Healey signed a single-stair executive order. The bill on the same subject never reported
Healey signed a single-stair executive order. The bill on the same subject never reported
2026-09-10 · Massachusetts · Regulation · Pending — not yet law
Pending. Massachusetts is studying whether to permit single-stair residential buildings above three storeys — a technical question that determines what kind of mid-rise condominium can be built or converted in the state.
Governor Healey signed an executive order in February 2026, catalogued as Executive Order No. 651, Facilitating Safe and Affordable Single-Stair Multifamily Residential Buildings.1
What the order does
- Creates a Technical Advisory Group — fire services, building officials, national architecture experts, accessibility advocates and public safety representatives
- Charges it with evaluating whether and how single-stair residential buildings above three storeys can be safely permitted
- Requires a final report to the Governor and Lieutenant Governor within 12 months of the order's effective date
What it does not do
It mandates nothing. Abundant Housing Massachusetts, a participant, states that the order “does not force or mandate that the single stair code change be adopted.” A building code amendment would still be required, through the State Board of Building Regulations and Standards.
The bill that went nowhere
A parallel legislative vehicle, H.4699, An Act to study single-stair residential buildings — a new draft of H.1542 reported by the Joint Committee on Housing, carrying a $250,000 appropriation and a report due 31 July 2026 — was referred to House Ways and Means on 6 November 2025 and never emerged. No report was filed.2
Why this is condominium news
Because mid-rise buildings are overwhelmingly condominium product in Massachusetts, and the second stair is one of the things that determines whether a mid-rise pencils at all.
A second means of egress consumes floor area on every storey, forces double-loaded corridors, and pushes buildings toward a footprint that does not fit the narrow urban lots that make up much of Boston, Cambridge and Somerville. Single-stair buildings, common in much of Europe and permitted in some U.S. jurisdictions, allow point-access blocks: fewer, larger units per floor, cross-ventilation, and buildable footprints on lots that currently support nothing above three storeys.
The consequence for this audience is straightforward: what gets built as new condominium stock, and what an existing building can be converted into, depends on this rule.
The safety question, stated fairly
The objection is not obstruction. A single stair is a single point of failure in a fire, and the compensating measures — full sprinklering, pressurised stairs, compartmentation, limits on units per floor and on travel distance, additional fire-department access — are the substance of what a technical advisory group has to work out. Fire service representatives are on the group for that reason.
For a condominium association the compensating measures are the operative part, because they are ongoing obligations rather than one-time design decisions. A building permitted on the basis of a sprinkler system and pressurised stairs is a building whose association must maintain, test and document them — in perpetuity, through volunteer board turnover.
Where this sits among everything else moving
Massachusetts has, in eighteen months, made mid-rise residential construction easier in several ways and harder in others:
- Easier: Chapter 137 of the Acts of 2026 made alterations to dimensionally nonconforming structures available as of right in many cases, replaced the variance standard with “practical difficulty,” and doubled the zoning freeze to 24 months.
- Easier: the ADU by-right provisions, in force since 2 February 2025.
- Harder: the Specialized Code at 225 CMR 23.00, requiring Passive House compliance for multifamily buildings over 12,000 square feet in opt-in municipalities.
- Harder: the Tenth Edition state building code, mandatory since the Ninth Edition option expired on 30 June 2025.
- Unresolved: single stair.
The other forward vehicle, still alive
The economic development bill remains in conference and can still be enacted in a formal session at any point through 5 January 2027, because conferees were appointed before the 31 July 2026 deadline. The House passed its version 148 to 2 on 8 July 2026 (over $500 million authorised); the Senate passed its version on 23 July 2026 ($575.4 million).3
Housing provisions in play include by-right multifamily on religious-institution land, by-right duplexes wherever single-family is allowed outside Boston, a statewide site plan review framework, permit extensions, and $50 million for commercial-to-housing conversion — which matters here because commercial-to-residential conversion is the single largest new source of condominium creation in Massachusetts.
Nothing in either chamber's version amends c. 183A or addresses condominium governance. This is development legislation, not condominium legislation.
What to watch next
The Technical Advisory Group's report, due within twelve months of the February 2026 order — so, on its face, by early 2027 — and then whether the State Board of Building Regulations and Standards takes it up. A report is not a code change, and the gap between the two is where this kind of initiative usually stalls.
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