CT Lawmakers Nix Change to Allow Single Stairwells in Small Apartment Buildings

State lawmakers nixed a change to the state’s building code that would have allowed for smaller apartment buildings after fire professionals raised safety concerns.

The move comes amid a housing shortage that prompted state lawmakers to return for a special session to pass housing legislation just three months ago.

Legislation passed in 2024 directed the Department of Administrative Services to expand what kind of apartment buildings can be serviced by a single stairwell in the next revision to the state building code, which is due out later this year. The current code dictates that any apartment building over three stories must have two stairwells.

A measure in the so-called “emergency certification” bill passed by both chambers this week repeals that requirement, leaving the stairwell regulation as it currently stands.

Housing advocates say requiring two stairwells in apartment buildings taller than three stories is impractical to build “missing middle” housing — more than two units but less than nine — particularly on smaller lots. It also encourages builders to limit apartment units to one or two bedrooms, advocates say.

The two-stairwell rule is why so many of the new apartment buildings going up in places like downtown New Haven and other areas of the state look the same, according to Sean Ghio of the Partnership for Strong Communities — big and boxy on the outside and hotel-like on the inside.

“Having these double-barreled buildings, it forces a certain kind of design layout in buildings,” Ghio said. “A lot of people complain about new apartment buildings all looking very similar. Part of that is the constraint of building for two stairwells. You almost always have this very long hallway with a stairwell on either end.”

Meanwhile, fire marshals and chiefs across the state — many of whom opposed the measure in 2024 — say the change would put apartment dwellers at risk.

Jerry Rynich, acting fire marshal for New Haven, said in an interview with CT Insider it’s dangerous to have residents trying to descend the same stairwell firefighters are using to enter a building — especially amid the panic of blaring fire alarms, smoke and potential injuries.

“People are going to panic,” he said. “If you have the one means of egress, that stairwell may be compromised. Which is a huge issue.”

New Haven firefighters rescued 11 people from a fire inside a five-story apartment building Tuesday, including three who were rescued from third-story windows.

The United States and Canada are outliers around the world in only allowing single stairwells in buildings three stories or less. But several U.S. jurisdictions already allow taller single-stairwell apartment buildings. New York City, Seattle and Honolulu have long allowed single-stairwell buildings up to six stories. Tennessee permitted such buildings in its statewide code in 2024. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order to study single-stairwell construction earlier this month, citing Connecticut as an example.

The Connecticut Building Code is updated every three years. A committee at DAS considers changes and hears public testimony then produces a draft code that gets final approval from the General Assembly.

The committee at DAS that’s responsible for overseeing the process of making changes to the Building Code includes two local fire marshals and a fire protection engineer. The committee reached a compromise that would have increased the height of apartment buildings with a single stairwell from three to four, instead of a proposed six, according to a November letter to the committee from the Joint Council of Connecticut Fire Service Organizations.

That compromise is in line with current model codes from the National Fire Protection Association, which allows for a single stairwell in buildings up to four stories tall. However, the International Building Code, which serves as a model for much of the country, limits single-stairwell buildings to three stories. The International Code Council, which writes the International Building Code, is considering a proposal for its 2027 update that would allow single-stairwell buildings up to four stories.

The Joint Council’s letter said opposition to the single-stairwell change from the state’s fire service professionals was “close” to unanimous, but it conceded to the compromise language.

“While we oppose the principle … we appreciate that the compromise language was sourced from national code, a code adopted through an appropriate process,” the letter said, referring to the current NFPA model codes.

DAS declined to comment.

Despite the Joint Council’s concession, it appears strong opposition from fire marshals and chiefs may have swayed the General Assembly's Regulation Review Committee, which has the final say over the draft Building Code once it passes the DAS process.

In an interview with CT Insider, House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D- East Hartford, said members of the Regulation Review Committee suggested that they received pushback from fire professionals in Connecticut who weren’t part of the DAS process — though he cautioned that he didn’t “know definitively” how the compromise broke down.

“You obviously have people who negotiated in good faith, but there are still members of the fire service who don’t necessarily support it,” Rojas said, adding that he didn’t want to “place the blame on anybody.”

Rojas, who testified in support of the measure in 2024, said he didn’t want to hold up the rest of the Building Code over this one issue.

“It wasn’t going to have the support of the members of Regs Review, so I elected to ask DAS to withdraw that particular provision so that ... all the work that had been done on the building code (could) continue to move forward,” he said.

Some housing advocates told CT Insider they’re OK pushing forward with the current code, which includes other measures linked to affordable housing, in the hopes of returning to the single-stairwell issue before the next three-year code revision. But Rojas said he’s reluctant to interrupt the code revision cycle.

“Perhaps more states will move forward, and maybe that'll create a greater comfort level,” he said.

Rep. Christie Carpino, R- Cromwell, who co-chairs the Legislative Regulation Review Committee, said she “wasn’t willing to trade an extra few feet, perhaps a walk-in closet or an extra bedroom, for public safety.”

“Public safety professionals were really concerned,” she told CT Insider. “And that was enough for me.”

West Hartford Fire Chief Greg Priest, who is vice president of the Connecticut Career Chiefs Association and a delegate to the Joint Council, told CT Insider that the council “reached a compromise that addressed the fire service's serious safety concerns while also accounting for the complexities of the situation.”

After that compromise, Priest said, neither the Joint Council as an organization nor the Career Chiefs Association asked lawmakers to scrap the deal.

Many housing advocates say the choice between space or accountability, on one side, and safety, on the other, is a false binary.

A study last year by the Pew Charitable Trust found that modern single-stairwell buildings are at least as safe as other kinds of apartment buildings. None of the four fire-related deaths Pew found in modern single-stairwell buildings in New York City and Seattle from 2012 to 2024 could have been prevented by having a second stairwell, according to the report.

Housing advocates Nick Kantor at Pro Homes CT and Pete Harrison at Regional Plan Association emphasized that modern single-stairwell buildings are equipped with fire suppression systems like sprinklers, self-closing doors and fire-resistant walls that make them much safer than older single-stairwell buildings constructed before modern building codes.

“It’s not an either-or,” Harrison said. “You can have modern, safe, fire-suppression systems in single-stairwell buildings to unlock smaller, safe multi-family buildings.”

An additional stairwell adds considerable cost and size to a building, which can make it more difficult to create desperately needed housing, Harris and Kantor said. That can be especially true for so-called “infill” housing, which is often built on unused lots in between other buildings.

Connecticut has some of the oldest housing stock in the country. The current building code could make it difficult or impossible to replace many of the older apartment buildings that predominate in some Connecticut cities, Harris and Kantor said.

Both Harris and Kantor pointed out that a lack of affordable housing is also an issue of public safety. A recent investigation by CT Insider found that 197 people experiencing homelessness died in Connecticut in 2025. Nine of those deaths were caused by hypothermia. Another person died when the car he was sleeping in caught fire, possibly due to mechanical failure, in below-freezing temperatures.

“Not building can be dangerous, as well,” Kantor said.

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