Editorial: Safety first for walkups

Recasting low-rise walk-up apartment buildings — a popular construction project in 1960s and 1970s Honolulu — as a stable affordable-housing inventory makes sense. The City Council is now weighing Bill 7, which would allow some buildings to grow vertically — up to six stories high — and allot a tighter floor-area ratio (density) to make room for more apartments.

Given the pent-up demand for truly affordable rentals — $1,000 to $2,000 monthly for units with one to three bedrooms, in this case — the impulse to squeeze in as many units as possible is understandable. Still, there should be no cutting corners on safety-minded matters, such as stairwell widths.

Currently, the width of a first stairwell in a building needs to be at least 4 feet, while a building’s second stairwell, now required except in some buildings with an elevator, needs to be a minimum of 3 feet wide. Under a Bill 7 version that the Council’s Zoning Committee approved last month, the first-stairwell minimum width would be cut to 3 feet, and any second stairwell could be as narrow as 30 inches.

While some building advocates support the slim-downs as a means to more square footage for apartments, city Fire Department and the Department of Planning and Permitting officials this week rightly opposed them. The narrower widths could impede firefighting efforts and emergency medical transport, for example. For safety’s sake, a bit wider is better. Council members should side with firefighter and DPP stairwell recommendations.