Comment by snakeyjake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by snakeyjake | Hacker News Reader

Neither elevators nor fire codes have a damn thing to do with housing costs.

>A basic four-stop elevator costs about $158,000 in New York City

Oh wow that's a lot. What's the final sticker price for a four-stop building in NYC? What percentage of that price is the elevator?

Just the LAND for a garbage soulless Fast Casual over-1 at 150 Meserole Street cost $7.5 million: https://newyorkyimby.com/category/150-meserole-street

So the elevator's only ~2.5% of that cost and we haven't even demolished or built anything yet.

My favorite is when people (these people, the Center for Building in North America) claim that the US's 2nd stairwell requirement is "killing affordable housing" and then I point out that the square footage of the 2nd stairwell is not enough to add an additional bedroom.

It's all just property developers agitating to cheap out on their buildings while making one bedroom very slightly larger or adding a walk-in closet thus making it "premium" and allowing them to charge more.

Between two elevators in my building (11 stories) at least one is always out of service for a few days. I attend HOA meetings, and like 8-10% of our ongoing budget is elevator maintenance. Few reasons according to the guy on HOA board:

* the service companies are either Otis or an Otis dealer, so essentially 2-3 companies have an oligopoly on Los Angeles

* all parts must come from Otis (which mattered during COVID supply chains, when you either paid Otis directly for faster service or waited forever for the part to arrive)

* all shafts and mechanisms seem to be custom-built - there's no drop-in replacement service or alternative product (from likes of Mitsubishi or others) we can easily switch to

It's a small industry with few dominant players designed on extracting maximum revenue. Servicing is pretty much mandatory, limited to a few authorized dealers, who know you have limited options.

> My favorite is when people (these people, the Center for Building in North America) claim that the US's 2nd stairwell requirement is "killing affordable housing" and then I point out that the square footage of the 2nd stairwell is not enough to add an additional bedroom.

I don't think their concern is about the footprint associated with the second stairwell. I think it's that any additional building requirements not directly related to the primary purpose of housing -- whether it be a second stairwell or mandatory onsite parking -- add to the price of housing and thus decrease overall affordability.

Pretty sure the point of the article is that elevators is an example of how the construction industry has become very expensive in US not that elevators in themselves are the problem.

maybe... construction is expensive, yes, but a bigger problem is that for example in my 'hood there are exactly 0 lots for sale. The sprawl model - which has been aggressively pursued for at least half a century - by now seems to have eaten up all the land in any sane commute reach. Elevators have been purposely avoided for many decades now and not because of their cost.

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