We recently stumbled upon an interesting article posted on myparkingsign.com entitled, “The ADA, FHA, and apartment buildings: your disabled parking rights“. We found the leading sentence apropos: “For people living with disabilities, accessible parking is absolutely critical, particularly when they live in an apartment building and parking is scarce.”
As an architect specializing in ADA compliance for buildings and sites for the last 21 years, I have written many opinions on this subject. Here’s my quick take:
- Section 208.2.3 says comply with 208.2.3; and the key word from that table is MINIMUM. Minimum number of required accessible parking spaces. Bottom line, if all the accessible parking spaces are full, it is the opinion of ACCESS that management is required to provide more, period!
- There is no grandfathering in the ADA.
- In the opinion of ACCESS, Requirement 1 – Accessible Building Entrance on an Accessible Route and Requirement 2 – Accessible and Usable Public and Common Use Areas; from the Fair Housing Act are not the jurisdiction of ANSI A117.1, but the jurisdiction of the ADA because both the Fair Housing Act and the ADA are Federal Civil Rights Law. Whereas both ANSI A117.1 and ADAAG are the same only ADAAG is written by the Architectural and Transportation Barrier Compliance Board, the guidelines for the “safe harbor” for design and construction to be in compliance with the ADA. The Fair Housing Amendments Act is a 1988 document, the Americans with Disabilities Act is a 1990 document. So, in the opinion of ACCESS, the ANSI A117.1-1986 got replaced by Appendix B ADA Accessibility of 1991. ACCESS will be litigating this matter in Federal Court in 2015.