Can one stairwell help solve Virginia's housing crisis? Lawmakers think so
A single-staircase structure in Charlottesville built before modern codes. (Photo by Lyle Solla-Yates)
Virginia's next building code update isn't until 2027, but lawmakers are already eyeing tweaks that could unlock more housing — particularly on vacant or underutilized urban lots.
One idea gaining traction is allowing certain multi-unit buildings over three stories to be constructed with a single stairwell instead of two. The move could help developers maximize space on smaller parcels, making it easier to add new housing in dense areas.
Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, who pushed for the advisory group that studied the idea last year, said the goal is to encourage infill development — building on empty or underused city lots.
'I think the main goal was just trying to keep the attention on it and I think it was certainly successful in that,' VanValkenburg said. 'Now the next step is just to wait for the building code rewrite, and then I plan on being pretty vocal.'
But making such a change isn't as simple as eliminating a staircase. The advisory group had to wrestle with fire safety concerns, outlining additional protections that could accompany single-staircase buildings.
Potential requirements from the work group's recommendations include using noncombustible materials for structures over three stories, capping the number of occupants per floor, increasing sprinkler density, and adding advanced smoke detection in common areas.
Last year, Fairfax fire marshal and advisory group member Steven Sites noted a gap in state code: common spaces in apartment-style buildings lack fire detector requirements. He suspected the advisory group's discussions would lead to a push for those protections.
VanValkenburg sees the group's work as a test of whether a coalition can reach consensus on housing solutions.
'It might be a good test case of 'can a coalition get-to-yes' or do we let individual groups shut down policy changes?' he said.
New research from Pew suggests fire safety concerns may not be a dealbreaker.
The study found that from 2012 to 2024, the fire death rate in New York City's more than 4,000 modern single-stair buildings was the same as in other residential buildings. In that period, New York and Seattle recorded a total of four fire-related deaths in such buildings.
Meanwhile, VanValkenburg has pointed to cities like Seattle, Washington, New York, and Honolulu, which all allow single-staircase buildings up to six stories, as proof that Virginia can follow suit. These buildings require considerations like square footage limits, unit caps per floor, and specific fire safety measures.
Other states are already moving ahead. Tennessee passed a law last year allowing localities to adopt code sections permitting single-stairwell residential buildings up to six stories. VanValkenburg argues Virginia should be next, especially given the national housing shortage and rising rents.
That urgency drove lawmakers to introduce several bills in the recent legislative session to tackle housing affordability.
Some, like Senate Bill 812 from Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach — which extends rent payment grace periods — cleared the legislature and await the governor's approval. Others, including proposals from VanValkenburg and Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, to encourage localities to expand housing supply, failed.
The failed bills underscored a familiar tension: local control versus state intervention in solving Virginia's housing crisis. Sen. Glenn Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, warned that state intervention 'might be an erosion of local control.'
But VanValkenburg argues that tackling the housing supply crisis requires some level of state involvement, although it means 'telling localities what to do, and people get uncomfortable with that.'
His bill attempted a middle ground — offering localities flexibility to show progress on housing without imposing a rigid mandate. However, if a locality failed to take action, the state would have had the authority to override zoning decisions.
Much like his work with the single-stair advisory group, VanValkenburg plans to engage local governments, residents and organizations across political lines and in communities of all sizes over the next year to build support for another attempt.
He emphasized that boosting housing availability isn't just about affordability — it's about economic growth. More housing means attracting and retaining workers, strengthening local economies, and bolstering tax revenues.
'I personally think (housing issues are) the biggest problem facing the state over the next decade, and so I plan on working that target bill pretty hard,' he said.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
4 hours ago
- Newsweek
Islam Is World's Fastest-Growing Religion
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Islam grew faster than any other major religious group globally from 2010 to 2020, according to estimates released on Monday from Pew Research Center, a U.S.-based think tank. Over the period, the number of Muslims worldwide increased by 347 million compared to 122 million for Christians, with the share of the world's population that is Christian actually falling, as the gains failed to keep up with population growth. The second biggest rise was recorded by the religiously unaffiliated. Why It Matters The rapid growth of Islam reflects significant demographic shifts that are altering the global religious landscape. For Americans, understanding these trends is vital as they influence migration, international relations and social dynamics both domestically and abroad. Experts found that higher birth rates and a younger median age among Muslims drove much of this surge, helping narrow the gap between Muslims and Christians worldwide. What To Know The Pew Research Center data from the time frame showed the number of Muslims globally reaching around 2 billion, as the proportion of the world's population that was Muslim rose from 23.9 percent to 25.6 percent. Over the same time, Christians' share of the global population fell from 30.6 percent to 28.8 percent. After Islam the biggest gains were recorded by the religiously unaffiliated, which saw their total increase by 300 million to 1.9 billion, representing 24.2 percent of the global population. This was a 0.9 percent increase in their share of the global population. Muslim worshippers walk around the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca on June 13, 2024, ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Muslim worshippers walk around the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca on June 13, 2024, ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. FADEL SENNA/AFP/GETTY Out of the religions surveyed, only Buddhism saw its number of global adherents fall in absolute terms, by 19 million, to 324 million people. Pew analyzed data from more than 2,700 sources spanning national censuses, demographic surveys and population registers. The study covered 201 countries or territories, accounting for nearly the entire world population. Separately, data from Pew's Religious Landscape Study found the number of religiously unaffiliated increased from 2007, or in some cases 2014, and 2023-24 in every U.S. state except South Dakota. Higher Birthrates The study found that birthrates were the main cause of the growing Muslim population, with the number of conversions to Islam roughly offset by the number of people leaving the religion. Muslim women had, on average, 2.9 children in their lifetime from 2015 to 2020, compared to 2.2 children for non-Muslim women. Conversion played a negligible role in Muslim population growth, with about 1 percent of those raised Muslim leaving the faith, offset by a similar number joining Islam. Growth stemmed nearly entirely from natural demographic trends. The median age for Muslims in 2020 was 24, which is nine years younger than the median for non-Muslims, suggesting the Muslim share of the global population will continue to increase. Global Distribution In 2020, the largest Muslim populations were in the Asia-Pacific region (1.2 billion), with smaller but quickly growing populations in the Middle East-North Africa (414 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (369 million). Countries with the most Muslims included Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Islam formed a majority in 53 countries or territories worldwide. What People Are Saying Speaking to Newsweek, Professor Faisal Devji, expert in Islam at the University of Oxford, said: "Having just read the report, I see that the increase in Muslim population is largely natural, due to younger populations and so higher birthrates in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, rather than due to any change in religious affiliation. In fact it appears that the real story here is the spectacular rise of disaffiliated or non-religious people globally, but especially in wealthy countries. At more than 24% of the global population they seem to point to the decline of formal religion as such. What we need to attend to in Islam, therefore, is not its growth so much as resilience for the time being." Professor Rumee Ahmed, expert in Islamic law at University of British Columbia, told Newsweek: "The biggest demographic story of the last decade has been sub-Saharan Africa, where the population grew by more than 70% from 2010-2020 due largely to improved health outcomes and infant mortality, and for the first time there are more Christians in sub-Saharan Africa than there are in Europe. About a third of this population is Muslim, and that coupled with a steady 15-20% population growth in Muslim-dense areas like South Asia and South-East Asia accounts for most of the growth in the Muslim population. "In many of these areas, religion is a state-defined identity marker and, unlike in most Western countries, citizens are asked to affiliate with one religious group and are registered with the state as such, with rights and responsibilities that go along with that identity. This is part of a legacy that goes back to the colonial period; the data tell us nothing about religiosity, beliefs, and practices, just how respondents identify." Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: "As to the growth of the Muslim community in the United States, we have previously noted that the increase is due to a number of factors, including conversion, a higher-than-average birth rate and immigration from Muslim-majority areas." Andrew Copson, president of Humanists International, a group which promotes secularism, commented: "All over the world people are finding that religious beliefs no longer offer them good guidance on morality, meaning in life, or effective ways to understand the universe. The rising number of people declaring themselves proudly not to be religious is a natural consequence of all of this." Melina Cohen, director of strategic communications and policy engagement at American Atheists, told Newsweek: "The Nones are not a monolith, and people are religiously unaffiliated for a number of reasons. Some never left religion but were raised secularly. Others leave after experiencing religious trauma and abuse. Many more are disturbed by the politicization of churches and turned off by dogmas that promote hate and discord, finding religious teachings and traditions to be outdated and incompatible with their values." What Happens Next The Pew center projects these demographic trends will continue over coming decades, potentially changing the relative sizes of global religious populations by midcentury.
CBS News
a day ago
- CBS News
Denver voted best tap water in the U.S. and Canada but conference judges award Virginia community
Denver voted best tap water in U.S. but Virginia county wins over judges Denver voted best tap water in U.S. but Virginia county wins over judges Denver voted best tap water in U.S. but Virginia county wins over judges Attendees of a tap water conference voted Denver has the best tap water in the U.S. and Canada, but judges from the organization disagreed. The American Water Works Association just awarded Henrico, Virginia, the accolade at the annual AWWA Annual Conference and Exposition in Denver. The region near Richmond faced off against cities and communities across the country, including Denver, but ultimately beat Denver, along with other communities' tap water. Three judges tasted samples from 26 water utilities across the U.S. and Canada. Denver scored a first-place spot in the "People's Choice" category -- voted on by all conference attendees -- but failed to place in the top three among the judges in the "Best of the Best" category. "People's Choice": Denver Appleton, Minnesota Bloomington, Minnesota Taylor Wilson, left, of Denver Water, accepts the "People's Choice" award on behalf of the city for best tap water in the U.S. and Canada at the American Water Works Association's 2025 conference in Denver on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. CBS While perhaps a product of the attendees having had a lot of Denver's water throughout the four-day conference, Denver and Colorado rarely rank particularly high in lists of best-tasting or cleanest tap water. U.S. News and World Report recently ranked Colorado as 33rd for drinking water quality among U.S. states and Colorado failed to rank in the top 10 for large metro areas in the U.S. in a recent J.D. Power U.S. Water Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study. Denver did, however, rank 9th in its 2025 study in the "West-Large" regional category and in its "West-Midsize" regional category, Colorado Springs Utilities ranked 6th and Aurora Water ranked 10th. American Water Works Association judges taste tap water from utilities around the U.S. and Canada at the organization's 2025 conference in Denver on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. CBS The "Best of the Best" winners at the AWWA conference were: Henrico, Virginia Taylorsville Bennion Improvement District, Utah Ames, Iowa The conference wraps up on Wednesday and includes a number of competitions, including a "meter challenge," pipe tapping competition, and more. The finals for each of those competitions are on Wednesday.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
5 takeaways from a major new report on religion around the world
This article was first published in the State of Faith newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night. When people hear that researching religion is part of my job, they often ask me very specific questions about faith-related issues that have been in the news. After I disappoint them by not immediately knowing the answers, I turn to Google for help. My job has made me a search engine expert, not a religion expert. The questions that still trip me up even when I've got a strong internet connection are about the religious makeup of faraway countries. It's hard for me to quickly find info about religious life in the Czech Republic or New Zealand and then talk about what that info means for the athlete or politician who's grabbing headlines in the U.S. But now, I've got an exciting new tool in my trivia tool belt. On Monday, Pew Research Center released an interactive website that shows the religious makeup of nearly every country in the world in a single (very large) table. Once you're on the page, it takes only a few seconds to confirm that New Zealand was 40.3% Christian in 2020 or that the Czech Republic is dominated by religious 'nones.' Pew's interactive table was released alongside a new report discussing how the global religious landscape changed from 2010 to 2020. Based on more than 2,700 censuses and surveys, the report provides an in-depth look at 201 countries and territories — and plenty of fodder for conversations with your friends. Here are five key takeaways from Pew's new analysis of the global religious landscape. Christianity is the world's largest faith group, but it's not keeping pace with global population growth. In 2010, 30.6% of the world identified as Christian. By 2020, that figure had fallen to 28.8%. Islam is the fastest growing religious group. 'The number of Muslims increased by 347 million (from 2010 to 2020) — more than all other religions combined,' researchers wrote. Sub-Saharan Africa is now the region of the world where most Christians live. In 2010, Europe held that title. As of 2020, the United States has the second-largest number of religiously unaffiliated residents. China has the most. The growth of Islam from 2010 to 2020 was mostly due to natural population growth, while the decline of Christianity stemmed, in large part, from religious switching. 'Religious 'switching' — especially people shedding their religious identity after having been raised as Christians — explains much of the unaffiliated population's growth between 2010 and 2020," Pew reported. Americans are divided over religious freedom. The Supreme Court? Not as much How 'Jeopardy!' can save us all, according to Ken Jennings The Supreme Court's surprising decision day This top running back says he believes in God, not the so-called 'Madden curse' A religious school is facing pushback for its partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Hidden Christianity is a unique form of Christianity practiced on some of Japan's rural islands. It gets its name from the fact that its earliest practitioners really were hiding their faith to avoid persecution. 'Hidden Christians were forced to hide all visible signs of their religion after the 1614 ban on Christianity and the expulsion of foreign missionaries. Households took turns hiding precious ritual objects and hosting the secret services that celebrated both faith and persistence,' according to The Associated Press. Early practitioners disguised their Christian icons by making them appear to be Buddhist. Even after it was safe to be openly Christian again, many families continued these secretive practices, in part because they wanted to honor loved ones who'd risked their lives and in part because they didn't fit in with mainstream Christians, the AP reported. 'Many Hidden Christians rejected Catholicism after the persecution ended because Catholic priests refused to recognize them as real Christians unless they agreed to be rebaptized and abandon the Buddhist altars that their ancestors used,' the article said. Hidden Christianity may soon be just a memory in Japan, since most current practitioners are quite old and most young people who grew up with the traditions have moved to cities and either don't want to or can't access the gatherings. A controversial research project featuring faith leaders using psychedelic drugs was released last month after a long delay. The report showed that nearly all of the members of the clergy who took part described their experiences with psilocybin as some of the most spiritually significant of their lives, but health and religion experts don't agree on what type of additional research or policy proposals that finding should inspire, according to Religion News Service. Which groups face the most discrimination in the United States? Pew Research Center recently asked Americans to weigh in, and the survey report offers an in-depth look at how people's political views influence their thoughts about discrimination. My Deseret News colleague Krysyan Edler recently wrote about the inspiring life of Caroline Klein, the chief communications officer for Smith Entertainment Group. After being diagnosed with cancer in her thirties, Klein committed to living every day like there might not be a tomorrow. 'Nothing about my situation is sad to me, but I want to make sure that when I'm gone, I've left people with a lot of great memories that bring them joy, too,' she said. After years of daydreaming about getting back into tennis, I finally started a summer tennis class on Saturday. It felt so good! Take this as the nudge you need to do that thing you've been dreaming about.
