The disability group Not Dead Yet has a new website, which you can visit here. Give it a look!
'HC fixtures not required at this time'
On a recent walk past the newly-constructed building at 2836 Frankfort Ave., I saw this building permit in the window of what is going to become an upscale wine shop.
I stopped to read the thing.
The photo above shows the permit. The "Work Description" reads
Interior reno for "Taste Fine Wine & Spirits" Lodge 820 Live Work Design. All constr shall comply w/2007 KY Bldg Code.
It goes on to discuss various requirements:
1st Time Tenant Existing Sprinklers & 2 HR fire separation walls shall be maintained" and "New restrm off private office shall have HC floor space provided."
Well, well, well," I thought, "here it is right in the permit, where they are requiring new buildings to have an accessible restroom."
Or . . . not.
The sentence continues, "but HC fixtures" -- that's "handicap fixtures," in their lingo, aka accessible fixtures -- "are not required at this time."
Here's a photo that shows a closeup of this wording.
Oh well. So close, but no cigar. Or, in this case, no real access.
One wonders why the heck IPL is requiring a "HP restrm" but without "HP fixtures." It's how they interpret the KY Building Code, no doubt. It's a crabbed and venal interpretation, and from all I've heard in the past, they are remarkably unwilling to change their approach.
New report from AARP gives weight to visitability
As I noted yesterday, the AARP has come out with a new report on visitability.
Increasing Home Access: Designing for Visitability was put together by Concrete Change founder Eleanor Smith and the folks at the University of Buffalo's IDEA Center -- the two national expert sources on visitability. The fact that AARP has embraced the concept should give this very important trend the push it needs. It is a trend that's far too slow in coming!
I'd like to see Louisville get behind the visitability movement. Even with the economic downturn, new houses go up all the time. It would be great if, like Pima County, Arizona, these homes could have at least one no-step entrance and a bathroom on the ground-level floor that visitors in wheelchairs can use. Those are 2 of the 3 simple requirements of "visitability." The other is also a no-brainer: Doorways and halls wide enough to get through in a wheelchair.
Visitability makes USAToday news
After a 3-month summer hiatus, I'm baaacccckkk!
Today's blog isn't about Louisville access, though -- but about housing access nationwide.
USAToday reports on the trend toward 'visitability' in a news story published today.
Almost 60 state and local governments have passed initiatives — some mandatory but most voluntary — asking all builders to include at least three features in new houses to help seniors and the disabled: no steps at the entrance, a bathroom on the ground floor and wider doorways.
These, of course, are the 3 keystones of visitability.
USAToday's story was prompted by AARP's new study on visitability, which I'll link to when it becomes available on its site.
It's interesting to read the comments to the article as well. The first few are of the "bravo!" variety:
...[P]eople friendly housing makes sense, and not just for the elderly, but for the middle age forty ish who may not want to admit that some things are not as easy as they used to be. Extra wide doorways, no step entryways, lever door hand handles and reinforced bathroom walls benifit us all. Furniture can be moved from room to room with relative ease, appliances can be wheeled into the when delivered instead of being bounced up the entry stair.
and
Accessible homes are not only for the elderly. There are children and younger adults with disabilities and countless veterans included. All homes should be built to accommodate wheelchairs. People have relatives, friends and other visitors who should be accommodated.
But then comment trollers found the story, and started yelling about "government mandates".
You can't get there from here
The sign tells the first part of this story: The "handicap" entrance to the Derby City Antique Mall is around back -- same area as the loading dock. The building was originally an old school -- used to be called Hikes Graded School in the old days. Now it's an antique mall. See all the steps at the front entrance?
* * *
Around back, way high up next to the door we see this sign:
And here's the entrance:
Ignore if you will, the dangerous grate. Ignore the steep ramp.You can't see it, you can only see the ledge next to it. But there is a ramp -- steep, but usable.
Except when you roll down to the doors -- they're locked.
"Flat" isn't the only issue with access
What's wrong with this picture? Looks like nothing's wrong. But looks can be deceiving.
I took this photo coming out of my polling place. It's a flat entrance. Once you get in, it's all flat. It's flat all the way to where you vote.
The problem? The doors. They are so incredibly heavy I had a really hard time opening them. When I went in, I held the door open for an older lady using a walker. She was "frail": no way she'd've been able to pull the door open.
And forget it if you in a wheelchair.
Is this polling site accessible? No.
But the officials certainly think it is.
Where is this? It's at a church; but it's such a typical problem that this photo could serve for countless other polling sites. When we talk about 'access' we need to consider what we really mean.
Missing
The ideas of access, of "universal design" or "visitability" are all but missing from the national discussion about building things. Here's just one example.
The New York Times hosts a lot of blogs; one is the "by design" blog, with blogger Allison Arieff. Arieff is
Editor at Large for Sunset, and the former Editor in Chief of Dwell magazine. She is co-author of the books “Prefab” and "Trailer Travel," and the editor of many books on design and popular culture, including “Airstream: The History of the Land Yacht” and “Cheap Hotels.” Ms. Arieff lives in San Francisco.
People in San Francisco should know about access. Berkeley, CA, just next door, is considered the home of the "independent living" movement -- the place where the disability rights movement of the 1980s really got its start. California has had some of the strongest access laws in the nation, and the oldest. So.
I searched Arieff's blog for entries about access. Nothing. I searched for "universal design"; for "accessiblity"; for "visitability"; finally, for just plain "disabled". Nothing.
Arieff's always going on about "green design". That's good. Everybody nowadays seems to go on about "green." Which is good. It's become a "trend."
But when will access ever become a trend?
A look at the tags on her blog let us know that she's into blogging about every conceivable trendy and near-trendy design issue:
Levittown Aeron agriculture Airstream Bill Stumpf cities coffee holder communities democratization droog design earth day efficiency energy efficiency farmland footprint future design gadgets Gio Ponti global footprint green buildings green design green living green schools greenwashing hospitals housing developments imagination industrial design innovation karim rashid Kermit the Frog Legos Little Boxes modern architecture neighborhoods niche markets obsolescence parking signs Peoples Design Award philippe starck Schoolhouse Rock sustainability sustainable prefab toys typography wellness
Nothing, though, about... access. Yeah, yeah, there's "wellness." That's not about access either.
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