YIMBYtown

Email your testimony supporting single stair reform to DAS.CodesStandards@ct.gov with “2026 Public Comment” in the subject line by Oct. 11th!

That's all, folks! THANK YOU FOR JOINING US AT THE BIGGEST YIMBYTOWN YET! SEE YOU NEXT TIME!

Thank you to the 1,000 pro-homes advocates who joined us in New Haven this year. We'll see you next time!

You can find some of the speakers here: @parkerwelch.bsky.social @cityjane.bsky.social @chris-gannon.bsky.social @alexhrwtz.bsky.social

We are wrapping up this thread as the session moves to audience Q&A. Thanks for following along!

Naylor: "The building code is the next frontier. But we also need to question standard municipal ways of thinking."

Naylor encourages the audience to ask, "Why can't we have nice things here?" when traveling. "It always comes down to regulations."

Horowitz says pre-approved plans would be helpful here in getting single stair buildings going, especially for smaller (sub-12 unit) buildings.

Maxwell asks, what's next?

Welch says anywhere you've taken a vacation, take a picture of the buildings you like. Use that in presentations. In their threads, it was all pictures he had taken in Amsterdam or London. "People loved it. They're all over the place!"

Jonathan Tarleton on housing awareness:

"Housing requires education on the issues. Once the awareness is there, you can then begin the process of proposing new homes."

Gannon says when folks see a single stair building, there is a dramatic moment where they realize, "Oh! It's small!"

Gannon: Now that we've legalized single stair in Austin, I'm doing a lot of presentation to developers and real estate agents to get this built.

14 states have passed a single stair bill in the last three sessions, says Horowitz, to audience applause. "That's wild success."

Horowitz shows a visual comparing a double-loaded corridor building, a football field, and a single-stair building. This shows the distance residents must travel to reach a stairway, clarifying the myth that a single stairway is somehow less safe.

"Projects in my office take about eight years to go from initial calls to construction," says Naylor.

Naylor is showing visual examples, which we'll try to share out post-conference.

Reicher on co-ops and democracy as they coexist:

"People that live in co-ops have a higher tendency to practice democracy, vote in elections, and be civicly engaged."

Naylor's research shows that single stair reform could, at rough estimate, unlock capacity for 130,000 new homes — just in greater Boston.

Additional remarks from Andrew Reicher:

"Co-ops aren't a development activity. It is a people development activity. It builds community, and people can benefit."

Welch says single family homes have a death rate of twice that of multifamily. This is not to invalidate the experience of fire officials, but it is about taking the broader view.

Welch is a transportation engineer, often in the data on a real health and safety crisis: traffic deaths. Says that's once how residential fires were, but we designed our way out of it.

Around 40% of what a firefighter does is respond to car crashes.

Also from Reicher:

"If we want more social housing and co-ops, we need to make the changes locally to make them happen."

Andrew Reicher on housing production:

"Everywhere else in the nation, the most prolific way we create housing is the low-income tax credit (LIHTC)."

Gannon says the firefighters' experience with a multifamily building is often having to rush in through a stairway. From that experience, two stairways WOULD be better. Three stairways would be better. Or no stairways! But the data show that is not better.

Horowitz says more people are dying from homelessness in the United States than from residential fires. We have to provide homes and make sure they are safe from fire risk.

Fire officials are sometimes making claims that people will die if we pass single stair. "A lot of reason to believe the opposite is true," says Horowitz.

Horowitz: We need to give fire safety folks the benefit of the doubt. There haven't been a lot of data to work with. That will take time to defuse.

But we have to use data and look at outcomes. This can't be something where intuition is guiding fire safety.

Naylor: Things won't pencil in Cambridge without single stair.

Naylor says this was about activating small and mid-size parcels.

In the northeast, many lots are small, unlike the large lots in other places that lead to large buildings on podiums.

Welch explains how Austin advocates coordinated "Step Up for Single Stair" shirts, which allowed greater visibility at City Council. In these settings where time is limited, the visible presence shows leaders that your coalition is present and passionate.