Earlier this month, the Office of the State Fire Marshal issued a statutorily required report — two months late — on the merits of legalizing apartments taller than three stories with a single staircase.

In brief, the report took a dim view of the idea, citing historical precedent and the hypothetical risk of allowing midrise apartments with lone stairways.

“The requirement for multiple exits within apartment buildings emerged from fires in the 19th and 20th centuries when inadequate egress routes led to loss of life,” the report notes. “Over time, building codes across the country tightened, with California maintaining among some of the most comprehensive fire and life safety requirements in the United States.”

The report acknowledges the practical reason many have called for “single-stair reform” to legalize taller apartments with single stairways. “Economic considerations reveal that stairways as a construction element generally account for 7.5% to 12.5% of the total building cost in midrise residential projects,” the report notes, but it ultimately leans on the potential risks.

“Potential savings from eliminating a stairwell need to be compared against the safety risks posed to occupants and responders, as well as by the broader public costs of diminished resilience in emergencies,” the report argues.

But here’s the problem with the report: It proceeds as if building standards are still in the 19th and early 20th centuries and ignores global evidence that single-stair buildings, with modern construction and fireproofing, are very safe and resilient.

Last year, Pew Research Center published a report finding “no evidence of safety risks for single-stairway buildings with sprinklers.” They were able to conclude this from looking at real-world examples of cities with such buildings, including New York City and Seattle.

“From 2012 to 2024, fire death rates in modern single-stairway four-to-six-story apartment buildings in New York City were no different from those in other residential buildings; not one death in which the exit (or lack of a second exit) played a role was recorded in a modern four-to-six-story single-stair building in Seattle or New York City during that same 12-year period,” the report noted.

Further, they took an international view and evaluated the records from the Netherlands, where four- or five-story single-stair buildings are common, and found the same pattern. “(T)he fire death rate in those buildings is on par with the fire-related death rate in other types of residential buildings. Overall, residential fire-related death rates in the Netherlands are one-third those of the U.S.”

While we’re sure the people at the Office of the State Fire Marshal in California have access to Google, they defaulted to a do-nothing bureaucratic position.

New buildings, with less-combustible materials and equipped with sprinklers, fire-rated walls and even self-closing doors, are going to be safer than the sort of buildings that led the state and the country to crack down on single-stair buildings.

In the face of a housing shortage, mandating more stairways than are necessary is a tax on housing affordability. That’s all it is at this point. Redundant stairways mean higher costs to build, fewer units possible and ultimately higher costs for those trying to find a place to live.

We encourage the California Legislature to move ahead on efforts to legalize single-stair housing developments. We need less red tape and fewer mandates. The more flexibility and options developers have, the more projects will pencil out and, in time, the more housing supply we’ll get to meet growing demand.