United Spinal has been working with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to develop a code proposal within the 2010 supplement to the International Building Code (IBC) and the International Existing Building Code (IEBC) to require dwelling units undergoing significant alterations to comply with the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines. The proposal will be heard during ICC’s Code Development Hearings in Baltimore on October 24th – November 11th.
The Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines required that apartment buildings with four or more units built for first occupancy on or after March 13, 1991 provide features that can be easily adapted to accommodate a person with a disability within the apartment including accessible parking, entrances, interior accessible routes, kitchens and bathrooms. The Guidelines also required accessibility to public and common use areas provided.
United Spinal’s Accessibility Services team works with residential developers across the country that have been targeted for lawsuits for not complying with these federal accessibility guidelines. While the Guidelines do not require compliance in alterations to existing dwelling units, if the Building Code referenced by the majority of jurisdictions in the country required that dwelling units undergoing alterations comply with the Type B (or Fair Housing) requirements of A117.1, accessibility violations that have existed since 1991 could have been corrected and costly litigation could have been avoided.
Compliance would only be triggered when alterations impact 50% or more of the residential building (Level III alterations) or if a change of occupancy takes place. The proposal also includes an exception sparing residential projects that would have qualified for HUD’s site impracticality exception (are located on sites with unyielding slopes).
United Spinal’s Accessibility Services team applies their experience in developing accessibility requirements, like Chapter 10 of the A117.1 standard that HUD has declared as a “safe harbor” for compliance with the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines, in working with residential developers throughout the country.
