staircase code requirement for 3 family

You’re only being “forced” to make the change because of the scope of the proposed renovation, which triggers a new C of O, which in turn triggers upgrading the entire building wherever egree or life safety (sprinklers) are concerned.  To keep the historic stair as-is means keeping the C of O as-is.  If the building is three stories or less, you might get away with a CCD-1 to enclose the entire existing stair as a rated, _open_ stair (rated partitions and doors feeding into it from the apartments); upgrade the sprinkler system; and leave the stair itself.  But it’s a long road to hoe, especially with a wood staircase beacuse it is combustible.

brooklynarchitect

in Dept. of Buildings (DOB) 13 years and 7 months ago

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Augustiner | 13 years and 10 months ago

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We are in the development process of converting a 7 unit SRO into a 3 Family building.
My architect mentioned that the existing staircase is around 30″ wide, but the building code requires a minimum width of 36″ for a 3 family.

Does that mean I have to reconstruct the whole staircase of the building?
If that??s the case, I??d make it a 2 Family, because the expense just seems unreasonable.
Why would the code would require to destroy a healthy regular size historic staircase?

JorgeF | 13 years and 10 months ago

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If your staircase is not to code the DOB can make you change it. They have every right to force this as it is a standard building egress code, you make it sound unreasonable for the us to have codes. When you renovate you can not just do whatever you want you are required to make sure everything that does not comply with code is brought up to code. If you do not want to do that then don’t renovate.
Besides in the end you would have a nice new staircase, and by the way the expense to do the stairs isn’t going to be so ridiculous. Get a bid from your contractor and see what it will cost, I can’t imagine it would be so high that it makes the job not worth doing.

JorgeF | 13 years and 10 months ago

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If your staircase is not to code the DOB can make you change it. They have every right to force this as it is a standard building egress code, you make it sound unreasonable for the us to have codes. When you renovate you can not just do whatever you want you are required to make sure everything that does not comply with code is brought up to code. If you do not want to do that then don’t renovate.
Besides in the end you would have a nice new staircase, and by the way the expense to do the stairs isn’t going to be so ridiculous. Get a bid from your contractor and see what it will cost, I can’t imagine it would be so high that it makes the job not worth doing.

jockdeboeraia | 13 years and 10 months ago

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You can always file a CCD and ask for it to allow to stay as existing.

pigthree | 13 years and 10 months ago

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Which stair case?  there are conflicts sometimes that help your case.  If making the stair case wider reduces the size of the hall to less that 36″ then there might be a good persuasive argument not to widen the existing stairs.  
Was the building always an sro?  just something else to consider.

Smokychimp | 13 years and 10 months ago

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You could do something sneakier, but completely legit, and not have to deal with a C of O change at all. You can combine two apartments into one without any change to the C of O. Do this three times, you have three units combined plus another apartment. Depending on your layout it could work, and at a great savings of coin…

jameskoster | 13 years and 10 months ago

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Oooooh, Smoky!  That is clever — 3 Alt II’s in the same building to get at this owner’s needs! Interesting.

However, I wonder if this is all off-base… the difference between a 30″ and 36″ stair within a residential building used to be a byproduct of the occupant load, and I would have to think that the old code or the ’68 code would govern this building.  It seems to me that most brownstones – even 4-family buildings – get away with a 30-inch stair by virtue of having a low occupant load.  I think Augustiner’s architect has to dust off the old code books to see what they can legally do — I don’t think they’re even looking for special treatment here.