Council advances single‑exit multifamily appendix to rulemaking but declines to expand six‑story Type 3A statewide

The Building Code Council on March 20 voted to move Appendix XX — a bundled set of single‑exit, egress and life‑safety provisions for small multifamily buildings — into the CR102 rulemaking process but stopped short of accepting an amendment to allow Type 3A construction to rise to six stories statewide.

Roger Heeringa summarized the Single‑Exit TAG's work and confirmed the TAG voted not to include proposed item 21 (a Type 3A six‑story allowance) in the appendix. After deliberation the council approved the TAG's recommended appendix and directed staff to file it for CR102 (motion by Roger Heeringa, second Dan Young).

Council members, city staff from Seattle (Micah and Ardel), and technical consultants debated whether the single‑exit package should also change Chapter 5 (building type and allowable stories) statewide to permit six stories of Type 3A. Concerns included inconsistent guardrails across jurisdictions, floor‑plate and compartmentation limits, the 125‑foot maximum exit travel distance, seismic and special‑inspection considerations, and whether smaller jurisdictions have the fire‑department capacity and inspection expertise to safely adopt the allowance.

John Siu (former Seattle building official) and Ardel Jala (Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections) urged that any expansion to six stories be considered with the IBC TAG and with explicit compartmentation and area limitations — for example, Seattle's provisions limit floor compartments and include two‑hour separations in some cases. Council members said the legislative mandate directed SBCC to address single‑exit egress but that broader changes to allowable stories or construction types feel like a separate policy decision better handled by the IBC TAG or in the next code cycle. No motion to add six‑story Type 3A language passed.

What this means: Appendix XX will be available for public comment. The council left open the option for TAGs or external petitions to propose a wider change to Type 3A allowable stories in the future, but it did not adopt such a statewide allowance in this cycle.