Common house building code classification
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 21:20:44 -0600 (MDT)
Please read and comment, if you have a common house built, or permitted:

Permit classifications for Common House:

We are in negotiations with the City planning and building department, 
building inspectors, about the degree to which our common house is a 
"public" or "commercial" building, with all the code-compliance issues 
which this raises. 

We are being classified as what in Washington's Building Code is called 
A3, which is the simplest sort of "assembly" building. 

We are a community of 24 households, several of which are households of 
one person, and only a few of which have children, so our total 
population, when our last few lots are occupied, will be around 50. Our 
common house is about 2700 sq ft, on a single level, with a great room 
(dining room/lounge), kitchen, kid room, rec room, entry foyer, and two 
ADA bathrooms. 

We are being told we'll have to double the usual support-strength of our 
footings (maybe they think we are training elephants as a side line), 
have panic hardware on all our doors to the outside, have FOUR bathrooms, 
total ADA compliance (beyond the ADA bathrooms, entrance, hallways, 
doorways, that we already have), and I don't know what all else. Some of 
the requests (like 4 bathrooms) defy common sense and impact our budget 
and space. Others, like panic hardware everywhere, will add costs and 
make things look more institutional than home-like. 

I have seen at least one common house plan where there was deliberately 
misleading labelling, to tilt things in the non-public direction -- the 
kitchen was called a "warming kitchen for occasional potlucks", the kid 
room was called an exercise or meditation room, with the explanation that 
it might be used by just a few people at a time, etc. We cannot do that, 
as we are very much in a fish bowl-- whatever we do is seen and known by 
everyone in town who has any interest in the matter. So we need to be 
straightforward. 

What happened in your case? What advice can you offer to get the building 
department to see this as the "clubhouse for residents" that it is 
intended to be? Any input will be appreciated, and sooner is better!

Thanks, Lynn at RoseWind Cohousing

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.