I’ve been serving on a subcommittee of the Construction Code Advisory Board (CCAB) on smaller living spaces. I know, what’s the CCAB? Well, the CCAB is a hard working group of experts in various fields of construction and building that review changes to the building code. The building code is a powerful way of ensuring basic health and safety. Their role is very different from design review or other committees that look at land use and zoning. The CCAB talks about stairways, elevators, fire exits, and, yes, the size of units and rooms.

You’ll remember David Neiman’s various posts about how new land use regulations and interpretation of the building code have been working together to push up the size of units. As we’ve explained many times before, larger units mean fewer units in buildings. Fewer units means more expensive units since the rent that has to be collected to cover costs has to come from fewer households. It’s just math. Imagine a Thanksgiving meal where the food bill will be shared by everyone at the table. If there are 10 people paying for the same amount of food as 7 people, the costs for the 7 will be higher per person. But wouldn’t they eat less food? Exactly. Lots of people want less space and less rent. Smaller spaces allow that to happen.

What the CCAB is considering is allowing more flexibility in how the building code permits smaller living spaces, in particular units and rooms. The two are distinct. The unit is the whole apartment, while a room is a room inside the apartment. Sometimes, like in my apodment, the two concepts pretty much overlap. In the house where I group up, the unit had three rooms along with baths and separate living rooms. What we’d like to see is lots more flexibility as units get smaller to allow for more, smaller sized units and rooms. This is what people are saying they want, and it’s a great way to create affordable housing units.

So the CCAB is conducting a survey and you ought to participate. Below you’ll see the preamble to the survey and you can get the survey by clicking this link to  the Minimum Habitable Space Survey. It will take a bit of time, and feel free get in touch with questions about this. You can email the survey to Jenifer.gilliland@seattle.gov

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Hello,

The City of Seattle is committed to affordable and livable housing. Housing unit size directly impacts affordability and livability. The Seattle Construction Codes Advisory Board (CCAB) is conducting a review of the 2015 Seattle Building Code (SBC) Section 1208 Interior Space Dimensions & Director’s Rule 7-2016 for Small Efficiency Dwelling Units. CCAB has been asked to explore whether Seattle’s approach to minimum room and dwelling unit sizes, dimensions and total area can be more flexible without impacting the health and safety of Seattle residents.

We need your thoughts!  A subcommittee of the Seattle Construction Codes Advisory Board is conducting a simple, informal survey to gather information and surface issues and potential options about its current minimum room and dwelling unit size requirements.

You will need to complete this survey in the next few days if you wish your input to be reviewed by the subcommittee.  The due date is November 26^th at 5:00 pm.  Please send all surveys to Jenifer Gilliland  at Jenifer.gilliland@seattle.gov.  If there is someone else you know that could provide us with valuable information on this topic, please send us their contact information and we will send a survey to them as well.

Thank you in advance for your time!