After public comments in support of taller single-stair buildings in April 2024, Austin City Council passed a resolution in May, sponsored by Council Member Chito Vela, directing city staff to "evaluate and provide options" for allowing single-stair apartment buildings up to at least five stories as part of the city's 2024 cycle of building code updates (Texas is a home rule state, and building codes are adopted locally). City staff presented a letter of opposition to changes and a first draft code change proposal in June, followed by more public comments, overwhelmingly in support of taller single-stair buildings. The proposal is continuing to be developed. Local urbanist organization AURA has supported the changes, with technical assistance from the Center for Building, as has AIA Austin.

In June 2024, Jensen Hughes released a report prepared for the British Columbia Ministry of Housing on single-stair apartment buildings. A week later, the province's housing minister told The Globe and Mail that he expected legislation to be introduced in the fall to allow single-stair apartment buildings up to six stories, with up to four units per floor. On Aug. 29, the province announced that the code has been updated, with the exact text published online a few days later.

AB 835, introduced by Asm. Alex Lee and coauthored by Asm. Ward and Sen. Scott Wiener in 2023 with the Center for Building’s help, requires the State Fire Marshal to research standards for single-stair buildings above three stories, and provide a report to the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management and to the California Building Standards Commission by Jan. 1, 2026. It was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2023. The bill is supported by the Livable Communities Initiative and California YIMBY. Meetings of a working group are currently planned to begin in 2025.

In April 2022, Conrad Speckert – a Toronto-based architect and author of secondegress.ca, a project to compare multifamily egress rules around the world – submitted two code change requests (CCRs 1815 and 1816) to the Canadian Board for Harmonized Construction Codes, to raise the country's two-story limit on single-stair multifamily buildings to three and six stories, depending on building type, with additional life safety measures. The board reviewed the requests and in April 2023, decided to develop these for the upcoming code change cycle.

In 2024, State Rep. Alex Valez and Sen. Kevin Priola introduced House Bill 24-1239 to allow for the construction of single-exit multifamily buildings up to six stories in total height. Colorado does not have a statewide building code, so the bill required counties and municipalities to adopt these code provisions, similar to how the state has required local and county adoption of energy codes in the past. The Center for Building worked with Peter LiFari (CEO of Maiker Housing Partners, the Adams County public housing authority), Sean Jursnick (an architect with Denver-based SAR+), and others to assist with this legislation. The bill was tabled after fire service opposition.

In 2024, the Public Safety and Security Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly introduced SB 343, which contained a provision that would have legalized single-stair multifamily up to six stories, written with the help of the Center for Building. After fire service opposition, this section was removed, but similar language reemerged in an annual borrowing bill in May 2024. Sec. 117 directs the entities responsible for codes and standards to adopt building code language allowing single-exit apartment buildings taller than the current three-story limit. Exact language is to be worked out administratively, but the bill requires consideration of precedent in Seattle and elsewhere, and limits adoption to municipalities with sufficient fire service capacity.

On Oct. 8, 2024, the City of Edmonton released a report saying that it was developing a guideline to encourage developers and architects to submit plans for a variance through its alternative solutions process for single-exit apartment buildings taller than those allowed by the Alberta Edition of Canada's National Building Code. The report also mentioned that "[v]ariances approved through this process can be used by the Government of Alberta to inform future updates to the prescriptive portions of the codes," and may be considered for province-wide bulletins that would enable the development of such buildings across Alberta.

Following state enabling legislation signed into law in April 2024, Knoxville City Council voted on Oct. 15, on the first reading, to allow single-stair multifamily buildings up to six stories, with no more than four units per story (see pg. 513). The legislation awaits further action.

The Center for Building worked with Minneapolis-based developer Cody Fischer, Minnesota Rep. Larry Kraft, and the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry to introduce bills during the 2024 session in the Senate (SF 3538, authored by Sen. Lindsey Port) and House (HF 3351) changing to the state’s building code to allow single-stair apartment buildings up to the building code’s 75-foot high-rise height limit. The bills were negotiated down into a $225,000 allocation to the state’s Department of Labor and Industry included in a 2024 omnibus bill to study the issue and report on its findings by the end of 2025, signed by Gov. Tim Walz.

Separately, a state technical advisory group voted unanimously on Oct. 31, 2024 to recommend approval of a code change proposed by Cody Fischer and the Center for Building to raise the state’s single-stair height limit from three stories to four, with additional mitigations in lieu of a second exit. The recommendation will be reviewed by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry for adoption as part of the 2026 Minnesota Building Code. In the meantime, developers and architects may be able to make alternative means and methods requests to abide by the planned code change for individual projects before the adoption of the new state code, with approval at the discretion of local jurisdictions.

District 20 Council Member Rollin Horton introduced a bill, BL2024-181, in the 2024 legislative session to change the consolidated city-county’s building code to allow single-stair buildings up to six stories, modeled on Seattle’s code section, with the Center for Building’s help. It currently has the cosponsorship of 10 of the Metropolitan Council’s 40 members.

Int. 0794-2022 would have amended the New York City Building Code to double the allowed floor plate of single-stair buildings up to six stories, from the current 2,000-sq. ft. limit to 4,000 sq. ft. The bill was sponsored by CMs Rita Joseph and Farah Louis, with the help of the Center for Building.

In 2013, S6573 (introduced by Sen. Rachel May and cosponsored by Sen. Jabari Brisport) and A7322 (introduced by Asm. Anna Kelles) asked the state fire prevention and building code council to consider changes to the state building code that would bring it more in line with codes in New York City and elsewhere, which allow for single-stair buildings above the current three-story height limit that applies to the state outside of New York City. The language made it into the 2024 state budget bill signed by the Gov. Kathy Hochul in April, with a study on the subject being due by July 1, 2026.

The government of Ontario wrote on April 10, 2024 that after releasing an ew edition of the province's building code, it intends to "consult with fire-safety stakeholders on single-exit stair in small residential buildings."

SB 847, introduced by Sen. Kayse Jama in 2023, asked the Building Codes Structures Board to update the state's building code to allow single-exit apartment buildings by Oct. 1, 2025, consistent with existing codes such as Seattle's single-stair code section. The bill language was reintegrated into HB 3395 with a direction to "review and consider" such updates, and was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tina Kotek on June 30, 2023. The single-stair study provision is part of a package of housing reforms, and was championed by Sightline Institute, with the Center for Building’s help.

On Aug. 27, 2024, the board chair stated that they would discharge their duties under state law by hearing one code change proposal by Sightline Institute and the Center for Building to allow single-stair apartment buildings up to six stories at the discretion of the local building official based on fire service equipment capacity. They voted it down unanimously.

In 2024, Rep. Joshua Siegel (representing a district in and around Allentown) introduced HB 1988 in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to establish a technical advisory committee to modify the state's building code to allow single-exit multifamily buildings up to six stories. The bill has 17 other cosponsors and the support of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania and the Center for Building in North America, and is part of a broader housing affordability package that includes two zoning reform bills.

In 2024, 14 Rhode Island state legislators co-sponsored S2761 and H7893. The bills would have, among other things, directed the state's fire marshal and building commissioner to develop recommendations for single-stair buildings up to six stories, considering existing precedents elsewhere, and submit them for a hearing and implementation by Jan. 1, 2026. The bills were supported by Neighbors Welcome! Rhode Island with the technical help of the Center for Building. The bills were held for further study, and their supporters intend to bring back revised versions in the 2025 legislative session.

On Oct. 23, 2024, San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution to call on the city "to form a working group to propose new rules to safely allow single-stair buildings" up to six stories. Planning Commission Vice President Kathrin Moore supported the concept, saying that upzoning with current building codes would lead to "extruded elongated cubes of cumbersome sameness." San Francisco Mayor London Breed supports the potential code change, and said that city officials had already started meeting a month earlier to discuss it.

In February 2024, bills were introduced in both houses of the Tennessee legislature to allow (but not require) local jurisdictions in the state to adopt building code sections allowing single-stair apartment buildings up to six stories in height, with a suite of safety measures similar to Seattle's. The legislation passed and was signed into law in April by Gov. Bill Lee.

In June 2024, LMDG published a report for the City of Toronto about the feasibility of allowing single-stair buildings, finding that it would be feasible to allow single-stair apartment buildings up to four stories. Toronto does not have the authority to write its own building code, so as an interim step while Ontario reconsiders the provincial code, the city's chief building official wrote to Toronto City Council to recommend that it issue guidance to developers to use the document to prepare "alternative solution proposals" to seek permission to build single-stair apartment buildings in the city.

SB 195 and HB 368, introduced by Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg and Del. Adele McClure, direct Virginia's Board of Housing and Community Development to convene a stakeholder advisory group to evaluate and recommend building code revisions to allow single-stair apartment buildings up to six stories, with findings and recommendations due by December 1, 2024. The bills were supported by a coalition of YIMBY, urbanist, affordable housing, Realtor, and homebuilder groups. The legislation passed both houses with overwhelming bipartisan support, and was signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin on April 4, 2024.

SB 5491, sponsored by Sens. Salomon, Shewmake, Frame, Liias, and Stanford, directs the state's Building Code Council to draw up reforms to allow single-stair apartment buildings up to six stories tall, with recommendations due in time for the 2024 International Building Code update, and adoption into code by July 1, 2026. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in May 2023, and had the support of Sightline Institute and Center for Building board member and Seattle architect Mike Eliason, of Larch Lab.

A draft bill authored by Rep. Mike Yin in the Wyoming House of Representatives, considered on Oct. 15, 2024 by the state’s Regulatory Reduction Task Force, would require at most one stairway in apartment buildings up to six stories in building codes by default, with a local opt-out option. The bill has been approved to be recommended to a full legislative committee.