Status: Dormant
Assembly Bill 2252 (Lee)
What the bill does:
AB 2252 (Alex Lee), co-authored with Assembly member Buffy Wicks and Senator Scott Wiener, directed the Department of Housing and Community Development to develop building standards allowing multiunit residential buildings up to six stories to have a single stairway, for inclusion in the state building code. Current code requires two stairway exits in nearly all apartment buildings above three stories, a rule that forces the double-loaded corridor layouts common in mid-rise development and rules out construction on many narrower urban lots. Single-stair buildings are standard practice in Seattle, New York, and most of the developed world outside the U.S., and supporters estimated the reform could cut construction costs by roughly 6 to 13 percent.
The bill would also have let local governments adopt equally or more permissive single-stair standards immediately, ahead of HCD's rule making, giving cities a legal pathway around the AB 130 code freeze that otherwise limits local building standard amendments through 2031.
Why this bill matters:
Two-stairway requirements have quietly set a floor on how narrow a lot can be and still support mid-rise apartments in California. That single code provision forces the double-loaded corridor layouts that produce the boxy, repetitive buildings people complain about, and it rules out a meaningful share of urban infill sites where housing is needed most. Projects in the 4-to-6 story range are the sweet spot for wood-frame construction on infill parcels, which is exactly why single-stair reform has been called one of the more impactful code changes on the table: it's not an abstract fire-code tweak, it's a lever on what gets built and where.
AB 2252 directed HCD to develop building standards allowing multi-unit residential buildings up to six stories to have a single stairway, for inclusion in the state building code. It also would have let local governments adopt equally or more permissive single-stair standards immediately, carving out an exception to the AB 130 code freeze that otherwise blocks cities from adopting their own building standard amendments through 2031. That local option mattered on its own: cities like Culver City had already voted to study six-story single-stair apartments, but the statewide freeze left them with no legal path to act without waiting years for the next code cycle. AB 2252 would have given them that path immediately.
This bill did not survive its committees, we hope to continue working on this issue in the future.
Contact Ali Sapirman at Ali@housingactioncoalition.org for more information.
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