4 ms·

Can you elaborate on the specific pieces and strands of red tape that are asking to be cut that don't impact safety? I'm certainly not an expert on the depths,

Can you elaborate on the specific pieces and strands of red tape that are asking to be cut that don't impact safety? I'm certainly not an expert on the depths, lengths, and colors of said tape - but typically that tape is put in place after public outcry from past negligence or perhaps by entrenched players looking to protect their dominant market position by increasing costs to new entrants. If it's the latter I'd imagine there's easily-cited examples of obvious marketing protection that has nothing to do with safety.

yostrovs 4y ago
In the United States, a room must have a closet to be considered a bedroom. If you want to build cheap housing, one way to lower cost is to not to have a closet, something that matters in high density housing. But then you can't market your apartments as having N number of bedrooms. That's a non-safety regulation that's quite arbitrary since prior to about 100 years ago closets were very rare, but many of the houses from then still stand. Mine's master bedroom doesn't count as a bedroom, dropping the value of my house considerably.
- dboreham 4y ago
  Is this a national thing? I'd been told it varies by jurisdiction. It's also made up by the local realtors, iirc, not a government regulation.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  > In the United States, a room must have a closet to be considered a bedroom. Source? I can't find any that confirm that using actual codes (at least on a national scale), and many (from sellers and lenders, no less) that rebut it [0][1], nor do I see it in the FHA housing policy handbook [2, PDF]. It's possible that real estate businesses customarily don't let you market bedrooms without closets, but that's not regulation. [0] https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/what-qualifies-as-a-bedroom https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/what-qualifies-as-a-bed... [1] https://www.realtor.com/advice/sell/what-is-a-bedroom-features/ https://www.realtor.com/advice/sell/what-is-a-bedroom-featur... [2] https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/SFH_POLI_APPR_PROP.PDF https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/SFH_POLI_APPR_PROP.PDF
  - yostrovs 4y ago
    I may be wrong about the regulation of this, but in effect that's the case. Maybe it's what realtors consider bedrooms, but that's how our house was listed when we bought it and three different unrelated realtors told us the same. If my example doesn't count, how about from the first link you provided: "A bedroom must be accessible from at least one common point in the house such as a hallway or living room. In most cases, a room cannot be considered a bedroom if it is only accessible through another bedroom in the home." This doesn't seem like a safety regulation, but a matter of what is considered appropriate these days - people shouldn't be walking through a bedroom on the way somewhere else.
    - InitialLastName 4y ago
      > in effect that's the case. When it's private organizations agreeing to rules about what they will or will not advertise as a bedroom for the purposes of commercial communication, that's called "capitalism" not regulation. To your other point, not all regulations have to be about safety to be valid. Preventing what is effectively false advertising ("bedroom" has a presumption of privacy for the inhabitant that is belied by having to traverse another person's private space) seems like a valid use of regulation. You can still sell the house, and a buyer can still observe that the room is usable as a bedroom, but you can't advertise the house as having a bedroom that a reasonable person wouldn't consider such.
- mh- 4y ago
  This isn't true. There is no national standard to this effect, nor do most (like 46-47) of the states require it. Some municipalities might - I couldn't find any data in a few minutes of googling.
- flerchin 4y ago
  Maybe in your jurisdiction, not in mine. I have the same master bedroom setup, and it shows up in my country records.
ladberg 4y ago
The "entrenched players" are usually just other homeowners and the protections come in the form of zoning and incentives to not rebuild and/or relocate (prop 13).
TulliusCicero 4y ago
> Can you elaborate on the specific pieces and strands of red tape that are asking to be cut that don't impact safety? Sure, basically everything the US has that Japan doesn't have. Now, building regulations are often local in the US, so you can't generalize perfectly across the whole country. But for example, it's common to have planning boards that can block new construction for any reason, and community meetings where residents can raise any objection. The result of this can be residents complaining at meetings before development that a building is "too tall" (even though zoning allows that height), casts shadows, would impact parking or traffic, etc. and then the planning board will deny construction or force the developer to change plans based on those things. This is notoriously common in my native bay area, for example. In contrast, Japan has building regulations work like how laws are supposed to work: what's actually written in the code is the law, not what exists in the minds of nearby residents and planning officials.

yostrovs 4y ago

In the United States, a room must have a closet to be considered a bedroom. If you want to build cheap housing, one way to lower cost is to not to have a closet, something that matters in high density housing. But then you can't market your apartments as having N number of bedrooms. That's a non-safety regulation that's quite arbitrary since prior to about 100 years ago closets were very rare, but many of the houses from then still stand. Mine's master bedroom doesn't count as a bedroom, dropping the value of my house considerably.

dboreham 4y ago
Is this a national thing? I'd been told it varies by jurisdiction. It's also made up by the local realtors, iirc, not a government regulation.
InitialLastName 4y ago
> In the United States, a room must have a closet to be considered a bedroom. Source? I can't find any that confirm that using actual codes (at least on a national scale), and many (from sellers and lenders, no less) that rebut it [0][1], nor do I see it in the FHA housing policy handbook [2, PDF]. It's possible that real estate businesses customarily don't let you market bedrooms without closets, but that's not regulation. [0] https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/what-qualifies-as-a-bedroom https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/what-qualifies-as-a-bed... [1] https://www.realtor.com/advice/sell/what-is-a-bedroom-features/ https://www.realtor.com/advice/sell/what-is-a-bedroom-featur... [2] https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/SFH_POLI_APPR_PROP.PDF https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/SFH_POLI_APPR_PROP.PDF
- yostrovs 4y ago
  I may be wrong about the regulation of this, but in effect that's the case. Maybe it's what realtors consider bedrooms, but that's how our house was listed when we bought it and three different unrelated realtors told us the same. If my example doesn't count, how about from the first link you provided: "A bedroom must be accessible from at least one common point in the house such as a hallway or living room. In most cases, a room cannot be considered a bedroom if it is only accessible through another bedroom in the home." This doesn't seem like a safety regulation, but a matter of what is considered appropriate these days - people shouldn't be walking through a bedroom on the way somewhere else.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    > in effect that's the case. When it's private organizations agreeing to rules about what they will or will not advertise as a bedroom for the purposes of commercial communication, that's called "capitalism" not regulation. To your other point, not all regulations have to be about safety to be valid. Preventing what is effectively false advertising ("bedroom" has a presumption of privacy for the inhabitant that is belied by having to traverse another person's private space) seems like a valid use of regulation. You can still sell the house, and a buyer can still observe that the room is usable as a bedroom, but you can't advertise the house as having a bedroom that a reasonable person wouldn't consider such.
mh- 4y ago
This isn't true. There is no national standard to this effect, nor do most (like 46-47) of the states require it. Some municipalities might - I couldn't find any data in a few minutes of googling.
flerchin 4y ago
Maybe in your jurisdiction, not in mine. I have the same master bedroom setup, and it shows up in my country records.

ladberg 4y ago

The "entrenched players" are usually just other homeowners and the protections come in the form of zoning and incentives to not rebuild and/or relocate (prop 13).

TulliusCicero 4y ago

> Can you elaborate on the specific pieces and strands of red tape that are asking to be cut that don't impact safety? Sure, basically everything the US has that Japan doesn't have. Now, building regulations are often local in the US, so you can't generalize perfectly across the whole country. But for example, it's common to have planning boards that can block new construction for any reason, and community meetings where residents can raise any objection. The result of this can be residents complaining at meetings before development that a building is "too tall" (even though zoning allows that height), casts shadows, would impact parking or traffic, etc. and then the planning board will deny construction or force the developer to change plans based on those things. This is notoriously common in my native bay area, for example. In contrast, Japan has building regulations work like how laws are supposed to work: what's actually written in the code is the law, not what exists in the minds of nearby residents and planning officials.