Edit - it was pointed out in another thread that affordable housing has to go through the same ridiculous permitting and environmental bureaucracy as other housing. That also costs a ton, probably more than the crazy building codes.
I’m further inland, and I pay basically no money for energy. A box fan and occasionally, a one-room AC unit (because I work from home) or a space heater is all that’s needed. There is absolutely no justification for such energy efficiency regulations in San Diego or the Bay Area, where I used to live. Your argument about reduced cost is purely hypothetical, and not reality.
> These requirements absolutely need government regulation because the "free market" leads to a non optimal outcome.
That would not mean we “need” government regulation. Leave people alone.
Currently as a renter, if you see a few properties online, you have no feasible way to factor energy usage in to your decision making so landlords have no reason to factor it in since it won't prioritize their property to renters.
With your $500k up front costs, how many units are you spreading that over?
However, your analysis is simplistic and assumes:
1. The house uses no natural gas (most do)
2. The cost of electricity never goes up (it will in the short term at least)
3. CO2 emissions from wasted energy have no cost (they do)
4. Building energy efficient buildings is way more expensive than the alternatives for new construction (it isn’t)
The top comment in this thread states that 1.7% of the upfront cost of the apartment, $17,000, is for energy efficiency improvements.
In fact, the codes that mandate energy efficiency improvements take a detailed cost analysis into account, and only mandate cost-saving energy efficiency improvements.
My other question would be: why are we building new instead of buying up old hotels, old office or condo buildings, etc, if building new costs so much?
There are many reasons; new stuff is usually built on cheaper land, old buildings have lots of issues that make updating them very labor intensive.
It's why most malls can't be easily converted into housing, and usually need to just be torn down completely, often just reusing foundations.
It's easy for committees of people who largely don't need affordable or last-resort housing to make it practically impossible to create it.
Hotels are tricky. There’s rarely even a single kitchen available per floor, let alone per unit, and I would imagine a kitchen is required in the building codes.
Ultimately, conversions have to be brought up to the same building codes as new construction, so you don’t actually get rid of the problem (codes making any construction hard to do.)
We could reasonably allow hotels to be converted into SROs with communal kitchens (or room + board with staffed cafeteria style kitchens), but as you said that goes against zoning code.
Motels were used for homeless housing during Covid, seemed like a good start.
They're already housing-of-last resort options for people, and they're already constructed. Don't hold affordable housing to higher standards than low-end-of-the-market homes or apartments, or you're just going to leave the bottom of the market with even fewer options.
Let market rate construction be the new construction - which has less red tape around qualifying for incentives and government funding, etc - and shore up the quality and quantity of the bottom end with government action. You'll be adding more units than you are today, which is the most important thing here.
At least in the area I’m familiar with (NYC) a lot of them have swung back to being profitable hotels now that people are traveling again.
Fire sprinklers are required in single family homes. The very small incremental safety benefit is far outweighed by the initial cost, maintenance cost, and potential failures (more plumbing to leak). If you really wanted to improve fire safety, make it cheaper to replace 1950s-era houses with new construction!
Solar panels are required for new homes, which ironically adds a small amount of fire risk (like all electrical devices). This is required in areas with cloudy conditions, or houses that are shaded by trees. The cost per watt is ridiculous compared to how cost-efficient utility scale solar has become. Not to mention the safety risk to solar workers on a second-story house.
Just in plumbing code, there are several ridiculous restrictions. Some jurisdictions allow air admittance valves, others do not at all. ABS pipe is illegal for commercial buildings, but just fine for residential. IPC allows 1.5" vents for toilets, but UPC requires 2".
sprinklers are so effective that single means of egress + sprinklers should be the new building standard
Surely smoke alarms are more effective? (Obviously so on a per-dollar basis, but I’d wager on a per-unit basis as well. If you gave me a choice of a smoke alarm xor a sprinkler, I’ll take the smoke alarms every time.)
https://www.treehugger.com/single-stair-buildings-united-sta...
https://twitter.com/holz_bau/status/1384670822351048707?ref_...
Though there are some that make apartments more expensive, like requiring two staircases. This also significantly reduces the pleasantness of the resulting apartments, and typically means that you can't open windows on both sides of the building and get cross flow.
All new tenants and new occupancies hereafter constructed, which exceeds 3,600 square feet shall have an approved automatic fire sprinkler system installed throughout.
(There is a problem with too little code. NFPA 13R and 13D do not clearly specify backflow protection requirements, and the California Plumbing Code, which follows UPC, only specifies it by reference to a subjective hazard level as determined by the authority having jurisdiction. This means that different local jurisdictions disagree, which creates both added complexity when designing a system and a significant risk of an actual hazardous condition existing. Situations like this are why codes exist, and IMO the code authors thoroughly dropped the ball on determining the extent to which the water in non-passively-purged fire sprinkler system is hazardous and how to prevent it from getting into drinking water. If an actual standard existed, then there could be an off the shelf compliant system, and time and money would be saved.
I can totally understand requiring them in multi-family or town-homes where there are shared walls - but not in single family homes. A residential fire suppression system for a ~2,500 Sqft home can cost anywhere from $10-25k to include on a new build in northern CA (I know from recent bids). That isn't a negligible cost and mandating them for smaller dwellings (in my county it's anything over 1,000 sqft) is a fine example of regulation that has "great" intentions but is making affordable housing un-afforable.
> Actually, the statistics are rather stark.
AFAIK, this is all information about multi-family dwellings and has not been demonstrated in single family homes.
The benefit of sprinklers is certainly more obvious in large buildings with multiple residences inside, in slowing fires from reaching new dwelling units.
I find plenty of factsheets about residential sprinklers, that cite numbers of 80% reduction in death... which then ends up relying upon benefits seen in apartments... and which mostly evaporates when controlling for income.