Elevator regulations are part of the reason for the rising costs of multifamily housing

Elevator laws and regulations in the United States are a key factor in the rising costs of multifamily housing development, says a guest columnist in the magazine New York Times.

“Elevators in North America have become overdesigned, bespoke, handcrafted, and expensive pieces of equipment that are unaffordable in all places where they are needed most,” writes Stephen Smith, founder and executive director of the Center for Building in North America. “Special interests here have gotten out of hand, establishing an outdated, inefficient, overregulated system.”

The United States has about a million elevators, the same as the much less populated European countries of Italy and Spain. Spain, Smith writes, has less than half the number of apartments as the United States, but it has many more elevators in smaller apartment buildings.

European elevator regulations allow smaller units that accommodate one wheelchair and a second person. American standards require units twice as large and discourage or prevent modular construction that could reduce costs.

A basic four-stop elevator costs about $158,000 in New York, compared with about $36,000 in Switzerland, Smith notes. In addition, elevator standards are harmonized throughout Europe, but in North America, elevator safety is regulated by nearly 100 separate boards and jurisdictions.

Smith’s suggested remedies include:

• Adoption of a European elevator standard to open the market to greater competition and parts
• Allowing smaller elevators in small residential buildings where there is a risk of no elevator at all
• Consider providing accommodation for lower-skilled migrants, such as those working in construction, as in the European Union
• Improving vocational and technical education in public secondary schools to provide more native workers to the lifting industry