Members of the General Assembly are looking at ways to encourage more residential development across Virginia.
Sometimes Virginia's building code gets in the way of residential development. Take the requirement that residential buildings have two stairwells. Delegate Adele McClure is a Democrat from Arlington who says that’s a roadblock to many developers.
"And a lot of the times, there’s folks that are in a holding pattern and that land use just kind of goes unused for a while as opposed to just being built quickly when you have the option to have a building, a multi-family residential building serviced by one single-stair exit," McClure says.
The double loaded corridor is a requirement that was originally created for fire safety. But Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg, a Democrat from Herndon, who says the technology has outpaced the code.
"If you talk to fire departments that service areas that are more newly built, more newly constructed, they have much fewer calls for fires," Van Valkenburg says. "And one of the reasons they have fewer calls for fire is because the way that houses are constructed with some of the newer technologies that we have. There's just less fire."
The legislation introduced by VanValkenburg and McClure would not actually change the building code right away. Instead, it creates an advisory group to look into the pros and cons and make a recommendation by the end of the year.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
