By Vanguard Staff
SAN JOSÉ, CA — The Housing Action Coalition, joined by SPUR, San José YIMBY, and Abundant Housing LA, praised the San José City Council this week for directing staff to study allowing six-story apartment buildings with a single staircase, a move advocates say could unlock thousands of new homes while maintaining strict safety standards.
The policy, introduced by Mayor Matt Mahan and Councilmembers Pamela Campos, Anthony Tordillos, David Cohen, and Michael Mulcahy, positions San José among the first cities in California to explore Seattle’s single-stair model. The council approved the proposal with support from Mahan, Campos, Tordillos, Cohen, Mulcahy, Kamei, Candelas, Casey, and Foley.
“We can’t say we want more housing while layering on new processes that make it harder to build,” said Mayor Mahan. “Construction costs in California are already among the highest in the nation — driven by some of the most extensive, overly-complicated regulations anywhere. We should be focused on removing unnecessary barriers so we can build more homes faster, safely and affordably.”
Assemblymember Alex Lee, who authored AB 835 in 2023, called the move an example of “proven common sense solutions.” “My home city of San José can show what cities across the world understand: that we can build beautiful, affordable, infill urban housing that doesn’t need massive lots,” Lee said.
Ali Sapirman, Advocacy and Policy Manager at the Housing Action Coalition, said the decision showed “the kind of evidence-driven innovation California needs.” Sapirman added, “San José’s leadership on single-stair reform sends a clear signal: we can make housing safer and more attainable, without unnecessary barriers.”
Single-stair buildings are a standard design in cities like Seattle, Copenhagen, and Tokyo, allowing for light-filled, naturally ventilated housing at moderate heights. Research from the Pew Charitable Trusts and decades of Seattle data show no difference in fire-safety outcomes between single- and double-stair buildings when sprinklers, fire-rated materials, and pressurized stairwells are used.
“As a Councilmember, I’m working to make it easier and less costly to build homes across San José,” said Councilmember Tordillos. “Single-stair housing—widely used across Europe and Asia, and now gaining momentum in cities and states across the U.S.—can help unlock new infill housing, lower construction costs, and give more families the stability to stay and thrive right here in San José.”
Councilmember Cohen called the measure “a simple but consequential policy.” “By exploring innovative, proven models like the single-stair design, San José is demonstrating that we can build more sustainably and efficiently without compromising safety,” he said. “I’m proud to support this evidence-based step toward a more livable San José.”
Councilmember Campos emphasized the need for affordability and dignity in housing. “Every person in San José deserves to live with dignity and in a place they can afford. Unfortunately, every day, San José families make significant compromises to find housing here, including living in overcrowded and substandard conditions,” Campos said. “My colleagues and I are proud to propose that the City use the same safe building standards already in place in major cities—like Seattle and New York—to make housing more affordable here at home.”
Supporters said adopting single-stair construction would help fill the “missing middle” of housing—the smaller apartment buildings and courtyard housing that fit between duplexes and high-rise towers. For small lots, double-stair requirements often make projects physically or financially impossible.
“Seattle has had a single-stair policy since 1977,” said San José YIMBY. “In California, building new homes is far too expensive and requiring multiple staircases is one of the reasons why. Eliminating onerous requirements is one of the ways we can make it cheaper and faster to meet our community’s need for new homes.”
SPUR, an urban policy think tank, added, “Single-stair building design is allowed in other countries and some American cities such as New York City and Seattle and is essential to make infill housing development—particularly on small and often odd-shaped lots—effective. San José can ensure fire safety standards for tenants, reduce the cost of residential development, and increase housing production by adopting this change and we commend Mayor Mahan and city council members for bringing this item forward.”
Alex Shoor, Executive Director of Catalyze Silicon Valley, said the reform was one of many tools needed to combat the housing crisis. “Throughout California, we are fighting the figurative fire of a housing crisis continuing to rage and spread. We must extinguish it. That requires a lot of methods using different tools in our toolbelt. Reforming how buildings are built is a key method,” Shoor said. “Greater flexibility to develop buildings using single-stair construction is a promising tool. Fortunately, it is already employed across the world and the U.S. San José’s policy can learn from these models as we study our own, one that protects the balance between cost savings, speed, and safety.”
“In LA County, Culver City recently voted unanimously to legalize single-stair buildings up to six stories,” said Scott Epstein, Director of Policy and Research with Abundant Housing LA. “We’re excited that San José is on the cusp of doing the same! This simple change is pivotal to unlocking small-scale, beautiful, and livable buildings in cities across the state.”
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Oh my God, come for the same old advocacy groups, stay for the paragraphs buzzwords. I read halfway through and still the article hasn’t explained what sort of housing this applies to, only politicians using buzzwords to signal to their developer friends that they are looking to decrease construction prices.
All in the shady-politic-laden town that most transit advocates would agree has the worst-designed light-rail system in the world, and is embarking on a single-bore, multi-billion-dollar BART tunnel despite numerous experts and BART itself saying it is a poor and costly design — and if they had not de-funded commuter rail instead of going with BART a quarter-century ago, we could have been traveling to BART Union City from downtown San Jose 20 years ago at faster speeds than BART will ever achieve.
The planet would be better without San Jose.