Rethinking building codes in Toronto
Why North America's building code blocks the mid-rise housing Toronto needs.
North America has a building code problem. Most of our cities require a second egress stair for any residential building above three or four storeys — a rule that sounds reasonable until you compare it to almost anywhere else in the developed world.
Single-stair buildings, with proper fire-protection design, are permitted up to six, eight, or even ten storeys across most of Europe and have a fire-safety record that meets or exceeds ours.
The kind of mid-rise apartment buildings that make Paris, Vienna, and Berlin walkable and beautiful are effectively illegal to build in Toronto.
That's the missing middle, in regulatory form. It's not zoning alone — it's the code. And the code can change.