They are huge pain in the ass, I am intimately familiar. Do you think public buildings (I'm personally fine with people doing whatever they want with their own property, provided they disclose it when they sell/transfer) would be more or less safe if building codes did not exist? Aside from that, if building codes did exist and were voluntary, do you believe developers of public buildings would follow them?
I can tell by the way you phrased this that you're thinking about this fairly narrowly. You're perhaps thinking "If GFI circuits were not required, we would not have them, and therefore buildings would be less safe". So in your mind (perhaps), it is a classic money vs. safety question, and I think you tend to land toward the "safety at any cost" end of the spectrum.
It's an impossible question to answer, here's why.
First, you and I have no idea what kinds of innovations these codes prevent. Creating a new system to implement in a house requires getting it tested and registered as compliant with building code. We have no idea, and no way of knowing, what has been abandoned in the face of that hurdle. Likewise completely unclear is what costs are added to housing to maintain compliance with code. Certainly we know that there are construction delays for inspections. And code includes things that are not safety related - like requiring outlets every 3 inches along the wall, leading to roughly 6000 outlets in each room. So we're adding cost to construction projects for non-safety items and safety items alike due to building codes. What is the financial AND safety cost associated with increased housing prices? But we have to keep in mind as well that the price increase is only for new construction and remodels.
Another wrinkle here is that codes are grandfathered. In my house in California I was not required to have smoke detectors in every room because the house was built in the 1960s. Changing code has
zero impact on that existing structure. When I moved in, the house had one smoke detector. When I moved out, the house had smoke detectors in every room and CO detectors as well. Not because code required it, but because I wanted it.
Likewise I caught a bunch of construction problems that city inspectors didn't when buying a new construction house.
Code is also a downward pressure on remodeling. "Well, if you update this kitchen, remove that Asbestos, and fix that spaghetti wiring in your attic, you'll have to run a ton of new GFI and arc fault circuits to your breaker, and we have to add 16,000 outlets, and they all have to be child protection outlets". And suddenly you're
not updating that kitchen because of the added cost.
And of course the child protection outlets are hazards for adults as well. While they might prevent kid deaths, they increase risk to the kids' parents, because the outlets promote a more invasive grab of the plug so that you can force it into the outlet, leading to an increased risk of electric shock. But of course when you have 6000 outlets per inch, you end up needing them to be very safe because they're every direction your baby carries his fork. Likewise I
need that GFI circuit because my outlets are required to be essentially under running water, because what if someone wanted to plug something in next to the sink faucet.
So it's a mixed bag. I imagine that the answer to your question is "yes and no".
I'm not sure I understand you here. I'm referring to, basically, urban planning.
You can
buy a contract on a group of homes. You just offer people money, and get them to sign away some of the rights on their property
in exchange for money. What the city does with zoning is essentially eminent domain. And zoning gets changed more for how much money the buyer is willing to bring in to the city than it is for any other reason. Right now there is a zoning debate near me where a multi-national company wants to build a campus that is beyond the zoning for the land, and with the number of jobs and cash they're willing to bring to the city, the zoning change sailed through. That's basically
lobbying at a local level. The zoning derestriction goes to the company willing to pay for it. I would rather that the property owner was the one being bribed.
How do you feel about the Americans with Disabilities Act? I'm just curious.
Same way I feel about zoning, building codes, and taxes.
Edit:
When you ask yourself, does Danoff want government to do this, just remember that Danoff is asking himself "would I point a gun at someone and make them do this".
