> Or we could just continue to leave it up to faraway owners and builders to comply with code during construction and improvements. But it is actually quite obt

> Or we could just continue to leave it up to faraway owners and builders to comply with code during construction and improvements. But it is actually quite obtuse to let law govern issues of human use in shorter time frames. Needs arise faster than concrete sets. Um, we do leave it up to them to comply with local codes. I'm not sure what the objection is. They don't get an option to comply with codes or not. You aren't building anything in a major downtown area without a permit, which means complying with all local codes. If a community wanted to mandate that x% of a building's lower level had to be dedicated to street level retail, they could easily do that. Builders would either decide if it were worthwhile or not. For the most part, developers/owners do not need much encouragement to increase rentable square footage in a building.