Harvard Says Loosening This Mass. Building Code Could Spur Over 100,000 New Housing Units

As Massachusetts leaders keep searching for solutions to the housing crunch, a top academic institution is pointing to the role the state’s building codes play in restricting multifamily development. For years, any buildings of more than three stories or 12 units in the state have been required to have at least two staircases. But a new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies says that changing code to allow larger buildings with a single staircase could help bring on more housing in land-constrained cities like Boston and Cambridge. The proposed change would raise the maximum height for single-staircase buildings to six stories,...