My thought initial is: "Why would they have to be changed back? A wider
door makes a facility useable by more people, not less, so once it's
been done, the pool of potential renters is permanently expanded.
Question I wonder is how many units are in the apartment complex,
because from an economic standpoint, it makes sense to have improved
accessibility, especially in larger buildings. The greater the number
of units in either a transient housing facility (hotel, motel) or a
"permanent" housing facility (apartments) make it more difficult for an
owner to prove undue hardship.
The "without much cost or expense" or "undue hardship" provisions are so
vague as to render the law considerably less useful than it should be.
I'm frankly surprised that a large retail corporation hasn't used that
vagueness in challenges to the law.
Section 36.304 of the ADA addresses removal of barriers in places of
public accommodation, which includes rental housing:
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/reg3a.html#Anchor-91481
People refer to the ADA as the most important piece of civil rights
legislation for people with disabilities in the last twenty years, but
if the '64 civil rights act had been written the same way, there'd still
be separate drinking fountains for non-white people.
Kendall
An unreasonable man (but my wife says that's redundant!)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 10:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Accessibility in apartments
I think the apartment management had legal grounds for denying my
request
to widen
the doorways to the back bathroom and closet because doing so would be
modifying
structures that can't be easily changed back and the apartment complex
was
built
in the early 1980s, so it's "grandfathered" anyway.
In any case, I can easily get about the flat and that's the important
thing. It'd
be a lot harder if I couldn't reach to the back of the stove or get out
of
my
wheelchair to reach the upper cabinets.
Kat
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Joy Welan [log in to unmask]
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:22:25 -0500
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Accessibility in apartments
Discrimination includes--
(A) a refusal to permit, at the expense of the handicapped person,
reasonable modifications of existing premises occupied or to be
occupied by such person if such modifications may be necessary to
afford such person full enjoyment of the premises except that, in the
case of a rental, the landlord may where it is reasonable to do so
condition permission for a modification on the renter agreeing to
restore the interior of the premises to the condition that existed
before the modification, reasonable wear and tear excepted.
(C) in connection with the design and construction of covered
multifamily dwellings for first occupancy after the date that is 30
months after September 13, 1988, a failure to design and construct
those dwellings in such a manner that--
(i) the public use and common use portions of such dwellings are
readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons;
(ii) all the doors designed to allow passage into and within all
premises within such dwellings are sufficiently wide to allow passage
by handicapped persons in wheelchairs; and
(iii) all premises within such dwellings contain the following
features of adaptive design:
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