Small multifamily housing is illegal and too expensive to build. Architect Sam Naylor breaks down the building code reforms that could unlock the "missing middle."

We know zoning blocks housing. The quieter, equally powerful force is the building code. the invisible rulebook on stairs, sprinklers, and elevators that almost nobody outside the trade ever reads. When a project crosses from two units to three, it leaves the residential code and enters the "commercial" code, where a triple decker answers to nearly the same rules as a skyscraper.

Sam Naylor, co-founder of the design firm Nominal, practicing architect, and adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota, returns to walk through his new report with Boston Indicators (with support from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies). It's a working map of why three-to-twenty-four-unit buildings stopped getting built, and a menu of fixes.

What you'll get:

Who this is for: architects, planners, housing advocates, and small developers who keep running into the same invisible wall and want to know where to push.

Chapters:
00:00 - Meet Sam Naylor and His Code Report
00:59 - What "Small Multifamily" Really Means
03:14 - Building Code vs. Zoning Code
06:00 - The Sprinkler Requirement Problem
08:12 - How America Ended Up With Two Codes
13:01 - Missing Middle: Everyone's Missing
16:05 - Why We Only Build Five-Over-Ones
18:08 - The One-Third Cost Jump
21:32 - Code Hacking Around the Rules
24:17 - Syncing Zoning and Building Code
29:12 - Digging Out: Sprinklers and Elevators
39:51 - A Vision for Shorter, Denser Cities

Resources: