@failedLyndonLaRouchite the big 3 I constantly see are:
1) getting rid of required lot yardage and setbacks
2) windowless bedrooms
3) 1 instead of 2 required egress pathways.
@Leeisme @failedLyndonLaRouchite These all seem in service of converting office space to residential space. I know a lot of people who are frustrated by empty office towers surrounded by people without affordable housing.
@antares @failedLyndonLaRouchite thing about office buildings is they have multiple stairways for egress and plenty of windows. You can easily do adaptive reuse without needing any of these.
@Leeisme Office towers have a central core with stairways and windows on the outside with a lot of area in between.
Take a typical 15,000 sq ft floor (150' X 100 ft) it should hold enough area for 12 reasonable 2-bedroom apartments, but if every apartment must adjoin the central stairwell and have 20 ft of exterior wall you can really only fit 6 per floor. Now we are renting out 2,500 sq ft apartments that are not affordable housing.
Now let us put the central stairway down the hall and we get 8. If each unit only needs 10 ft of exterior wall we are back to having reasonable sized affordable housing.
@antares that’s not what we mean by 2 egress paths. All that is required is that every unit have an exit to a hallway connecting to at least 2 stairways. Developers want to build buildings with only one staircase because stairs cost money and don’t generate rent.