, followed by Zoe Lay.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Dr. Chloe Groom.
I took today off of work to speak in favor of smart stair reform
because this represents a huge opportunity for Chicago and
families. I live in West Loop with my husband and two
cats. He's a medical doctor at Rush and about to finish his
residency. We would love to stay in the city.
We want to start a family soon. However, finding a two-bedroom
apartment, or God forbid, trying to find a three or even a
four-bedroom apartment is incredibly difficult, even at our higher
price range. It's no wonder that so many families leave the city
for the suburbs, but it doesn't have to be this way.
A huge reason that we don't have larger family-sized homes is the
requirement for a second staircase.
That second staircase takes up valuable floor space, often more
than 20% of a building's footprint.
It becomes more efficient to line the hallway connecting the two
staircases with single bedrooms and studios, like the one that I live in
now.
I care a lot about fire safety, and it makes a lot of sense
that we need to do this right and be careful.
But brand-new buildings with modern fire-resistant materials and sprinklers
are not just as safe as old double stair buildings,
but actively safer.
If you asked me if I would rather raise my family in a double stair building
that was built in 1905 versus a brand-new building with
a single staircase, I would choose the new building every time.
Let's make this happen for Chicago.
Please help this happen for families.
I'd really love to stay here and live in a more spacious place.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Dr. Groom.
Zoe Lay, followed by Josh Chodor.
First of all, thank you guys for your service. I appreciate you.
My name is Zoe Marsh Lee. I am a
founder of Chicago Flips Red. And Chicago
Flips Red was built because the City of Chicago Buildings
Department unlawfully demolished my family's
building without a court order, that's violation of
the Fifth Amendment,
and without compensation. I don't care what
excuses people were saying, but Judith Freyland understands and
knows that they were going to give the remaining of the
lots to Daley and Stephen Quackenbush.
That's why we're here. And because I've been speaking
out about it, and the injustices, and because the city will
not settle the case,
you're punishing me.
You're punishing me and trying to put state charges on
me like y'all did Larry Hoover, that's got hundreds and hundreds of
years.
And because if the state takes it, then federally,
Trump or anybody else will not be able to pardon me.
And you guys are going to use my
past record that has nothing to do with anything that I'm doing.
I'm 40 years old. All that happened when I was in my 20s.
I'm also
unapologetically gay, and it's Pride Month.
If I would've came in here on some, "I'm gay.
I'm gay. I'm gay. They knocked my building down because I'm gay,"
you guys would've stood by me, and you guys would've settled my case.
If I would have went and sued the police,
because y'all lied and said that the police powers, that's why y'all can
knock down the building. But if I would've sued the police, y'all would've settled.
But because I'm doing it the right way and coming at y'all because y'all are the
people who did it, y'all are trying to punish me.
It's not going to happen. God has the last say.
Thank you.
Next speaker, Josh Choder, followed by Alex Montero.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Josh Choder.
I am a resident of the First Ward. I am here speaking in favor of
the proposed ordinance.
I have come to many zoning committee meetings and given headlines of the housing
shortage that we face in the Chicago area.
I will not do that for the sake of time today, but what I will say is that we
clearly have a housing shortage where we need to take better use of the
land that we have currently within the city.
This ordinance would make it easier to create more family-sized units,
specifically on smaller lots, and ones instead that would
fit where maybe only studios and one bedrooms.
This would make them more family-friendly and better utilize those
oddly shaped lots. Again, this is something for small
and small-rise multifamily homes.
This is not something for single-family McMansions, and this is not something
for high rises. I think the most important thing is both maintaining
fire safety while also actively creating
more housing and this smaller scale housing, which would be safer with
current materials than high-rise buildings, where you have to go up and
down 30 sets of stairs, no matter how many different sets of
stairs you may have. This would also put Chicago on par with other
major cities like New York, Seattle, and Denver.
Really, we can do just as good as Denver.
I know that from the conversations with the fire department, the ordinance was
revised to five stories of having a single stair only, and
so I want to thank you, Chair Villegas, for having this important hearing.
I think the conversation is going to continue knowing that there is no final vote
being done today, and I hope that we all continue working together
between housing advocates, the zoning committee, the fire department, Department
of Buildings, and all other stakeholders to make sure that we can
collectively create more homes in Chicago, lower our rents,
and make the tax base bigger. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Choder.
Next speaker is Alex Montero, followed by Tawon Sims.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Alex Montero.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak.
I want to thank Chair Villegas, Alderman Matt Martin, and his policy director, Ryan
McCray, for bringing this important issue to the floor and to discussion.
There's a lot that's going to be said today about statistics and studies about
the safety of these buildings, the benefits of single stair from a housing
feasibility standpoint, how they compare to older buildings,
the role that sprinklering and other safety devices play, and all of those pieces.
I will let the relevant
experts weigh in on those areas. But I want to make clear that the reason
why so many people are here speaking about this, which seems like a very technical
issue, is because we love the city, and we want to be able to
live here, and we want to be able to afford to live here in 20 years, and we want
to be able to raise families here. Chicagoans in every neighborhood,
I am a proud resident of the Pilsen neighborhood.
Chicagoans from every neighborhood on the north, west, south,
southwest, northwest side say they want more family-sized
apartments. And they say they want to see corridors with a bunch of vacant
lots, for those vacant lots to be put to productive use, to be able to raise
families in them, to be able to generate footfall for all of our businesses and
vacant storefronts. And a big part of doing
that is making our single and double lots buildable.
This ordinance does that in a way that other reforms don't,
and it's the reason why this reform has been embraced by so many cities.
Yes, New York and Seattle were the pioneers in this, but Austin legalized this
last year. So did Baltimore. And cities all over the country are embracing this
because this is the bottleneck in building the kinds of housing that are going to
allow Chicago families to stay in the city and to
contribute to it. So I thank the committee for considering this important
issue.
And please, I would encourage everybody to look at how we can
work together as public servants, as
advocates, as residents, as members of the City Council, and as the brave members
of the fire department to make this happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Montero.
Next speaker is Tawon Sims, followed by David
S-Lepidur.
Before you get to, I'd like to acknowledge Alderwoman Clay for the purposes of
quorum.
Good afternoon, committee. Good afternoon.
So February 17, 2003, it wasn't
69 West Washington, but it was located at
2347 South Michigan. If you all remember
the E2 disaster,
21 lives lost.
Do you all remember that? I'm sure that these gentlemen remember it.
Some of those houses went out to that call.
But did you all see
the
pictures or the depiction in the news,
body upon body stacked up in that little singular
exit? Did you all see that? Do you all know how it feels to
die like that?
Ask the gentleman back here what it feel like to wear their uniform, wear their
equipment, and have smoke going in it.
But imagine asphyxiation, being choked out, being
crushed under body weight.
Now imagine being a three-year-old, two-year-old, or a
70-year-old.
Imagine. I want you all to imagine this for the individuals that keep
using family.
See, families protect each other. Cities protect each other.
These gentlemen are tasked to protect the city
and a host of people that don't even understand what a singular
exit might cause. Project buildings used to have them.
Ask them gentlemen how that worked out.
But we have a very, I guess,
smart gentleman sitting at the chair seat.
I don't think you all
understand as you all come up here to try to advocate for this.
Why?
So we're going to lose more lives.
More lives, and you all shaking you all heads.
But I understand that term family and new family.
The individuals who you all want to move in don't understand how this city work.
They're from third-world countries.
Everything is adequate to them, but it's not to us, and we
need safety, public safety especially.
Next speaker is David Lapidus, followed by Mr.
George Blakemore.
Followed by Mr. George Blakemore.
Good morning, Chicago. I am David Lapidus.
I'm
from Chicago. I've lived in Chicago for most of my life.
Thank you to the committee and to the chair for an opportunity to speak today.
And also, I want to say I love Chicago very much.
I love firefighters as well. I've had family members that have been saved
by the fire department in the past, and I want to share
some opinions about why I support a version of this ordinance
and why I think we can also do it hopefully with the mind towards
fire safety, as well as trying to solve our housing crisis in a at least
an effective way.
First,
with single-stair buildings, as proposed in this ordinance, they would
include modern fire safety systems such as sprinklers
that buildings in our city often that are
grandfathered in with single stairs or double stairs don't have.
And
often these buildings as existing
pretty unsafe versus a modern single-stair building with a
modern fire safety system such as sprinklers, sprinklers throughout the building
that are NFPA 13 rated. I also will
mention, I full-time work as a real estate developer.
I build buildings that are multifamily in the city, in the
suburbs, and I have been involved with redevelopment in the past.
As a developer in grandfathered single-stair buildings or
double staircase buildings that are very old, that are 100 years old, you
don't need to have sprinklers in them a lot of the time.
You don't need to have a lot of fire safety systems as required by code in them a
lot of the time. Whereas new buildings such as this that would add
residential square footage for families, for Chicago, and a lot of communities
where buildings of a size required for a double staircase
cannot even be built currently,
these newer buildings per this ordinance would have fire safety systems
that as a developer I have encountered in a
rehabilitation case of older buildings that don't
even exist in the buildings. There are no sprinklers.
Thank you, David. Our next speaker is Mr.
George Blakemore, followed by Ellen Stank,
Stankey.
It's about the money.
We are now at the zoning committee,
and I've spoke many times about this corrupt
zoning committee.
You can zone anything
at any time and anywhere in the city of
Chicago if you pay to play.
Are you listening to me? If you pay to
play. Now, those developers
are coming in with that one exit. Aha.
With these new construction. It's not about the
housing so much, it's about the money, honey.
The money.
Somebody is paying these zoning
people here.
Somebody's paying them.
And you can pay, you can get anything zoned
in this city if you have the money, honey.
The money, honey. And don't say, this gentleman right here, the
politics that he's playing, this Mexican man here.
But it was a Mexican had his police before he went to
jail. But about the zoning
committeeThis corrupt zoning
committee and this fool that you have here.
Then we don't need that additional safety.
Make it make sense. An exit to freedom
is the fire. An exit. If you had three
exits, it would be very good. If you had four of them.
So it's all corrupt, and it's that down here.
Subject matter only. Subject. The subject
is somebody is paying us to do this.
Come on. We're talking about the safety of our
citizens. So that's why it's very important
for a man, a Mr. Blakemore count-
Thank you, Mr. Blakemore.
Our next speaker is Ellen Steinke,
followed by
Nsiya Bambot.
After Ellen is Nsiya Bambot.
All right. So thank you all for meeting here
today.
I have a question. What
happened in 1903? What was invented in 1903?
There was the first Wright flight,
Ford Motor Company launched, there was the first World Series,
and there was the first invention or requirement
of having a double stair
as a fire safety measure. So we created the double stair as a
means for fire safety, and we know in Chicago we
have our fire trauma. But we have
better fire safety measures now. We have sprinklers.
We have fire-resistant materials.
Buildings after 1999 are six times safer than anything
before. So any of these buildings that would be built now would be safer than
any of the housing stock we have now, and they're only for small buildings.
So it would be very advantageous, especially with our small lots.
And also, I just want to say, when I was in Spain,
which was not a third-world country because when I had to go to the ER, it was
free, but building after building I went to
there had a single stairway up the middle
and an elevator up the middle, and it was all stone and
all
concrete. So it was like being in a tomb that was
very fire safe, and it was interesting, and I'd never been in those
before. But living in an apartment in Spain made me realize
that being in an apartment could be really spacious and really nice.
I was in a four-bedroom apartment.
It was bigger than my house in
Indiana that I grew up in, and it was actually part of what inspired me to move
to Chicago in the first place and actually get involved with
these sorts of urbanist things that help make the city better.
Because I
always lived in the suburbs, I always lived in Indiana, and that's what part of
made me want to move to Chicago and what really makes me love living in a
city and sharing space with people.
So thank you.
Thank you, Ellen. Our next speaker is Nsiya Bambot, followed
by Ms. Danielle Carter.
Hello, everybody. Thank you for your time. My name is Nsiya.
I'm a resident of Ward 2, speaking in favor of new
small to mid-rise single-stair housing.
When I moved to Chicago last fall,
finding an apartment in my budget was near impossible.
One that fit my personal needs and was well-connected to the rest of the city, that
was just a difficult process. I ended up bumping my budgeted
rent up about $400 to $500 a month to afford the studio that I
live in now. And while I could afford that price increase, I
know that a lot of my peers cannot, and as a result, they're scattered
throughout the city.
So housing affordability is very important to me, and single-stair
housing opens the door to more affordable housing development.
It reduces the upfront
cost of construction materials, makes it
possible to build safe housing on smaller lots of land,
as opposed to having builders consolidate multiple plots or opt for
large luxury single-family homes which price is out of reach for the
average Chicago resident. And small to mid-rise buildings fit
nicely into existing neighborhoods, increasing the housing supply while
matching the scale and character of their surroundings.
Other cities like Seattle, Denver, Austin, even New York City, have all
adopted similar single-stair reforms, and I'm excited for
Chicago to join their ranks, for my friends and I to live in the same
neighborhood because we don't have to worry about the cost.
I encourage you to vote in favor of this ordinance. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Ms. Danielle Carter, followed by Brian
Arrington.
First, I want to thank you all for your service. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Why wouldn't you all listen to people with experience that's
telling you that it's not safe? Why wouldn't you do that?
And you know why? Because you
all have common sense. This is just common sense.
And what you're dealing with here is a bunch of communists and foreigners.
They don't understand common sense.
Because if they did, we shouldn't even be in here talking about this.
And then what will happen is the people that's advocating for this,
soon as their family get killed in the fire, they're going to try to sue the
city.
That's what you will see.
Listen.
If you want common sense, vote for Danielle Carter Walters.
This is what I'm offering you all. We are all American
Chicago citizensNo longer will
we allow foreigners to get in these seats
and tell us what's best for us in America, in Chicago.
They don't speak for us, and the problem is we have been silent for
so long that we allow this. It's time for real
Chicagoans that was born and raised here, it's time for
real Americans to rise up and say enough is
enough.
And you speak with your vote and your voice,
because in a minute, your voice is not going to matter.
What they're trying to do to us, silence us on our First Amendment
speech. That's why CTU have put an aura
protection on us for just peacefully protesting when
all they do is protest all day and take our kids in there when our
kids can't even read or do basic math.
So what I'm telling you all,
liberate yourself. Americans, rise up.
Chicagoans, rise-
Thank you, Ms. Carter.
Next is Brian Harrington, followed by Matthew Conroy.
Hi, my name is Brian
Harrington. I
live in Wicker Park, and I'm speaking in support of the single-stair
ordinance. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today.
I'm in the process of looking for a new place to live, and things are very
expensive in my neighborhood. At the same time, we have,
I would call it sub-optimal land use.
We have strip malls within feet of our
train stations and our bus stops. We have long-time vacant lots.
And a lot of that comes down to economics and
neighborhood pushback.
The neighborhood pushback part, there was a recent development that just got
turned
down by the alderman that was at the Garfield's lot on Milwaukee,
and that involved a
taller building with a double loaded corridor.
I think a lot of neighbors instead wanted something that fit more in
character with the neighborhood.
Well, single-stair buildings fit more in line with the neighborhood and
allow for more fine grain development, while also allowing developments to
pencil out easier for developers.
So they don't need to rely on these larger towers to make
their investment back. They can instead group together several single-stair
buildings that are now a little bit taller and can fit more units in them,
and
are able to, quote, unquote, "match the character of the neighborhood."
So if we're looking at outcomes and looking at adding more
housing to the neighborhood in line with what we like to see in our historic
neighborhoods, in line with the buildings that are in high
demand in all of our neighborhoods,
allowing more building in this format would very much help.
As others have also said, it allows more light and air in.
And cities like Austin, Seattle, New York, and cities
across Europe, they have not seen any issues with additional fire risk.
So I think we can take a hard look at this as a viable
option for a way to increase housing supply and reduce costs, as well as increasing
the tax base. Thank you.
Thank you, Brian. The next speaker is Matthew Conroy, followed
by Nathan Bean.
Good morning. I'm Matthew Conroy.
Good morning.
I live in the 43rd Ward, in Lincoln Park. What's up, Timmy?
I'm speaking in favor of the single-stair reform.
You guys have all heard the pros and cons.
Look, we all really want the same thing. We all want a safer city.
We all want more housing. We all want to address the housing crisis.
And look, the instances, the fires that the firefighters or
people in opposition of it that have pointed out, those are tragedies that have
happened. But we can't let one-off incidents
stop us from addressing what we need to do to move forward.
The statistics show that single-stair
reform is not only safer for residents, but it's safer for firefighters.
New York City passed single-stair reform in 1968.
Around that same time, they had their deadliest year on record, both for
firefighters and for civilians. In 1970,
310 civilians died from fires, and nine firefighters lost their
lives in the line of duty that year.
Last year, it was two members in the
line of duty. So statistics show that it is safer for single-stair
reform, in addition to updated fire suppression, building codes,
materials that we're using. Look, this is a simple solution,
and we need to work forward to address the housing crisis.
We need to make sure that the people who are going to address the fires and are
going to keep us safe, that
we work together. But this has shown across the country and across
the globe that it works. And in order for Chicago to move
forward and be a city for the 21st century, these are some of the changes that
we're going to have to make. And don't vote for this f*****g person.
What?
Are you...
Next.
Put us out.
Our next...
I'm not allowed? To address you?
Address me before.
Uh-uh. Address this person. Are you kidding
me right now? Addressing the person.
I mean, y'all are kidding me.
Y'all are... Are you kidding me?
Having this crazy funeral back here. No, you don't.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
Okay, this is a little better.
Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen, during the public comment
period, I would
askLadies and
gentlemen, during a public comment period, I would ask that you refrain from
using foul language.
This is an opportunity to have a discussion around a subject
matter that people have interest in, and we're here to do it respectfully.
Sir, I would ask you to please apologize
for that language.
Thank you.
Are you
Nathan, sir?
Hi. Yeah.
Okay, one second. Nathan, followed by Hunter Yego.
All right. Good morning, everyone.
Morning.
Yikes. But my name is Nathan Bean. I'm a former resident
of the 44th Ward. I had to move after Bennett whooped my butt
in the election four years ago. But I recently moved to the
34th Ward in Greektown after not being able to afford to live in Lakeview anymore.
Making $50,000 a year and at 30% of my salary,
$1,250 is not enough to actually afford an apartment.
But
I don't really want to talk about myself.
I want to talk about people who are struggling more than me.
Yesterday, I was in an Uber on the way back home when the Uber
driver, Rodrigo, spoke to me about his story, about how his parents
immigrated here 30 years ago from Mexico.
They became citizens, had good jobs, they had him, and then they were able
to afford their own home for less than $300,000 down in
Brighton Park. Now he's looking for housing, and he's struggling
to be able to raise enough money to put enough money down for a down payment in
order to actually have a two-bedroom home, which he craves.
Obviously, I'm here to support this ordinance.
We need to make it easier for individuals who may not be able to make a ton
of money, such as single
parents, baristas, our grocery store clerks, our cash register
people. We need to make it easy for them to raise enough money to afford a
home. And this is one of those things that we can do to make it
easier for them. The single stairs will make it easier
for smaller developers to build out housing and actually give
it affordably to people in the neighborhoods.
Look, this is something that we all need to fight for.
We can make these housing units safe.
We can make them affordable when we come together and make it actually possible.
So I want to thank everybody for being here.
I want to thank you all, all of you, seriously, for being here.
This is really unique that all of us can come in a forum like this and
speak. And so I just want to, again, urge my support for this.
We can make this happen and make Chicago more affordable one step at a time, and
this is one of those steps. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nathan. Our next speaker is
Hunter, followed by our
last speaker, which is Hussein Taher.
Good morning.
Morning.
My name is Hunter Yego. I live in North Center, and I'm here to support the
proposed ordinance.
I would like to mention that keeping families in Chicago is going to be an
important part of maintaining a strong tax base in the city for years to come.
By removing the requirement for a second stairwell, we can build more housing to
keep here those who want to live in the city from moving out to the suburbs in
search of more space for their family.
I'm not there yet,
but one day that will be a decision that I have to make.
I love living in the city, but even with making the compromise to live in modest
accommodations, I'm already paying more than I'd like to just keep a roof over my
head.
I want my tax money to go to the city.
But if housing keeps getting more expensive and I don't have many options for
living with my family, then I might need to leave, too.
We need to make sure that the housing we are building to solve this problem makes
the best use of its resources that it can.
Thank you for your time, and I urge the committee to approve the ordinance when it
comes to a vote.
Thank you, Hunter. Our final speaker is Hussein Taher.
Hussein, I'm...
And I apologize if I said your name wrong.
Hello, my name is Hussein Taher. I'm a resident of South Loop in Ward
3 and a lead at Strong Town Chicago, and I'm here to speak
in
support of this ordinance. I was born in
Detroit. Pretty sure that's not a third-world country last time I checked.
And I'm also not sure how immigrants are related to single-stair buildings.
I might have to need a refresher on that one.
But when opponents were saying that it's about the money, I
wholeheartedly agree.
Since 2020, rent in Chicago has surged 38%,
more than LA,
more than New York,
more than Seattle,
more than all these cities that are far, far worse than ours.
Chicago housing supply has hit a record low.
This means people are moving out, the tax base is shrinking,
and Chicago, therefore, is becoming a worse place to live.
Single-stair reform will allow for an increase in housing options,
cheaper rents through increased housing supply because
there'd be more units on
normal Chicago lots,
and also more buildings that I, myself, and a lot of my friends would want to live
in.
I thank the chair for
putting on this meeting. I think this is a very important
issue in the city and a great opportunity to make a
great modernization to our building code. Thank you for the time.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our public comment period.
We will now move on to the
hearing.Before I move on to the hearing,
let me acknowledge Alderman Burnett for the purposes of quorum, and then
also I see that Chair Harris has joined us. Chair Harris?
Here.
Thank you.
Oh,
Vice Chair Lawson
makes a motion to
allow
Alderman Harris to participate remotely on the provisions of Rule
59. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, nay.
And opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
Okay. As I stated, the only item up today is document number
02025-001751, an
ordinance introduced by Alderman Martin that amends Municipal Code Section
14B-10-1006 by
modifying subsection 1006.33. Strike
that, 1006.3,
allowing single exits in building containing R-2 occupancy and meeting
specific criteria. This item has a substitute ordinance.
All committee members will find a copy of the substitute in your packet as well as
on the shared drive.
Alderman
Lopata makes a motion to accept the substitute ordinance.
All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, nay.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
Today with us, we have Commissioner Marlene Hopkins from the Department of
Buildings, John Jovorka, Deputy Commissioner, as well as James McDonough from the
Chicago Fire Department. Alderman Martin has with him
Councilman Ryan Dorsey, District Three, Baltimore City Council.
Howard Hirsch, Chicago architect with Hirsch MPG.
Mark Chubb, Seattle fire protection specialist.
He gave his number here. Scott Brody, civil engineer and urban planner
for New Jersey County.
NJ County, New Jersey County, right?
Alex Monteiro, chairperson of Strong
Town Chicago. And lastly, Timothy Bray, policy advisor, District Four,
Austin City Council.
We will start today's discussion with Alderman Martin.
Alderman Martin, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Chairman.
I especially want to appreciate you holding the subject matter hearings
today, appreciate my colleagues coming as well, as well as to everyone in the
gallery who took time out of their busy schedule to join
us. I will try to move forward with this quickly, but
still hitting on some important points, especially as they pertain to the
substitute ordinance, which does incorporate a number of changes from the initial
version.
So to start, as a number of people noted, it's becoming alarmingly
expensive to purchase a home in our city.
Crain's recently reported that home prices are rising at five
times the national average in our city, and the news isn't
better for renters. Residential rents are up
51% over the last 10 years. Compare
that with wages having grown by just 37% over that period
of time and by just 15% over the most recent
five years. There are a number of factors
that contribute to our fast-rising costs.
Labor costs are up, material costs are up, interest rates are of course up.
But it's also important to highlight that when smaller unit buildings are
demolished or otherwise changed, nearly half of them, per the
Institute of Housing Studies at DePaul University, are
replaced with single-family homes.
So out of about 4,800 homes, nearly
5,000 homes since 2013, almost half of them
have been replaced by single-family homes.
Another 30% of those multi-unit buildings were replaced with vacant
lots or double lots, and then 13% were replaced by
non-residential uses altogether, commercial.
So you're talking about out of nearly 5,000 multi-unit buildings that
have been demolished or changed, just 9.5% were
replaced with new multi-unit buildings.
Simply put, we have to preserve the reasonably priced homes that we have
and build additional ones that families all across our city can
afford. And while this is not a silver bullet by any means, I
think one modest solution involves reforming our staircase regulations
around three-, four- and five-story buildings.
As has been noted, Chicago's current stairway requirement is stricter
than many other large US cities, as well as a number of states.
In our city, it's generally the case that only two-story buildings can have a
single stairway. Three stories and above need two.
But in New York, Austin, Seattle, most recently Nashville,
Baltimore, and Honolulu all allow for single stairwells
in five and six-story buildings, and multiple states
in this chart are also allowing the same.
In addition, the model codes written by the National Fire Protection
Association, NFPA, which will be referenced in subsequent
slides, that acronym, allow for small apartment buildings up to four
stories tall to be served by a single stairway.
So this is something that cities and states increasingly are not just
looking at, but adopting as well.
A lot of new construction in Chicago involves either new single-family homes
or studios and one-bedroom units.
We need, however, more two and three-bedroom apartments and
condos that people can afford and that will replace
a lot of what's been lost through demolitions and conversions, which I mentioned
just a minute ago.
Now, two to three times more bedrooms are possible
per unit when you move to a single stair building.
Oh, I think this is-- I'm going to skip over that one.
So two to three more bedrooms are possible per unit without
a dual staircase, and there's also evidence showing that 7% to
9% more rentable floor area. As has been discussed
by some of our public commenters,
this means that not just more homes, but also more affordable
homes. Because especially when you combine this on double lots, so
a 50 by 125 lot can oftentimes accommodate
15, 16, 17 units, which if that triggers the ARO, means you're
getting more affordably priced homes as well as more affordable
homes. The units are likelier to face both front
and rear, which means more lightMore cross ventilation and
larger family sizes, of course, in these apartments.
And then I'll also call your attention to two
important studies that have come out in recent years.
Just last year, the Pew Charitable Trust looked at data from
between 2012 and 2024 from two large cities, New
York and Seattle. Pew found that no deaths that occurred in
single stair buildings were attributable to the single stairways.
They found that the four deaths that did occur in these two
jurisdictions occurred in-unit and were
completely unrelated to only a single method of
egress associated with a single stairwell design.
In addition to that, a recent study by fire protection engineers, which was
commissioned by the state of Minnesota, found that single stair buildings
were at least as safe, if not safer, than traditional
two stair buildings. Just to underscore, both of these
studies came out just last year in 2025.
So there is a substitute before the committee for
conversation and that there are a number of changes that I want to uplift, as well
as a few things that are through-line between the first two versions.
After I introduced the initial version, I had conversations with the fire
department, which provided a memo that is with all of you in your folders today
from June of last year, June 2025.
CFD noted in that memo that the city maintains only 10
ladder trucks that have the capacity of reaching higher
than a fifth floor in a building. So we
decided it would be best to bring down that top threshold from six
stories in these buildings down to five stories, so that ladder
trucks can better access those buildings if that's ever
needed. We also made changes
based on input from the fire department and reflecting what other jurisdictions
have done to make those new construction buildings safer.
So just a max of four units per floor.
I believe the initial ordinance said eight units.
Sprinkler requirements. We said that the
corridors that would be separating the units and the stairwell have to have
two-hour fire-rated corridors. No more
than 20 feet of travel between any unit and the
stairway. Smoke detectors in all the common areas.
Self-closing doors throughout. And again, I just want to emphasize this only would
apply to new construction. This would in no way affect
buildings that have already been constructed.
I also want to note that as will be discussed both later today
as well as, I think, in subsequent zoning committee meetings, there is a
proposal from the mayor's office involving what's called scissor stair
designs.
So you might ask, what's the difference between single stair and scissor stair?
Both of these have a single stairwell enclosure.
However, with the scissor stair approach, they have two separate interlocking
stairways within a single enclosure.
It's my understanding that a single stair is more
cost-effective for your small to mid-size buildings up to
five stories, as this chart shows.
And that's in part because scissor stair designs require additional square
footage due to the larger stairwell and additional landing that is
required when you have those interlocking staircases, as opposed to just a single
staircase.
So that's what I wanted to emphasize in my brief
presentation. I do want to emphasize my thanks to Strong Town
Chicago and Abundant Housing Illinois for their collaboration, as well as to the
fire department and the building department for providing very helpful,
constructive input on the initial ordinance.
I know, Chairman, you had mentioned Ryan Dorsey, a Baltimore City Council member
who was hoping to join us. Unfortunately, he was not able to last this long.
He had another commitment come up.
I will share-
I'm here.
Oh.
Hey.
All right. Well, you made it. My apologies, Councilman.
With your permission, Chairman, I would welcome the opportunity for the
councilman to share some remarks.
Councilman, the floor is yours.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I'm in my car because I'm on my way to a dentist
appointment now,
so thank you for having me.
My name is Ryan Dorsey. I am a third-term member of the Baltimore City
Council.
I'm in my 10th year. I am the chair of the City Council's Land Use
and Transportation Committee. Last year, I was the author and lead
sponsor of a single stair bill very similar to what is before you now.
We passed that bill with overwhelming support, and I just want to share
a bit of my insight and experience from that.
And will generally assume that everybody here understands the difference between a
single stair building and particularly a double-loaded corridor
standard building.
First, I'll note that Baltimore's fire chief and officials and our
firefighter and officer unions supported our bill.
They recognized that single stair buildings designed to these
proposed standards are incomparably safer than the
old buildings where deadly fires have occurred in the past, and that these
standards exceed those of other buildings being constructed under the
current double-loaded corridor standards.
Single stair buildings are at least as safe as double-loaded corridor
buildings. Per the IBC standards, a double-loaded
corridor building could have a 500-foot-long corridor
with stairs at each end and maybe 40 units per
floor. In the event of a fire or other event that cuts off the
use of one stair, some people will end up having to travel up to
500 feet just to get to the other available
stairway. And in a five-story building, this means that the
occupants of 160 units potentially on floors
two through five are all coming down one
stairway in a double-loaded corridor building.
Compared to a single stair building with four units per floor
and no more than 20 feet between their doors and the stairway,
the latter is obviously the safer
scenario.Baltimore already
has single stair buildings that were built a hundred years
ago before the now outdated double stair rule was
created, and to which it cannot feasibly apply.
Some of these buildings have remained in continuous use and never
had to
add a second stair.
Some, though, have been long vacant and need
rehabilitation if they're to be put back into use.
I understand that your bill only applies to new construction, but I think
there's a salient point to be made here.
In most cases, the space and cost would make it infeasible to
add a second stair to put these older buildings back into use, and so
these buildings would continue to sit vacant.
So in addition to the IBC, Baltimore adopts the
IEBC, the International Existing Building Code,
which already recognizes the concern I just mentioned, and so
allows for the renovation of occupancy of single
stair buildings up to five stories without any local modification.
The IEBC requires the same level of fire protection that the bill
now before you requires, and that fire protection
standard is commonly achieved in part by simply
applying fire-rated coatings and coverings to the existing
materials, a minimal retrofit.
So, in Baltimore, we were already permitting the
build-out and occupancy of single stair buildings, so long
as they were very old.
One thing Baltimore's leadership found most compelling, I think, was when
I asked why single stair residential would be safe enough to
permit in buildings dating back to the 19th century, but not in
brand-new construction. So in fact, what I asked was if the
IEBC allows up to five stories for old buildings, why not
allow six in brand new construction? And that's what we did.
We passed a bill that allows six in new construction.
My bill was signed into law in November, took effect in December of last year,
and the first project designed under it is going to permit next
week. I spoke to the architect last week.
That project is for renovation and expansion of
an existing three-story, double wide row home structure.
The existing building and all the others on the block are three stories,
and the exterior will remain, the bodega on the first floor will remain,
but the upper floors will be renovated and a fourth floor will be
added onto it, all with just one staircase.
And the building will go from having four units, none
accessible, to having seven, one of which is
accessible on the ground floor.
And I think this project illustrates two points that I think are
compelling. First, by allowing up to five or six stories with a single
stair, often you will only actually
end up with four. People often believe that you'll
always get the most extreme of what the law allows,
but what actually tends to happen is something more contextually
sensitive, like adding just one more floor than the buildings
around it.
And the second point is that the Federal Fair Housing Act requires that any
development of four or more dwellings design a
ground floor unit for adaptability, meaning
that if a tenant with disabilities requires certain accessibility
elements, the landlord can easily adapt the unit at the
ground floor to meet those needs. Allowing four
or more stories significantly increases the likelihood you will
cross this four-unit threshold, so people with disabilities
will have a greater number of housing options available to them.
And in cases like this example and many others, if a unit is going to have
to be adaptable by design, they'll just go ahead and meet the
accessibility standards from the jump and not have to retrofit anything
later.
The last thing I'll say pertains to the many tropes about
developers and development that we local elected officials
are all too familiar with. To some,
all development is suspect, and big development
all the more so. I will just assume that most of you and your
constituents, like me and mine, share an
interest in creating more opportunities for small and local
developers and investors and building housing that is affordable and
can meet the needs of typical families.
The double-loaded corridor standard is antithetical to
this.
The economics of having to build an expensive second
staircase and give up the real estate taken up
by the central corridor required on each floor of the building
means that buildings have to have a very large footprint to
make the vertical development cost-effective.
Not only does this limit development to exceptionally large
lots that are often few and far between in the
areas where the greatest need exists, but development
opportunities become limited to only those who can
even afford to acquire these exceptionally large lots,
let alone develop on them.
Only the players with the deepest pockets have any
opportunity at all under the double-loaded corridor standard.
And still, the margins are so tight, the rents are so high,
and the units are so small that they can't meet families' physical
or affordability needs. Single stair buildings can be
constructed in many more places on smaller lots,
affordable to developers and investors of somewhat lesser means,
and afford these smaller operations, often neighborhood-focused
people, opportunities to grow and build things that are better
suited and scaled to community's needs.
I appreciate the opportunity to get to testify today and for you
considering this. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, council member.
I'd like to also recognize Alderman Cruz for the purposes of quorum.
Any questions from members of the committee
to either the sponsor, Alderman Martin, or
the council member from Baltimore?
Alderman Beale.
Mr. Chairman, I do have a quick question.
What is the added cost for adding
sprinkler systems throughout these buildings
versus adding a second stairway?
Alderman Martin.
So I would have to get through the chair the added cost of sprinklers.
I don't know that off the top of my head, Alderman.
One of the slides that I put up did note that with regard to
an additional staircase or the dual staircase as opposed to a single
staircase for an average three-story building on a standard
Chicago lot, 25 by 125, that to go from a
dual staircase to a single staircase would bring down the cost of construction by
2.1%. And then for a five-story building on a
comparably sized lot, a single staircase would
bring down the cost by 8.4% on average.
No, I get that. But my question was about sprinkler
systems throughout.
Yeah.
And I think-
Let me know. Sorry.
And I think if
we did our due diligence about
knowing that we're saving cost on stairway, we should know what
the added cost is for adding sprinkler systems.
And so, we can't exclude what we don't like but
bring forward what we do like. And so that's just my
opinion. Thank you.
Thanks, Alderman Beale. We'll get that information to the chair. Alderman Martin.
We do have a gentleman, Mark Chubb,
from Seattle, who was a former fire marshal.
I don't know if he might have insights into that question.
Mr. Chubb-
This is Chuck from Seattle
... do you have a response to the inquiry from my colleague here
in Chicago?
Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is no added cost for sprinklers because
they're already required in multi-family residential construction
by the building code.
Okay. Thank you.
Alderman Riley.
Thank you, Chairman. And I want to compliment the sponsor
for trying to get creative here to address our
affordable housing crisis in Chicago.
But I also
have a hesitance here given the concerns that have been raised
by the Department of Buildings and the Chicago Fire Department.
Just so I'm clear, the person who
just testified, is that a Baltimore City Council member?
Is that-
Yes, that is a
council member Dorsey from Baltimore.
Baltimore. And I appreciate him making time as well.
I think it's important to point out
there is a big difference between the Baltimore Fire Department's funding levels
per capita and the city of Chicago's.
Baltimore is a
city of about 570,000 people.
Ours is a city of 2.7 million.
And the budget for the fire department of Baltimore is
$362 million a year, where ours here in the city of Chicago is
$797
million. And so they are far better funded than the
Chicago Fire Department is, and that's something we need to address separately in
our budget. But I could understand why a very
well-resourced fire department like Baltimore's would be more comfortable with
something like this because they have more equipment and staff per capita.
And so that is something I would love to hear more about.
Again, I understand that whatever we can do to remove costs
from total project cost to deliver more affordable units is a good thing.
However, there are certain, to me,
sacred cows we shouldn't be messing with, and first and foremost is
safety.
Not just for the residents of these buildings, but certainly for our first
responders. And as I understand it, in those buildings
that
are served by two stairwells,
that allows the fire department to implement a firefighting
strategy utilizing both, which therefore improves the
safety for the fire personnel looking to strike the
fire. I also have concerns about if we
are talking about a single stairwell structure,
what happens when that stairwell is compromised?
And so how are we then getting folks out of that building in a safe way?
Again, I'm lucky in that the ward that I represent is
heavily sprinklered.
It's a high-rise ward, and we require that, and sprinklers do a lot.
But as is also noted in lots of testimony provided to us by the various
interests here,
that fire suppression and ingress, egress are two very different things,
and one shouldn't be used to replace the other.
And so, I'd be interested in trying to pursue some sort of compromise
here.
But the bottom line is that we can't do anything that's going to compromise the
health and safety of our residents and our
firefighters. And so my hope is that could be resolved.
Again, I do credit the sponsor
for bringing this forward. We do need to get more creative in finding ways to
remove cost from projects that will make housing more
affordable. I'm just a bit concerned that this one
could place lives at risk.
And again, I mean no disrespect to Seattle or Denver or
Baltimore or even New York City,
but each of those departments is funded at a different level, I would argue better
than oursAnd each built environment is
different. So thank you, Chairman.
And again, I'm happy to talk with the sponsor more offline,
but just wanted to bring those points to the forefront. Thank you.
Thank you, Alderman Riley. And we will also hear from Commissioner Marlene
Hopkins as well as the fire department as well. Alderman Espada.
Thank you so much, Chair. I wanted to go
back too, because the priority always is safety.
Affordability
and then safety.
But I wanted to ask, Alderman Martin, could we go back to the slide
looking at NYC fire-related deaths?
So
here's what kind of confounds me is I'm struggling to see
the objective
negative safety impact of single-stair development.
I'm happy to understand that better.
I don't see it based off of New York's data.
A question that I would put forward through the Chair if this could be
provided, because the closest thing I feel like we can get to an apples and
bananas, apples to apples comparison here is
currently we allow single stair in three story and below developments.
Four story and above requires two stairways. Is that accurate?
Three. Three and above.
Three and above. I would be interested to see
traffic fatality comparisons-- I mean, fire fatality
comparisons in two story versus three story
buildings that are new construction as I might define as
buildings built within the next 10 years.
I feel like that's the closest I can potentially get to
understanding what is the fatality impact
of losing that second stairway. Is this a
clear ask, Nicole or Chair?
Point of information-
Okay. Thank you
... Alderman Riley.
Thank you, Chairman. A point of information.
I was actually trying to do a little research on this issue myself, and I can say
that at least in the state of Illinois, the Illinois Fire Marshal does not
actually track these statistics.
So these things are not readily available in the state of Illinois.
I appreciate the point.
Not so much asking for the whole of the state. I mean, City of Chicago.
Alderman Riley.
This data, either by state or township or county or
municipality, that's my point. There's no data set being collected by
anyone to prove up what you're looking for and it's
something I was looking for myself.
Let me then rephrase.
If it can be provided,
the list of fire
fatalities in the City of Chicago and the addresses that
happened,
maybe the number is greater than I imagined it being, but it may be possible
to
work backwards from that number to understand the building size
of the buildings where those fatalities happened.
And just so we're clear, you said for the past decade?
Is that-
Um
... going back a decade?
I have rephrased entirely because I understand the point that Alderman Riley is
making.
If it's possible simply to receive the
addresses where fire fatalities happened, let's just
say within the last year, for 2025.
Okay.
And then we can kind of jerry-rig the data from there, looking back at
the size of the buildings. Thank you.
Okay.
Vice Chair Lawson.
Thank you, Chair. I have a number of questions, I think, for the building
department and the fire department.
Okay.
But before that, for the sponsor, Alderman
Martin, we're talking about new buildings only.
Exactly.
Okay. So while the rehabs are interesting, I just wanted to clarify that
piece. But I think literally all of my other questions are going to be for the
other two, so we'll let them speak first. Thank you, Chair.
Cool. Thank you. Any other questions from members of the committee?
Seeing none online.
Thank you, Alderman Martin. Would you like to provide some type of closing
statement at the end or right now?
I don't need a closing statement at the end.
Okay.
I would just note that if anyone has questions about
how current
fire department
professionals have managed single stair
responses, I think Mark Chubb, who briefly spoke
earlier, he's a former fire marshal from the City of Seattle,
can speak to how Seattle has managed to respond to
fires in those sorts of buildings. That's it.
Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Martin, for bringing this forward.
Chair Dock.
Just one question for the sponsor.
Did the
Mayor's Office of Disabilities look at
this?
I'm sorry, can-
Did the Mayor's Office of Disabilities, did they
opine on this?
We have not asked them to look into that, and I will do so after this hearing.
Yeah.
And I just noted, Chairman, I know completely up to you, we
do have individuals who are available to provide brief testimony, brief
remarks.
Those being Mr. Hirsch,
the architect, and then Mr. Chubb from Seattle.
But just wanted to note that for you, if you think that's appropriate given the
time.
Are they going to provide additional information that you didn't cover or...?
Yes. Specifically, Mr. Chubb, when it comes to the
responses
of managing single stair
buildings when there is a fire.
When there's a fire. Okay. So, Mr. Chubb, if you're
available,
can we briefly hear from you as to
what your opinion is on this matter?
Certainly. Just a
moment.Good
morning, and thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Mark Chubb.
I'm a fire safety consultant in Seattle, Washington, and a retired fire
chief. I've worked as a fire officer, code official, and engineering
consultant for more than 40 years.
My work includes complex projects in every region of the United States and
four other continents. I'm here to testify regarding my experience with single
stair legislation adopted by the City of Seattle in the
mid-1970s. To be clear, my testimony and advocacy of single
stair codes has never been for compensation or to advance
client interests.
Like today, Seattle city leaders in the 1970s considered impediments for
the development of accessible, affordable housing a matter of pressing public
concern. The city was experiencing economic hardships due to
industrial restructuring and rapid suburban development.
As the city began transitioning from a locally written code to one based on a
national model code, city leaders saw an opportunity to unlock the
potential of smaller single-family lots for multi-family residential
development.
A tragic multiple fatality residential fire in a multiple story
residential building earlier in the decade led Seattle city
officials to take a bold step of requiring automatic sprinklers in such
buildings long before such protection was recognized at the national
level and required by model codes.
Seattle was especially concerned with the hazards of open stairways in older
multi-story buildings and offered owners of existing buildings the option to
enclose these exits with fire-resistant construction or install
automatic sprinklers.
The second option, automatic sprinklers, proved more popular than many anticipated
and set the stage for further consideration of sprinklers' utility in mitigating
residential fire fatalities.
Like the proposal before you today, Seattle's building code requires automatic
sprinklers, limits the number of dwelling units per floor, the length of interior
corridors, and increased fire resistance ratings for stairway
enclosures. It also restricts stair provisions to buildings of
protected construction types and requires ground floor occupancies of
other than residential use to use exits directly to the outside
rather than through the stairway serving upper floors.
This opens these spaces to commercial development without compromising the safety
of the residential units above.
Seattle has maintained this legislation for more than five decades through many
code revisions and the transition of the base code from the legacy
uniform building code to the International Building Code in the early
2000s. In recent years, dozens of state and local governments
coast to coast have sought to learn from Seattle's experience and implement similar
legislation.
In other jurisdictions that have considered this legislation, fire leaders have
almost universally opposed the legislation.
They consider requirements for two exits more or less sacrosanct, but
this position ignores or minimizes considerable evidence that
sprinkler-protected residential buildings demonstrate far
superior safety performance compared to non-sprinkler
protected residential buildings and single-family
homes.
It also neglects the fact that nearly all residential fire deaths
occur in the dwelling unit where the fire starts, not in adjacent
dwelling units, not in corridors, and not in stairways.
Fire deaths in sprinkler-protected buildings are usually limited to people
intimately involved with the ignition scenario and those impaired and
unable to respond to the fire in their own dwelling unit.
A choice of two exits will not reduce or eliminate these fire deaths.
When fires are not contained to the dwelling unit where a fire starts, the primary
impact is to the corridors, not the enclosed stairways.
In an uncontrolled fire, these spaces can fill with blinding and choking smoke,
inhibiting occupants from discerning exit choice or successfully reaching
either exit. The longer people are exposed to conditions in the
corridor, the less likely it is they will reach either exit stairway.
In sprinkler-protected buildings, these concerns all but disappear.
Smoke from sprinkler-controlled fires does not reduce visibility or tenability
enough to prevent escape.
Firefighters also argue that allowing single stair will impede fire department
operations by forcing occupants to use the same stairway to
escape that firefighters will use to enter the building and fight a
fire. This assumes occupants will delay evacuating the building
until the arrival of firefighters and significantly outnumber the
firefighters, overwhelming the stair capacity.
This concern has proven entirely unfounded in my experience.
Advocates of single stair buildings have suggested these changes will increase
access to new housing and encourage competition that will improve affordability.
I cannot speak to the effectiveness of Seattle's regulations in this respect.
However, I can say that single stairway provisions have allowed for more innovative
multi-family housing designs with better
amenities and the kind of ground floor commercial and retail development that
promotes walkable neighborhoods.
These buildings typically have multiple unit types, and most apartments have two or
more exterior walls, which affords more access to
light and ventilation. These experiences in Seattle are echoed
by my experience as a fire officer, consulting engineer, and nonprofit
director and executive with a global engineering organization that worked
with regulations in many other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and
Oceania. I hope Chicago follows the example of these
jurisdictions in opening more opportunities for multi-family residential
development within the existing land use pattern of one of America's most
vibrant and livable city.
Before I conclude, I'd just like to address some of the other questions that were
raised. One by Alderman Riley,
expressed the opinion that the level of fire
service funding may affect the level of safety
enjoyed by citizens in comparable jurisdictions.
In a prior capacity, I looked at this as a matter
of academic interest and scholarship.
My colleagues and I found that there was no relationshipBetween
fire department staffing or fire department funding,
and either the number of fire deaths, fire injuries, or fire
losses in those communities. In other words, more
firefighters does not mean fewer fire deaths or less property damage.
As for the question raised by
the other alderman who spoke,
we have looked at the number of fire deaths by building type by
using exactly the same method that he expressed, going back and looking at
those fires
by address, looking at individual buildings, and compiling those statistics.
In fact, the Pew study compiled by the Center for
Building Safety in North America used that method to
establish the safety of buildings in both
Seattle and New York because those jurisdictions did not compile their
statistics using that methodology, and that's been expanded to look
further at the question of different building types.
What we can say is that multifamily buildings, whether they're sprinklered or not,
are safer than single-family dwellings in terms
of the number of deaths and injuries, and that sprinkler-protected
multifamily buildings are yet safer than the non-sprinklered
multifamily buildings. As I said earlier in response to a specific
question, automatic sprinklers are already required in all
multifamily construction by Chicago's adopted building
code, which is based on the International Building Code.
Happy to take any questions that any of you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Shub. Any questions from members of the committee?
All right. Seeing none.
Thank you, Alderman Martin, for bringing this forward.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now hear from Commissioner Marlene
Hopkins.
Commissioner?
Good afternoon.
Chairman Villegas, members of the Committee on Zoning,
Landmarks, and Building Standards, and Alderman Martin.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the proposal regarding
single-stair residential buildings.
As commissioner of the Department of Buildings, my primary
responsibility is to ensure that the construction
codes continue to protect the health, safety,
and welfare of the people who live, work, and visit our city.
The Department of Buildings works closely with the Chicago Fire
Department to develop, implement, and enforce
building and fire safety requirements throughout our city.
While our agencies have distinct responsibilities, we
share a common mission, protecting lives
by ensuring buildings are designed,
constructed, and maintained with multiple
safety layers that safeguard both occupants and
the first responders who may be called upon during an emergency.
It is through our shared commitment to life safety that we
evaluate proposals affecting building design,
fire protection systems, and means of egress.
Building codes are fundamentally life safety documents.
The requirements contained within modern building codes, particularly
those involving means of egress, are often the result
of lessons learned from past fires and building
failures where inadequate protection systems and
limited exit options contributed to loss of life.
Redundancy saves lives, and for decades,
Chicago has required multiple independent means of
egress in residential buildings because redundancy
saves lives. When one exit becomes compromised by
fire, smoke, structural failure, or emergency
operations, occupants and first responders must
have an alternative path available.
A single-stair building removes that redundancy.
While proponents of single-stair construction frequently point to the
presence of automatic sprinkler systems as a mitigating
factor, it is important to
recognize that sprinklers and means of egress serve
two different life safety functions.
Sprinklers are designed to suppress or control a fire.
Means of egress are designed to provide occupants with a
safe path to escape where conditions become
dangerous. A sprinkler system should never
be viewed as a replacement for a second means of egress.
Although sprinkler systems are highly effective and have
significantly improved building safety, they are not
infallible.
Sprinkler systems rely on adequate water supply,
proper maintenance,
functioning control valves, and individual sprinkler
activation. Like any mechanical system, they
can be impaired, shut off for maintenance, damaged during
construction, or rendered less effective due to unforeseen
circumstances.
Building codes are historically based on layers of protection,
not reliance on a single safety feature.
The safest buildings incorporate multiple safeguards
working together, including fire resistance, rated
construction, automatic sprinkler systems, smoke
detection, fire alarms, compartmentalization, and
multiple independent exits. The
departments, both buildings and fire,
fully supports requiring automatic sprinkler systems in
residential buildings because they provide an
extraordinary level of
life safety protection.
In fact, Chicago's recent code modernization efforts
expanded residential design flexibility only in
conjunction with enhanced fire protection measures, including full
sprinkler systems.However, those provisions
maintain the fundamental principle that occupants should still have
access to more than one means of egress.
When evaluating single-stair proposals, it is important to
understand that sprinklers reduce the likelihood of a
fire growing unchecked, but they do not eliminate the
need for redundancy in evacuation.
If smoke, fire, structural damage, or
another emergency affects the sole stairway, occupants
on upper floors may have no alternate route to safety,
regardless of whether sprinklers are present.
This concern also extends to emergency
responders. Firefighters rely on protected
stairways to access upper floors, hose
deployment, rescue operations, and occupant
evacuation.
In a single-stair building, one stairway must simultaneously
serve as an evacuation route for residents
and the access route for firefighters, creating
operational challenges during emergency incidents.
Chicago's current code already provides significant
flexibility for residential development while maintaining
life safety precautions. The city recently introduced
provisions to allow interlocking interior exit
stairway groups in certain residential buildings, creating
additional design flexibility while preserving
two independent paths of egress. The city has also
introduced provisions for expanded opportunities for five-story
residential construction and adaptive reuse projects,
all while maintaining robust fire and life safety
standards. The question before us is not whether sprinkler
systems can improve safety. They unquestionably do.
The question is whether a sprinkler system alone provides an
equivalent level of protection to the longstanding requirement for two
independent means of egress. The departments believe that any
proposal to reduce exit redundancy should be approached with great
caution and should demonstrate through data,
fire service analysis, evacuation studies, and
real-world performance that occupants and first responders will be afforded
an equivalent level of safety. Life safety is
strongest when buildings incorporate multiple layers of protections.
Sprinklers are one layer, fire alarms are another,
fire-resistant construction is another, multiple means of egress
are another. The strength of a life safety system comes from the fact
that no single layer must bear the burden alone.
Chicago's building and fire codes have long been founded on the principle
that residents should never be dependent on a single system
or a single point of failure when their lives are at stake.
A sprinkler system is an essential life safety feature,
but it was never intended to replace the protections provided by a second
means of escape. Our obligation is to ensure that every
resident who goes to sleep in a building has a reliable,
protected, and redundant path to safety
should the unthinkable occur. That
means that our responsibility must remain at the
center of any discussion regarding the changes to our means of egress
requirements. Thank you.
Thank
you,
Commissioner. Any questions from members of the committee? Alderman Conway.
Yeah. So I just want to make sure. So Department of Buildings is in whole
cloth opposed to this legislation?
Just to-
We're standing in partnership with our colleagues in the
fire department, and we are not in support at this time.
Okay.
And now at this point in the city,
three stories is okay for single stair, right?
Is there no
two stories is okay?
For two stories, yes.
Okay.
Not for three stories.
So two stories is okay, and six stories is like the devil.
Is there somewhere in between that this makes more
sense or not?
At this-
I can't be the first person to be asking that question.
No problem, Alderman. At this point, we are
standing in alignment with our partners and our colleagues in the fire department,
in opposition.
Which I think that's great. I'm certainly not going to
lecture the fire department out of fighting a fire. They can lecture me on that.
But would four stories be okay, three
stories? Or should we even allow two stories, I guess, would be a
question. Is there some point where there's a gradation here?
So Alderman, as I stated in my statement, we work very
closely with the fire department.
At this point, we have not come to an
agreement of any designation above what is
currently in place for a two-story building for it to be allowed.
That is the purpose of today's meeting, so that you're able to hear from both the
fire department and the building department on this.
Grant will be doing a presentation and may be able to provide a little more
clarification.
Okay. Yeah, I think an obvious question would be
is six stories, totally get it,
understand the flaw, but is three stories any different than two?
Is four any different than three? Should we even allow two?
Any-
So Alderman-
Yeah
... what we're going to do is, let's go ahead and let Grant-
Okay
... move forward with the presentation, and then-
You know what, Alderman? I will touch on that in my presentation.
I'll talk about-
Okay
... as far as ladder placements and what's acceptable and what's tough to get at.
So in my presentation, I'll mention it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Grant, are you... Yeah. Go ahead, Grant.
So, thank you. I'm Grant Ulrich. I'm Managing Deputy Commissioner
in the Department of Buildings. We really appreciate the opportunity to be here
today. I wanted to start with putting up on the
screen the purpose and intent provision in the Chicago Construction
Codes at the very beginning that outline what the construction codes are trying to
do as adopted by the City Council and enforced by our
departments.
First, the construction codes establish minimum standards, so they are
setting a baseline for all development
to
know what the rules are and build to those rules.
Many developments choose to go above that baseline, and then
at the end of the day, it is all about health, safety, and welfare.
So the building codes are setting minimum standards for the health, safety, and
welfare of the people who live and work
and visit buildings in Chicago.
We've had a building code in Chicago for a very long time,
1875. So we are one of the first cities in the United States to have something
formally as a building code, and it was ours.
And building codes have evolved over 150
years quite a bit.
But there are some concepts that are fundamental, and I just want to
outline some of them to start. So at the
beginning, the building code is going to regulate the materials that can be
used in a building, and the bigger a building gets, the more
restrictive it's going to be in terms of requiring materials that don't burn,
that don't give off smoke. Smaller buildings can be built
with more wood construction, more combustible construction.
And it is a balance. The building code provides a gradient
from small building requirements up to very large building requirements, high-rise
buildings, super tall buildings, all of which we have in
Chicago.
Moving on from having fire resistive requirements,
the fire resistive building materials often are used to
separate the building into compartments that try to contain fire.
And obviously, if you have different compartments, people need to get between them,
so doors are required to have fire ratings.
In an apartment building, the door between an apartment and the hallway, the door
into the stairway, are going to be fire-rated doors.
Those are important safety feature they add to the other
features. The features are additive.
And then the building code has great detail about
the arrangement, the size, the number
of the exits, or what the building code calls means of egress.
And it has been a longstanding requirement for all but our very smallest
buildings that you have two
means of egress from stories or spaces that
exceed a certain size or certain height above the ground.
And then building on top of those sort of passive construction requirements about
how the building is built, and often assuming that active
systems are not there. Sometimes you get benefits for having active
systems.
Smoke alarms and smoke detectors have really cut fire
fatalities, fire deaths, fire injuries in the United States
dramatically in the last 40 or 50 years.
So in the 1970s, there were 6,000 people a year who died in the United
States from fire.
For the last two decades or so, that's been under 3,000 a year.
So smoke
detectors providing early notice to occupants to
respond to a fire and escape helps a whole lot of people, but there are still
a number of people who can't respond to a fire, which is why the other systems are
important.
Fire alarm systems in mid-size and larger buildings are required to be
integrated with smoke detection or with sprinkler systems.
And then sprinkler systems. Absolutely, sprinkler systems are important.
We see them in larger new construction buildings.
Chicago,
until fairly recently, did not have widespread requirements for sprinkler
systems. That was something that we worked with all of you
in 2019 as the council to move us more in line with those national
standards, more sprinkler systems, and trade-off for allowing
more and larger wood-frame construction, which has affected the
cost of construction, has enabled building housing.
But we do have some trade-offs in our code at the small end.
The statement that all multifamily requires sprinkler systems is true
if you look at the National Model Building Code.
That is not true in Chicago. So in Chicago, one to three-unit
buildings never require sprinkler systems.
There are bonuses if you voluntarily install a sprinkler system
in our one to three-unit buildings.
From four-unit buildings and up, the code generally
requires them, but there is an exception that allows providing
enhanced stairways and enhanced fire-resistant construction up
to 10 units. So the Chicago code already provides some of these
trade-offs that I think when these national talking points come in about single
stair, they miss the local context of what we have in Chicago.
And from there, I
guess I'll just emphasize, so there's the gentleman on the slide who has belt and
suspenders. And sometimes belt and suspenders is too much.
Maybe one
would work, but the building code relies on two because you don't want to be
caught with your pants down.
So
the next slide, the fire department is going to speak to for the next few
slides.
Hello, everybody. This next slide talks about residential fires and their
causes. And-
Who's your name?
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought everybody knew me.
I'm
John Javorkas, Deputy Commissioner of Fire Department's Fire Prevention Bureau.
I'm in my 41st year with the city.
I'm hoping to win the lottery one day, but I haven't played it yet, so that might
be a while before I can win it.
Okay. All right. Back on course. Sorry, everybody.
So this is really addressing residential fires and their causes.
And so what we used was the United States Fire Administration, which is a USFA
report titled "Fire in the United States." And these
are the numbers that are reached. There's over-370,000
residential fires each year in the United States,
94.4% are unintentional due to carelessness.
And if we break that down a little bit more, what does that mean?
About 51.6% was cooking/meat on the stove,
9.1% was space heaters spaced too close to combustible materials,
and then 6.5% were electrical malfunctions,
really electrical issues. 5.6% of the total number of fires were
intentional and suspicious in nature, and those are the ones that you've got to be
real cautious about. Breaking down that 5.6%
number, 4.2% was for arson and
1.4% is suspicious and still under investigation.
Next one, Grant.
This next slide is really describing fatal residential fires.
And so according to that same report that I just mentioned, over
2,600 civilians die in residential fires each year in the United States.
73.3% are unintentional/carelessness.
And breaking down that number as well, 11.8% was improper use of
smoking materials,
6.9% open flame/candles. And I
always have a problem with my wife leaving the room with a candle on.
It's like, "Can you extinguish that, please?" So,
all right. Next is 5.5% cooking with meat on the stove,
7.5% are electrical malfunctions,
6.3% space heaters too close to combustibles, and 35.3%
miscellaneous unintentional. And about 26% of all fatalities in
residential fires are considered to be intentional or suspicious in nature,
13.1% are due to arson, and 13.6% are considered to be
suspicious and are still under investigation. Okay.
Well, it's good afternoon,
Chairman and committee members.
I'd like to take the opportunity
to speak to the dangers of
one staircase.
I'm sorry. I'm Jim McDonough, Assistant Deputy Fire Commissioner of Operations.
I also would also like to
thank our CFD members that took time off of their personal lives to attend
this.
Well, our first picture we're going to focus on that center shot.
So focus, one exit creates one single point of
failure.
When exits become inaccessible by smoke,
heat, fire,
or stairwell compromised or possibly collapse, residents have no
backup to evacuate this building.
You have a few options.
Very few consider to shelter in place.
Others choose to be rescued by ladders.
And unfortunately,
with close to 40 years experience, less than John, I didn't think you'd bring
that up, John, so
in the Chicago Fire Department and work in every corner of the city
with most of my time is out in the streets.
I've just done this last four to five years in the exempt ranking
position.
These people end up jumping,
and that's with our ladders unaware or
visible. Everyone takes a different level of smoke.
When you have heavy heat, heavy smoke, you can't see, you can't breathe,
your eyes are watering,
their position is to take the chance and jump.
Doesn't matter if it's a five story building or a 50 story building.
I've seen it for almost 40 years.
They seem to jump, unfortunately.
So I want to talk about, I want to do a little firefighter 101 with that picture.
Just give me a minute. So I'm going to give an idea as far as how we deploy our
firefighter. So take a look and I will start. Let's say it's a five story building.
I have on that second floor there, I have what looks like a woman in an orange
T-shirt and a gentleman in a blue T-shirt.
We'll just put this situation in play here that they left their door open
from their apartment
and in the hallway to the hallway stairs.
However it starts, we'll just say it's a kitchen fire, grease fire.
They all leave their doors open. They leave their doors open to the stairwells.
That's what happens.
A lot of cases in a lot of these buildings we have now that this happens, these
doors are always propped open. The door to the stairwell
and that corridor door is propped open for air circulation.
That happens all throughout the city. That's just what happens.
So they leave. How do we, with one stairwell,
what do we do when people on three, four and five, how are we rescuing them?
What they're going to do is they're going to do the same thing.
They're going to open that door, hopefully
shut it because they're not going down the stairwell.
Some will take an attempt to do that,
and they'll probably go back to their apartments and either get to a window or a
farther point so they don't have to breathe that heavy smoke.
Now, let's talk about when we arrive.
We end up arriving, we have an engine and a truck, and I'll just
talk about the first two companies.
What happens is we have that stairwell now becomes our attack stairwell and
evacuation stairwell. That's for us to fight that fire and that's for us to
rescue our civilians in there.
So what will happen is we have three firefighters leading down a hose line,
just as it shows it there. We attack those stairwells as we come across
victims because I have three more truck off behind me to trying to do force
budging, primary search. Now I have six firefighters in that stairwell.
We come across civilians. It's tough for us to get around the stairwells with all
our equipment on. Now we're protected. We have all our firefighter gear.
We have hoods, our helmets, our SCBAs. We can breathe it.
We're pretty good up to about 400 degrees .
After that, everything melts, everything burns.
Remember, it's just cloth. It's got some fire protection to it, and our masks
are plastic and rubber.
It's treated a little bit, but we can't get over 400 degrees.
So we're still taking some chances there. They don't have a chance.
They don't have a chance. Once they get a
mouthful of that hot gas,
they're dropping to the floor, and they're probably going to burn their esophagus
to where they'll end up passing outWell, hopefully,
right now their option would be
to run back to apartments because there's no stairwell available for them.
If they do, obviously, we have a little mission statement in the Chicago Fire
Department, just a small part of the fire, not the EMS side.
It's obviously a very large mission statement, but it's saving lives, water in the
fire, and minimal damage. Obviously, life is very
important. That's what we go after first. But that's our goal.
But to do that, we have to work together with hose lines
and primary search and force entry with our firefighters to get up there to fight
that fire.
Because our goal is to get to every floor as quick as possible.
Now,
we're running a problem with also the cord.
Now, everyone's trying to rescue themselves out of these stairwells.
It's going to slow us down probably
50%
for us to get up to that fire to put water on that fire, if it's possible.
We have to worry about our victims in the stairwells first. That's our concern.
Once your doorways are open, and that doorway is left open, you'll create a flow
path. And then what we're doing is creating a huge chimney
inside that stairwell, and that's just going to have that fire spread
right through that stairwell as quick as possible, in seconds, to the top
floor.
And also taking into consideration rescuing the elderly, mobility impaired.
That's got to be addressed, too. That's what's going to slow down our options of
actually getting up there to put water on this fire and do our primary searches to
get the rest of the people out of there if needed.
Now, don't get me wrong, we still have more coming.
On a stairwell fire when it's a confirmed fire,
we have 12 companies coming there, which comes out to be 35 firefighters.
So more engines coming with more hose lines, there's more truck offs
coming with force entry tools
and taking care of primary search. But we're still going up one stairwell.
That's what we're doing. That's the problem.
How are all these people in this one stairwell coming down, and how are our
firefighters getting up there? With all the hose lines, you come across all
these victims.
It's going to be a problem.
If we compare this to using a two-exit stairwell system
where we use a coordinated fire attack, which we do now,
we have an attack stairwell,
and then we have an evacuation stairwell.
We have that in our two-story ordinary construction buildings.
We have it in our five-story. Everyone's got a second stairwell.
So when they realize they can't come down that stairwell that's compromised by
fire or heavy smoke, there's another way to get them out.
They will hopefully self-evacuate. That's what happens. That works out great.
But we also have the opportunity to do that coordinated attack, use that
second stairwell to do our primary searches and force the
evacuation, get up there quicker to these floors.
Not using ladders, using stairwells, get up there quicker to these apartments, do
our primary searches to knock that fire down quicker so it avoid
the spread through the building and possibly to adjoining structures.
When that goes great,
which it does most of the times with those two stairwells,
we're quicker in our primary searches. We get water quicker on that fire.
It's like clockwork.
Everyone goes home.
Let's switch to that. The only thing I want to talk about real quick
is we talked about burn time. Now, I'm not sure where we're going as far as with
how these are being lightweight construction or truck construction, but
if that's the case, you have 10 minutes of burn time there.
That 10 minutes is not when we get there. That's when that fire started.
So if we're going to do lightweight construction and you think sprinklers are the
end-all, and that's the answers, and these self-closing doors,
I'm going to tell you what. Sprinklers, sure, they suppress fire.
They don't get rid of the smoke. They do not get rid of the smoke.
I've been doing this for a very long time.
If anyone's experienced a fire in a building, that smoke, no matter how many doors
you have, it's going through plumbing chases.
It's going through doorways. It's going to make it to that fifth floor no matter
what you have blocking it, and that's what gets people's reaction that they want to
get out.
Next slide.
This is a picture we took of an actual fire, and I want to talk about ladders,
what the alderman mentioned about. Those are our tower ladders.
And if everyone takes a look there, you can see that center building there, and
what we call that, that's a two-and-a-half story, ordinary, 25 by
50. Looks like that fire was on the second floor.
I could see a little burn pattern up on that middle window.
So our tower ladders, and here's where we have our trouble with.
Sure, we first have to position that ladder first.
This is a tower ladder, but our ladder trucks are the same thing, just without that
basket.
It's trouble just positioning our ladder trucks, our aerial truck, just
because of the narrow streets, and you could see the
cars. We have to actually get outriggers down,
which is something else. Sometimes that's a place between cars on the street on
both sides. These things don't drop straight down.
We need room on each side to get these outriggers down, to get that ladder, and
that ladder's for two reasons. It's if we have to pick people out of windows, by
the way, or it's to get our guys to the roof for vertical ventilation.
As you can also see that ground ladder, and I'll address the second floor real
quick here. That 20-foot ground ladder on the second floor in that middle window,
if we notice that there. That's what we do. That's part of our operation.
That's SOPs, standard operating procedures.
We do it in every fire. That's for residents, and that's for us.
So there's your escape for second floor.
We're really efficient rolling that ladder to that second floor because that's
something that our
roof operation team, he throws that ladder as soon as they get there.
It's a 20-foot straight frame they can throw up by themselves.
Obviously, it's difficulty getting around cars, getting it through the gates to get
it up to that window. But that
ladder is placed exactly where it should be to the sill, so we have a chance to
rescue any victims in that building.
That's how we're really efficient with second floors.
And I'll mention when we start going three, four, and five are
difficulties.So yeah. Now, this is an
ideal picture because the trees, sure, there's trees in the way,
and that ladder just isn't turned and extended.
That ladder, at this point, I guarantee is lifted up straight up, set down there,
and extended.
I'd love to have all our fires this way.
You don't have light poles in the way with the wires you're laying on.
There's no tree in front of the other building, so it's a great opportunity.
Our problem is we have to make sure we stay off to a corner, because you sure don't
want to put that ladder over a fire on the second floor coming out a window.
That doesn't do us any good as far as getting up or down that ladder.
So let's talk about ground ladders
and some time frames. So once we get those ground ladders in place,
so our first two trucks, you don't understand our opportunity.
Our first engine, first two trucks, that's what
responds to a still fire. Until this fire
is confirmed fire, then we start bringing in rit teams, we bring in
EMS. And that's done by that first company showing up on the scene when they say
they have a fire.
Once that's taken care of, our still companies, they throw that ground ladder if
necessary. We'll do anything we can to save lives in those
windows. Our second truck takes our ladder to the rear.
That second ladder, if we have people hanging out the rear windows, what we'll do
is take them out of the rear windows or extend that ladder to the roof.
We have second means of access.
Louder, Mike?
We'll have a second means of egress for our roof team. Is that better?
A little further up? Okay. I'm sorry.
I feel like I'm reverbing, but okay.
Now, we start throwing ladders to the third floor, what it takes to get those
ladders in place. Now, our first two companies are in front of buildings.
As this fire, and we escalate to a larger alarm, these rigs
are sometimes a block, a block and a half away.
So to get those ladders off those trucks, after we use the ones up
in front of the building to get to the third, the fourth, and the fifth floor, it
takes time.
Time could be three to five minutes or longer.
Now, once we set that ladder in that window, what it takes to rescue people from
that window all depends on the individual.
If they're a healthy body and they're very mobile and they weren't overcome by
smoke or burnt, yeah, we can get them down off a third-floor window
in one to two minutes. That's once the ladder's in place.
If we're talking a fourth floor, once that ladder's in place, a minute and a half
to two and a half minutes to get them down.
A fifth floor, once we get that banger in place, which it takes
six firefighters to actually get that ladder and take it off the truck, and it's
very difficult to get around these buildings, you're talking anywhere two and a
half to three minutes to get those people
down those ladders.
It's tough.
Majority of Chicago Fire Department trucks are not equipped with ladders sufficient
to provide means of emergency egress over five floors.
Exterior rescues by ground ladders, straight aerial ladders, or tower
ladder baskets are not realistic to substitute for second
exit stairs.
You have any questions?
I'm happy to answer.
And Alderman, Vice Chair Lawson, Alderman Cruz, Alderman Conway.
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it.
And I have a number of data questions, and if we don't have them, we can get them
through the Chair. But I want to thank everybody for being here and their testimony
today. My first was just the requirements now for sprinklers.
So I think, Deputy Commissioner, you answered this.
Any four-unit building requires sprinklers currently, but
there are certain waivers and life safety building requirements that can
exempt up to 10 units. Correct?
That's correct.
Thank you. And regardless of the height of the building.
So a six-story building with-
There's a story limit.
Sorry. Say that again.
Anything
over four stories is going to require sprinklers.
So five or more, or 10 units or more.
I'm sorry, 11 units or more-
Yes
... always needs sprinkler.
Yes.
Five stories, 11 units. All right.
Do we have any
knowledge of how many of these building types, how many
percentage or number of the buildings every year we permit that include
sprinklers for new construction?
And again, that's probably through the Chair.
If you want to ballpark stuff as I'm asking it.
I don't think we have an easy way to get that data because of the age of our
data systems.
We're working on that, too, I know, Grant, but-
We are working on that
...
I think that's important for us to realize just the number of buildings we are
talking about.
What is the inspection schedule for sprinklered buildings, for the sprinkler
systems themselves?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
The fire code mandates annual inspections per a standard
NFPA 25.
I'm sorry, for a standard?
You have to inspect sprinkler systems annually.
Annually.
Yeah.
And are we doing it annually? I know we're supposed to do some things that we don't
get to.
If you own the building, you're using a sprinkler contractor to
test it according to NFPA 25, which is the inspection, testing, and maintenance of
water-based extinguishing systems.
So you follow that standard, and then the city uses a data management company
called Bricer, and then you upload that information into the Bricer compliance
engine and showing that your building is current on its required annual inspections
in regards to its sprinkler system.
So we don't do those inspections. Those are done by a third party that are
certified by the state.
That's correct. On the requirements for the annual inspection of sprinkler systems,
you're correct.
Oh. So then, the more sprinklered buildings, there's no additional cost
to the building department as far as inspection because we're not providing that
inspection, which was not an original question, but that's sort of where I'm
thinking.
Well, sprinkler systems are under the jurisdiction of the fire department, not
buildings
But if the city is not doing the inspection, a third party
is, and the building owner is paying for that, we're not incurring any cost or any
payment for any sprinkler inspections.
That is true.
If the building has a fire pump, sometimes we're out witnessing that fire pump, an
annual test in regards to testing the building's fire pump, and then also on
an acceptance test for a brand-new fire pump.
You could have an existing building and the fire pump is past its useful life, and
so you're putting in a new fire pump in that building.
So we would be able to witness that acceptance test to make sure that fire pump
works as it's designed.
Okay, and we get an inspection fee when we do that, right?
It's part of what they build in. So we're not losing any money, and we're probably
not making any either. I think,
like I said, there's a couple more things I have.
And I don't know, Phil, my fire marshal, if these
statistics are not available, but I'd love to know
the number of fatalities. And I know we don't have a lot year over year, so maybe
it's the last 5 years, 10 years, if we can find it.
But in
buildings that have sprinklers versus buildings that do not.
So Vice Chair Lawson, 5 or 10 years would we give this?
I would love 10, because I don't think the numbers are very high.
And there may be some trends that we can look at.
So we'll go ahead and look at 10 years.
So that's right, the number of fatalities, sprinklered versus non-sprinklered.
Also the same thing, included in those fatalities, not just individuals, but
firefighters,
making sure we understand that. I don't know if there's a way to get to the age of
these buildings either. We have fatalities that are occurring, 80% of
fatalities I would imagine occur in buildings that are 100 years old.
Well, you have tough, because now you're talking non-combustible buildings, which
are fire-proof buildings versus ordinary or frame buildings.
So I'm not sure how that's going to work.
But that's exactly my point, is that in new construction with sprinklers, the
level of fire risk, I think is dramatically less than a bow truss roof
on an old garage, right? And so when we look at the type of buildings we're
constructing as far as fire safety, I want to look at if our
safety numbers bear out with what we've seen just in the last few years.
Sure.
If that makes sense.
But also to remember too, that sprinkler systems are a mechanical system, and you
can't assume that they're all 100% functional.
So it's not always a given that that sprinkler system will work
as designed. The building could've been altered.
Sure.
They may be late on their annual inspections.
There's a five-year requirement to flush the pipes.
And
if you're seeing a lot of corrosion inside those pipes, which you can, then you
have to change that piping out. So, the only point I want to get
across is that, yes, sprinklers are great, but it's not an
end all. They do require maintenance, and if they're lacking the maintenance,
that's going to be an issue.
The fire-rated doors require maintenance. The elevators require maintenance.
The stair doors, the stairs require maintenance. I mean, all these systems.
Even my knees require maintenance.
Yeah.
They squeak all the time.
Yes. My crawling skills maybe too. Let me ask you this.
So I used to live in a high rise, right? So now I'm in a four-flat.
I used to live in a high rise. I had one door to my unit, and that was the only
way that I was going to get to like eight different stair banks, right?
The building was sprinklered.
But how is that allowed, where I have one means of egress
with sprinklers
in a high rise situation, where we're more concerned about
allowing something with sprinklers in a five-story situation?
We'd have to look at your building, but you have one door into your apartment or
your condo, but you have stairwells. You have two stairwells, correct?
There were like eight. But I had one way to get to them.
My door went into a common hallway.
I didn't have a back door, and the building was sprinklered.
And I was on the 20th floor of a 55-story building, right?
I don't live there anymore. I couldn't afford it.
But,
right. So that fire suppression system, how is that different than a 20-unit
building on five stories that has one
stair and the same one means of egress from an apartment?
Yeah. So I'll address that from the building code standpoint,
since we don't know a specific building.
But theoretically-
I'll give you an example
... from the code standpoint,
the code is going to set a square footage and number of people that can be in a
room or space with one exit. Generally, if it is a
floor above the second floor, it is going to require two
ways off of that floor. So you might have rooms up to a certain size that
allow to have one door out of that room, but then once you get out of that
room, you're going to have exits to two stairways or two vertical ways
off of that floor. Anything above the second floor in our code today.
Sure. And I
have a ward that has high rises too, and my experience was in a high rise.
And I know a fire in a high rise is very different than it is in a low-rise
building. There's certain factors with the shafts, with the air, that makes
it different. But they're all sprinklered, where most of my low rises are not, even
the newer ones. I'm sorry.
They're not all sprinklered, but I'm going to tell you what.
We
operate different high rise fires.
Right.
The most dangerous thing we do in the fire department is diving, are lake serve and
lagoons. The second most dangerous thing we do in this job is high rise fires.
Just so you know.
Oh, I should have said that.
We make announcements. We tell you to shelter in place.
Yeah. With COVID.
We will come and get you.
I know. I know.
We'll get you.
No, I absolutely-
That's your best chance in a high rise, shelter in place. We'll come and get you.
So what we're talking about is five stories or less now.
And so that's-
Absolutely
... we're having a newer building with an updated fire
sprinkler system, updated building materials, on levels
where people can actually get to with a ladder. And so that's what I'm saying.
It's a different level, but we allow that same kind of protection in
a 50-story building, as we're talking about basically for a five-story
building. There may be more stairs, but we're talking about hundreds more people.
I wanted to make sure that I had some of that right.
I got lots of notes, and I apologize because this has
been very helpful.
One of your slides said most fires are controlled with only one or two sprinkler
heads opening.
So that's basically one or two rooms of a very large building, because that's
what's sprinkled, right? Sprinklered?So why would we
think it would be any different if there was only one stair if, and the entire
building was sprinklered? So we're controlling the fire in a faster way.
Not to say that systems can't fail, doors, fire ratings,
other things. But if a sprinklered building,
really only one or two sprinkler heads has to go off, why would we have a concern
if these smaller buildings are sprinklered?
Alderman, I understand what you're saying there, but you
can leave your building with a two staircase.
If you don't want to stay in your building, you have a way out.
Is that what you're saying?
No. What my question is, so it's the fire.
Right.
Most fires are controlled with only one or two sprinkler heads opening.
That means the sprinklers are controlling the fire in a way that probably doesn't
even require-
We-
... egress in some cases.
Right. We are not in favor of sprinklers.
No one up here, not in favor of sprinkler systems.
That's maybe my point, is that we're talking about a new building stack that
wouldn't otherwise require sprinklers, that will.
Which I think will ultimately keep you all safer than buildings that don't.
But-
But, so that's sort of the point I'm making here, is that wouldn't it be great if
every new building was sprinklered, and maybe this is a way to get more housing
stock that is.
And to the point about the one or two sprinkler heads, it's
controlling the fire and the heat, but it's not controlling
the smoke.
Absolutely.
I think. So the smoke is continuing to spread, and the smoke is actually the
more dangerous element. People think that the dangerous element is a fire,
that you're going to get burned, but it's actually the toxic smoke.
Do we have any
data? I think you did have data, Chair, from New York about their fire
numbers as more buildings went with a single stair and sprinklered.
Is that something you can share through the chair as well?
Alderman Martin?
Great. Thank you, Chair.
I just want to make it very clear too,
and correct me if I'm wrong, the sponsor or Chair Martin,
we're not changing the zoning code here at all. Right.
So if you can't build a five-story building now, you can't build it with a single
stair and a sprinkler either. So we're talking about
really a select few areas of the city where this applies, or even
is profitable, I would say. So we're not talking about 10 buildings on
every block, certainly.
But I do think
for, okay, we'll go back to the four-flat. What does a single stair mean?
Probably another bedroom. Possibly even another unit.
The three-flat is sort of a workhorse of city density, I like to think
of. And what does this mean for a three-flat, right?
Probably not another unit, but probably another bedroom. Probably a larger unit.
Would you agree?
Alderman Martin?
Yes, that's right. And part of the trade-off that we're seeing in these three to
five story buildings is
less density as well, but more family sized homes.
Which I think is a fair trade-off given the fact that some of the mid and
high-rises in various parts of the city are
disproportionately doing studios and ones.
We're losing-
Right
... the twos and threes due to demolitions and de conversions.
So I think the market here is probably in a lot of mixed use properties
actually. If I see a four or five story, it's generally on a
corner or it's a TOD already. And I had some
egress questions.
It looks like the residential egress, so the commercial has to maintain
its commercial building code. There's no exceptions if there's a single stair
serving the residential.
Not based on this ordinance, no.
Correct. And thank you. So
then the
single stair though for the residential has to have its own independent
access outside without encountering the commercial space at all, I
think I was reading.
I would need to double check to get that back-
I'm getting in the weeds. Fair
... to you. Yeah.
But because again, I think the opportunity-
Hi, Peter Lawson, is that a question you want a response to?
Yeah, that'd be great. Just so we understand those egress points from the
single stair, because I think most of these buildings are going to be mixed use.
Got you.
And just based on the number and maybe the economics, I'll tell you, most,
right, 20 units are already sprinklered, right?
But they probably have something on the first floor, and they may be cooking on the
first floor. And I don't know if that plays a role into this either.
Chair, I'm pretty sure I have gone through my exhaustive list of questions and-
Thank you
... I appreciate everyone for their time and for their interest and their knowledge
on this. I know it comes up a lot, and I know we're all on the same page where we
want to keep everybody safe and everyone housed. So thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, we actually have two or three more slides in our
presentation. I'm sorry.
So you know what?
Let's get these questions asked so that way-
Yeah.
Vice Ch- I'm sorry. Alderman Cruz, followed by Alderman Conway.
Chairman, and I also want to thank our lead sponsor, Alderman
Martin, on this ordinance. I do want to emphasize
that safety for the residents and
our firefighters is a priority
while we're focusing on bringing more housing and more affordable
housing at the same time. I know many of my colleagues have been
asking for data, have been asking for numbers, so we are better
informed of what is happening when it comes to fires.
And that's something that I hope that the fire department also will have when it
comes to are we seeing an increase, a decrease on fires?
What has been this five or 10 years, think five
is fair to ask. I do would like to see if you have any
data on that. And talking about old, we
have old buildings that are single stair buildings.
And if those buildings are considered to be
unsafe or the model that we're trying to do is considered unsafe,
then
are we asking to tear them down? If they are so considered to be
unsafe for one stairs.
So my point to this and my question is-Are we
seeing the majority of the fire, it comes from old buildings that
have one stair? It's a mix of everything.
Help us understand, again, these numbers when it comes
to old buildings with single stairs
compared to other fires. And you may perhaps not have the data,
but what are you seeing? Are you seeing it happening more
often than other type of fires? Just help me understand, again,
some of your experiences when it comes to old single stair
buildings.
Okay. There are certain areas of the city that we do have, there's more fires,
there's no doubt about it. Certain demographics, there is more fires in the areas.
As far as the data, I don't have that with me, as fires.
But we're never running out of fires.
We're going to be in business for a very long time, unfortunately, and we keep
ourselves very busy. So I don't have those numbers in front of me as far as
comparison to a two-story or a four-story building fires.
But most of our fires in the city of Chicago are residential structures.
Alderwoman, in Chicago, so we heard from Seattle
and Baltimore that they have these older buildings that are single
stair. We don't have older building stock in
Chicago because there's been a state law in Illinois, so we do have
some pre-1900 buildings in Chicago.
But from 1899, 1901,
Illinois has required fire escapes on those buildings, so they do have a second
stair. There is no such thing-
Is the sec-
... as the single stair.
Second stair is considered the one in the back.
Well, so we'll hear about porches when we get back to the presentation,
but there's also the sort of metal fire escapes that you see downtown and in some
neighborhoods that have those 19th century buildings still.
Right. And what about when it comes to, I know the fire department
was talking about how many stairs they have to fly.
I'm sorry, the climb, I rather say.
Do you have the data of how many times a year does the fire
climb stairs in Chicago with some of these fires?
And again, you might have the data, may not, but if you also can provide that
to the chair.
I'm
sorry. I'm a little confused with the question.
When you talk about fires and that you got up all the stairs to
climb to the building, do you track how many
times-
How many times as far as our stairs get compromised and they collapse?
No, how many times you use the stairs to climb up to the building.
I think the question is how many times do you enter the building?
Oh.
As a-
That's our first means of egress, attack, and as far as evacuate.
We use those stairs every day. That's the most important thing we have is
our tech stairwell and as you said, your rear porch or side
porch or rear entrance every day. That's what saves lives.
Self-evacuation before we get there saves lives.
Right. And I'm not questioning what are you doing.
I'm asking if you have data, and if you don't, that is okay.
We're just trying to, in order for us
to make the best decision or make any changes if needed,
we're just trying to gather as much as information as possible for us
to evaluate. This is not about what you're doing, how many times.
It's just for us to understand the data to come up with a
compromise to this ordinance as well.
So that's where I'm coming from. Not, again, questioning
what you're doing, and it is important all the work that you're doing.
I respect the work that you do. But if you, again, I'm just
hearing that we don't have certain data, and we don't have certain data.
But whatever data you have, if you can make that
available to the chair, will be great.
And what about
Commissioner Hopkins, I
admire the work that you're doing and your insight on this
ordinance. What would be
some compromise or something that you're willing to
provide to this ordinance? Or how do we work together
to, again, find
a compromise between your department and the ordinance?
So I would say, we would have to work
collaboratively with fire because the one thing that the building
department relies heavily upon is the fire department
for their input on any changes that we're making to any of our
legislation that impacts egress paths, because they are
the first responders, and we always want to ensure that
any codes that we're adopting, that they
are supportive of. Because while I get the
immediate response call, they get the initial call to respond.
And so we don't make decisions in the department in a
silo. We work very closely with them.
So it would require all of us to really sit
down and determine a potential
solution for this ordinance that would
ensure all of the things that you're looking to accomplish, as well
as what we're looking to accomplish to ensure safety.
But
once the chair allows Grant to resume,
there are a couple of options in the code that we are
proposing as part of the adaptive
reuse to assist with affordability and
increasing units in the city. Because we are cognizant
from the building department standpoint, that affordable housing is needed in the
city, and we are fully in support of that, but we don't want to
support it compromising life safety.
Yeah. And we understand that. And we'll be reaching out also to the fire
department, and you don't have to...
That was going to be a same question to you, but again, that's a conversation for
another day. So I appreciate the time. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Alderman Cruz. Alderman Conway?
Yeah.
And then followed by Alderman Burnett.
How do you,
in counting the number of stories, how do you handle apartments that are like
garden apartments or somewhat below grade?
How are those counted in that number?
The building code has a very specific definition about when a
basement is a basement and when it's the first story above grade.
It's generally when the story above it is more than six feet above the ground.
If it's more than six feet, then that's like the second floor then.
If the level above is more than six feet above the ground, then that
lowest level, even if-
Count-
... the floor is below grade, is a first floor.
Got it. Okay.
So-
Under-- yeah. Understood. So-
Okay
... if you'd go back a slide to...
Well, I can just tell you. So I saw that slide before.
It said you had 10 tower ladders. I guess that's the one before that.
Is that out of about
how many?
Absolutely. That slide there. So if we're paying attention to the actual fire
building there,
the tan, the actual-
Yeah. I got to stop you. So the slide right before this one
says that you had 10 tower ladders-
Right
... on the upper right.
There's, yeah, 10 tower ladders.
How, uh, that-
Them 10 tower ladders
reach to 110 feet.
Yeah.
Now, 110 feet, take the distance off a
building. It could be downtown or a neighborhood. You don't get 110 feet.
The highest I've ever gotten a tower ladder be able to get to a window is the
sixth floor. That's all you get. That's all you're getting.
So it doesn't matter as close I get to a building, you're only going to get to the
sixth floor. We're capable of throwing water to a higher level-
So-
But we're only getting to the sixth floor.
You have-
Or that's for rescue. Correct
... 10 tower ladders out of how many total tower ladders do you have in the fire
department?
10 tower. We have 10 tower ladders in the City of Chicago.
Well, that, that's the total?
Yep.
Okay.
And well, first of all, I say I know we have a lot of firefighters here.
I certainly can
more than acknowledge that we in the city have done a terrible job at getting you
all
good equipment and want to make sure that we
apologize for that and frankly acknowledge that we need to do better in this city
as far as getting you all top-flight equipment like they have in other
cities.
Beyond that, I would say I really have appreciated the
education this hearing and look forward to a bit more.
And I do appreciate Alderman Martin
wanting to make it a little cheaper to build housing in a city that
sorely needs it. So, and perhaps this goes to the other
slides, if this ordinance had said three
stories instead of six, would you all be as
vehemently opposed to it as you are?
The firefighters sure would, because we need that second stairwell not only for our
citizens of Chicago, but for ourselves.
Yeah. Okay. Wait. Right. But should we revise the code to take that we don't even
allow it for two stories, I guess, would be a question.
We're really efficient getting that ladder to second floor.
Okay. So second-
As long as we can stick with two-
... you can't reach the stories
... I would say, and I'm not going to speak in the building department, two
stairwells is where our position would stay at.
So two stories is okay. All right. Three stories is terrible. All right.
The very bright line. But if there are other ways-
Let me tell you that I need two stairwells. Excuse me.
I want two stairwells anything above ground level. That's what I'm asking.
That's what I'm looking to stick with.
Okay. So anything above-
That's what we have now. That's all we're looking to stick with.
And that's
for the licensed citizens of Chicago.
And-
This is how we save lives and put these fires out quicker.
Yeah. No, I think that's wonderful.
But if there are
ways we can make it a little cheaper to build housing in this city, it sounds
like you may have some suggestions.
I think that we would be interested in hearing them.
Yeah. I'm not...
That's all I have.
Oh, thank you, Alderman Conway. Alderman Burnett.
Thank you, Chairman. I first want to say thank you to both to the building
department and the fire department for being here.
I've appreciated a lot of this education, and
I recognize and appreciate your reluctance to
this ordinance because your job is to make sure that everybody's safety
isn't impacted, right? And that we're doing our job, and redundancy
from your standpoint is great. The easier it is to get
these fires
put out, the better it is for all the firefighters, for the
residents, and I recognize the importance of that.
And I do want to say thank you to Alderman Martin for sponsoring
this bill,
and trying to figure out how we deal with not only the affordability crisis but
also the lack of family-style housing
that we've been seeing in the city of Chicago in new development.
And really that's the crux of it is with the additional
cost that is being put on a lot of developers, and thus into
families, you're seeing smaller units, meaning less ability to
have a unit that supports a full
family. And we really do need to address that as a city.
And so I just have a line of questioning that is trying to get more educated about
some of these topics. And I know with this ordinance, the
main goal is to try to figure out how do you eliminate two interior stairwells,
and making sure that that construction cost, whether that is wood or
concrete, is not bore by the developers.
And I know, and we can go to the two slides forward
where we talk about the Chicago porches, and this is an iconic style in
which we've developed over the years.
But in recent terms, this isn't
necessarily the
type of building that we can establish anymore.
Can we talk about are we allowed to do these type
of external stairwells at this point, both either in metal or in wood frame?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. I don't know if your mic is on.
These are very sensitive about exactly where you are positioned, so
thank you, Commissioner.
Yes. So we have plenty of two, three, four unit buildings and
sometimes six and eight unit buildings that are still building-With exterior stairs
or what we call Chicago porches. Our code allows those in a
very different way than anyone else that we're aware of in the
country. This is our existing recognition
from the late 19th century forward of how
we get two stairs, but also balance that on our narrow lots of
getting light and air and family-sized units.
Two and three-bedroom units are common in what we're seeing in
the new construction, two flats, three flats that are using
exterior stairs, and sometimes when they have a double lot, they're doing six or
eight units. So in our code today, because it
was carried forward from our code for a long time, it's limited to four stories.
That's because our code for a very long time did not require sprinklers in those
buildings. In conversation with the fire department, the building department
had a conversation in looking at these issues and said, "Now under the
code today, all new construction five-story buildings have a full, robust
sprinkler system. Can we extend these allowances that we've had for a very long
time to use exterior stairs, porches,
up to five stories?" So today, three stories can be wood, four stories
have to be metal. So now four and five stories under the ordinance the mayor has
proposed, which I think will be up at the zoning committee in a few
weeks.
That ordinance is coming and is out there.
So that is our proposed solution in recognition of some of these
issues. And we can keep having conversations about other solutions,
but that is a solution, in addition to a solution for slightly
larger buildings that we're proposing, called interlocking stairs, that
addresses
the concerns about
double-loaded corridors and challenges of
existing conventional stair design, some of which are already addressed in our
code, that the national talking points don't get to,
and some of which we recognize there's more we could do in our code.
Understood. So you're saying that there's a proposal out there to, is it
for four and five stories to utilize external metal stairwells?
Yep. So-
Which now is not allowed
... four stories are allowed in the code today, metal stairs.
The ordinance proposed is to extend that up to five
stories.
Awesome. That's good to know. And I know some of the challenges with
the Chicago style porches is that the
exterior requirement means that you also have to reduce the amount of space on the
interior, just given the space constraints.
In-
No. I don't-- But that's generally not true because one of the other
advantages in our building code and our zoning ordinance working
together is that exterior stairs don't count as floor area for FAR.
I'm not saying from a floor area. I'm literally saying from a standpoint of
physical space, right? Like you-
Well, the porches can extend into the required setback and the building can't.
So often they are built in space that you could not build a building under a zoning
ordinance.
Okay.
I'll have to
look into it for the setback purposes.
But-
I mean, you have some downtown zoning, Alderman, so-
Downtown doesn't have-
Downtown's a special rule
... I'm looking more so at my west side, which is more RT and RM.
And
I
lived in New York for a very long time, and
admittedly might've,
can neither confirm nor deny, started a fire or two in a single stairwell building.
But-
Hopefully unintentionally
... completely unintentionally.
If it is confirmed or denied that it happened.
But I do understand that there's a completely different process and a system in
which the buildings are established.
But I also know that we
have
attempted to and started a process of moving more towards the
International Building Court in some capacity.
And in the process of conforming these two systems, can we talk about
some of the other efforts in order to make sure that fire
safety is
still a priority while we change it to some of the regular,
the national way of doing things? So we can understand what
new additional costs are being required, but also what ways we are
making it easier for people to develop.
Yeah. So I mean,
in 2019, the City Council did the first
comprehensive update to the Chicago Building Code since 1949.
So we had a code that had stayed with amendments around the
edges for quite a long time. So we worked together
with the fire department, with hundreds of stakeholders to bring that ordinance
forward in 2019. It phased in in 2020.
It's been a big change to be aligned with the International Building Code, which is
called international, but it's largely the US
model code, and there's a handful of other places that use it.
When you started it, it should really all just be Chicago code. We can say that.
It's just a start here. But hey, it's neither here nor there.
But I mean, so there's upsides and downsides to the International Building Code.
One is it's sort of
many of its assumptions
are more suburban in their land use patterns and development.
Many of its assumptions are about the building in a parking lot.
So many of its provisions on getting multifamily housing
are what you see in the suburbs of multifamily
buildings and parking lots, or in seas of parking lots.
That's not urban land use patterns. That's not what's in our code.
So we had six technical advisory groups of architects and
engineers working with us on the 2019 code.
One of those six groups was focused on our small residential buildings and really
helped us ensure that we kept provisions like our provisions for porches,
which the IBC would not allow. You could not build that building under the
IBC or anything close to it.
We kept those provisions that balanced those core requirements
for two ways out of the building for all but our smallest spaces
with some of the new allowances for
wood construction on a larger scale.With the trade-off for sprinklers.
So we got more sprinklers than we ever had before.
We allowed more wood construction, which at least in
2019 was effective. Then we had some price spikes with wood and
not with
pandemic and tariffs and all of those things.
But allowing more choices gives developers more flexibility to respond
to those market conditions to get affordable housing in a way that
balances safety with affordability.
And
my next question would be towards the fire department and to Alderman
Conway's point about adding additional resources in order
to help you do your job better. When we think about
making some type of adjustment like this, maybe it's not six stories, maybe it's
four. But what can we do or
how can we support you all, and what would be
helpful to make that outside of the stairwell?
I know the preferred method is to just have two stairwells, but what other options
are there for us to make that more effective in making sure that our firefighters
are protected while still providing affordability and safety for the
residents?
I'm not looking to change our operation as far as our SOPs.
I think we just end up having
to do more attack from ground
ladders and leading up a hose line with our engine company
to that fire floor if we weren't capable of getting in that stairwell, and that's
what it just puts time onto it. We have to pay more attention, train more on that
as far as one of the ladders will be attack ladder for our hose line, the other
ladder, like we do now when we have to, will be a ladder just for rescue.
Ladders for rescue. It's something we'd probably have to stress if something like
that was to happen. But the time that takes to
get that hose line up to that floor, that's
not always our last resort because it does happen, but it's
time.
Understood. Okay. Well, I appreciate it.
I appreciate the feedback and understand the duty to protect the residents and
making sure that our firefighters are still safe in the process.
So, I'm looking forward to see if there's something that we can work on that could
possibly mitigate that. But thank you, Chairman, for the
time.
Thank you, Alderman Burnett. I see
Mr. Scott Brodie's hand up. Scott, did you want to say something before we
conclude?
Yes, I did. My name is Scott Brodie.
I'll briefly say I'm an engineer for Morris County, New Jersey,
and I am one of the proponents on the national
IBC proposal that looks like it's going to be passing
to allow one story
increase up to four stories in the national model code.
I noticed there was a few points with the different aldermen speaking.
One of them mentioned the concern about,
right now, is there really two ways out of a unit?
And he talked about living in a skyscraper.
This is actually one thing where this proposal would provide more
redundancy than
what's currently common, because you would have...
If say there's a fire in your kitchen and your kitchen is in an apartment located
by the door, you could escape to your bedroom, and then
you would be within ground ladder or tower ladder height,
to be rescued by the fire service. On the other hand, if you're in a
skyscraper where you have two staircases, but you
can't make your way to the staircase because you're having a fire in the unit,
there you're trapped in. The only other case where you would have two
means of egress in
the current code would be like a single family home,
but this is not usually sprinklered.
So here we get the sprinkler and the two means of egress from fires
within the unit, which are predominantly the cause of death,
although I know that then there's the hazard of multiple people in this
stairway.
I also heard some people saying, "We're forced to rely on
either a ladder or..."
I guess they're saying that's the only way out, a ladder or a sprinkler,
assuming the sprinkler works. Another thing that can be
done is there's smoke hoods and other protective gear which can
be used to escort occupants out of the building.
I know actually I'm from a design background, but I took some firefighter
training, and I know this is difficult to do, but it is another
option and perhaps that could be something that fire departments would
train more on or get more resources to help
if the city does decide to move ahead with something along these lines.
And then, additionally, people were talking about maybe compromising and
going down to a fewer number of floors.
I would also suggest if you are going to compromise, that you consider
actually keeping it
with something like five floors.
But then,
at this scale, it's more feasible to implement something like an automatic
opening vent system. This is actually different than pressurization, which
is complex and sort of subject to failure.
AOV's work by just having the... There's an automatic
opening vent that opens on the stairwell, and then there's
actually the European research has shown it works best when there's a
second vent that's open and a vestibule
to the stairwell that can capture smoke.
So this relies on the buoyancy of the smoke and other
aerodynamics to allow safe conditions
even if the fire department has to deploy a hose.
There was two studies on AOV's, one by the Building
Research Establishment in the United Kingdom, which found that
this study did a live burn test at a fifth scale, and
they did
computer modeling, and they found that the AOV's were effective when
there was both a natural supply and natural
exhaust. And that study involved
a plywood interior with metal framing.
Additionally, in the Netherlands, Nieman Consulting Engineers did a study
in non-combustible environments where-They found
that this computer modeling said that you could also deploy a
hose, and at the same time,
the vent system provided enough fresh air that
it would likely not have a failure.
They set certain criterias. Actually, these vent systems
were, in the data, found to be more effective than a
double-loaded corridor, which tends to fill with smoke, and it did not
meet the criteria for protecting the most vulnerable.
With that, I'll end my points, and if anyone has further questions.
Appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Brody, for
those comments. Thank you.
You're welcome.
I have not gotten through my full presentation yet, Mr. Chairman.
Okay. Yes. Go ahead, Grant.
Okay. So I think much of this slide I got to speak to in response
to your very good questions, Alderman Burnett.
So I think the other point is that that second stairway, for people
who have lived in traditional Chicago two-flats, three-flats apartment
buildings with this configuration, sometimes one of the stairways
needs maintenance, cleaning, service.
Having two of them lets you take that out of service.
And then unlike New York City fire escapes, because they don't have alleys and they
don't have the same land use configuration, Chicago porches serve
multiple functions for occupants.
And I think we are doing briefings for zoning committee members about
content in the mayor's proposed ordinance
in the next few days. So we can talk more about that then.
The other thing that is in the mayor's proposed ordinance that we fully
acknowledge is not likely going to be used for two,
three, four-story buildings, but is a good solution
for five story, six story, and up to 15 story buildings,
is allowing interlocking stairway groups,
which is two stairways wrapped around each other.
It is also something that New York City has allowed for quite some time.
It is a common approach that they use in their larger multifamily
buildings. And in looking at it as a solution,
it is something that the mayor has proposed, the building and the fire department
have proposed for Chicago.
We have a number of these buildings that we allowed under the previous building
code on a one-off approval basis. So it is a condition that exists.
We are used to it. It has some pluses and minuses.
But we think those are addressed in the ordinance that will be coming before the
zoning committee shortly. And we think it
similarly meets that concern about having two independent means of
egress.
It provides some of the flexibility that the proposal for one exit
does without that compromise of going down to one exit.
And then the last slide is fairly technical, but it is
walking through as a point of comparison that goes to some of the earlier
questions about some features that are in either the
International Building Code model proposal that will very likely be in the next
edition of the International Building Code model code
in 2027. It has made it through that national code
development process
with one little last bureaucratic step, but it will be in the next code
in some form. But there's some features in that or the way it interacts
with the model building code, that if you just stick the provision in our
building code because of other Chicago amendments, you would
lose. So one of those in the national model code, they
did have a proposal for six stories.
It was negotiated down to four stories based on some of that
national feedback about the extent of fire department response.
If you remember, though, I said the International Building Code and many of the
International Building Code voters, when they think of multifamily housing, they
think of the multifamily building in a sea of parking lots.
It is not necessarily the urban condition.
We certainly recognize that New York and Seattle are fairly urban
conditions. But that was the limitation in terms of
stories that came out of that national code development process.
The next thing that's in the International Building Code that is not in our code
because it is their backup reliance for these one-stair buildings,
is they require something called emergency escape and rescue openings, or I'll just
call them escape windows. So they have very specific requirements for the dimension
and location and operation of windows that is not
in our code today. That is a requirement in units that
are served by a single stairway that would
likely have to be put in, or you would want to put that in to get at least the
equivalent level of safety to that International Building Code.
I also mentioned that we have a trade-off in our code today
that allows up to 10 units in small
buildings with, under our code today, two interior stairs
to not have a sprinkler system. The way that
existing Chicago exception is written is that when all
required
vertical exits are interior stairs.
So I think we would want to amend that.
I don't think you would want to combine a non-sprinklered building
with
the single stair, one stair design.
And in the model code proposal, they also did negotiate some very specific language
about the sprinkler coverage for those stairs in one stair buildings.
There is an area limit per floor or per story that's in that
national model code proposal. New York City, who has had this much longer, has a
much stricter limit on the area per story.
So I think that is a point that would want to be considered if this proposal
is moving forward.
Our code does not always require exits to go directly to the outdoors.
We have some options
to have exits pass through lobbies and other things.
That is not something the International Building Code would do for a single stair
building. And so I think that also is a condition that you would have to
amend if you were putting this in our code and you wanted to get an equivalent
level of safety to that-National Model Code provision, and then the
National Model Code has some different limitations on roof decks
above the highest story you're allowing in a
single-story building that
in the context of other Chicago local amendments, you would be allowed to do some
things
that wouldn't work. So there are definitely some pieces in the interaction with
our code, which is fairly heavily amended for
Chicago, often in ways that provide more flexibility,
that if you're adding new flexibility, you have to take into account so you don't
end up with a condition that's unexpected by
advocates who may be coming from a National Model Code perspective.
And then in looking at New York City,
again, it's being held out as an example that's had it for the longest period of
time.
That's true, but with a number of conditions that are not in the
National Model Code proposal or in the Chicago proposal.
One of those is that New York City only allows this
in fireproof or fire-resistant buildings, so buildings that are concrete and
steel and not generally in wood frame construction.
I think many of the advocates also speak to this being common in Europe.
Europe has very little multifamily wood frame construction.
So if you want to actually analogize to some of those conditions,
and I'm happy to admit that Seattle builds these in wood and builds wood taller
than anyone else, but the wood industry in the Pacific Northwest is a
significant factor, I think, in that decision.
As I said, New York City limits these to a much smaller
footprint. New York City has a six-story option and a four-story
option. Six stories is 2,000 square feet per floor.
The four-story option is a little more generous at 2,500, but it's not
the 4,000, and it's not these sort of unlimited however
much space you can fit with four units in the
Chicago proposal. And then, New York City,
recognizing the dense urban conditions, which are probably
denser than ours, but close, and we'd want to learn from,
has some very specific language about ensuring that when you do have
these escape openings, there is adequate clear space in front of them
for the fire department to set up ladders with a one-to-four
angle, which is the steepest safe ladder angle.
So you generally could not count windows on side walls where you have
narrow side lot lines. Sometimes if you have obstructions in front
of the building, if you have fences or other things, that would not count.
So New York City has some very specific provisions about that in
the model building codes, the International Building Code and the International
Fire Code. It just says all
required exterior openings have to have clear space as required by the
fire department.
That's not very helpful for anyone to have certainty and clarity in development.
That goes in the model codes because every fire department across the country or
outside the US who adopts the code is going to have different operating procedures.
But New York City has that clearly spelled out requirement that at
least one window in every unit faces the street or
faces a side space or a back space that has enough of that
clear space to successfully set up a ladder to reach the highest
floor. I think that's probably a provision that you would want to
consider, but given Chicago development patterns,
that would also
rule out some lots that
you could not achieve that condition, or you could not achieve the density
of units on that, but that's a safety provision.
Then the last piece that I think the national experts are a little all
over the place on,
and the studies that are out there are very much emerging
studies. They're both from last year.
There's probably people working on other studies to respond to those.
But one of the conditions that the building code today in Chicago, the
model building code in very small residential buildings, it allows
36-inch wide stairways. So that's fairly narrow, a three-foot wide
stairway. It works. Allowing
that as the only stairway in a
building may not be right.
Some cities have talked about, or some of the studies look at whether it makes
sense to require at least the 44-inch wide minimum stair, which you're going to
have in your larger buildings and commercial buildings.
Or even Honolulu, when they adopted this, they require
a 48-inch wide or a four-foot wide stairway,
which comes from a standard that exists in model code world about trying to
carry people in wheelchairs downstairs with enough clear space.
So I think there are a number of factors out there.
If we are continuing to have discussion around this, those are
our points that you would want to take into consideration about whether this
ordinance is correctly addressing for Chicago conditions.
Fortunately, we do have those provisions in the mayor's ordinance that is
coming before the zoning committee later this month
that we'll make some progress on.
And we can continue to study if there are other ways to do other things.
Thank you.
All right. Well,
thank you.
First of all, I want to thank
Alderman Martin as well as the advocates, the fire department,
building department, all for
joining us in this subject matter.
And
really interesting to see what's going on here.
We do have to figure out ways to make it easier for us to...
and more affordable for people to build here.
So very interested in seeing what the mayor's proposal is.
And for those folks that are on the zoning committee, they will get a...
Strike that. Members of the city council will get a briefing around the
mayor's proposal for some of the building code changes,
and those are starting tomorrow and will be Friday and Monday.
So if you haven't signed up, please sign up for that.
There being no further business before the committee,
Alderman Burnett makes a motion to adjourn. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.
Opposed say nay. Independent chair, the ayes have it. This meeting is adjourned.
Can you see?