Cohousing-L Mailing List: ADA, commercial, and common house

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

In Port Townsend Washington, RoseWind's common house was classified by 
the building department as A-3, the broadest classification of assembly 
place, rather like a church (vs movie theater, school, and other more 
restrictive slots). 

We had seen plans for another group's common house which seemed to be 
bending over backwards not to be classified as public: the kitchen was 
described as a "warming kitchen" for potlucks, the kid or rec room was 
called a meditation room, etc. But they had a rather private location, I 
think. Here, we are very much in the public eye, and we needed to play by 
the rules. 

Kitchen: We are not required by the Health Dept to be "certified" but we 
installed most of what would allow us to get that certification if we 
later wanted it. However, there were some surprises. For example, it's ok 
for us NOT to have a grease trap under our dishwasher, but if we DO, they 
want it plumbed in under the spray table, not after the dishwasher, where 
our plumber put it. So it's ok not to have one, but not ok to have one 
where it won't "do its job" (you figure, how it does its job when it 
doesn't exist).

ADA: Both our bathrooms have to comply, with specified placement of 
fixtures, 5 ft wheelchair turning circle, door-approach zone, heat shield 
under sink around pipes, wingy faucet handles, grab bars. At yesterday's 
inspection, they decided we needed Braille bathroom signs, and a 
wheelchair accessible fire extinguisher, as well as numerous handicap 
signs around the outside of the building, indicating entries and exits. 

As a public building, we need panic hardware on the doors, certain fire 
extinguishers and exit signage. We also were required to build stronger 
floors! At first they wanted us to about double the strength of the 
floors, but were talked out of it. Harder was to talk them out of their 
initial requirement of four bathrooms. But by changing the "exercise" 
room to a "recreation" room and a few other bits of semantics, they were 
willing to back off to two lavs, presumably abundant for our needs. 

Entry ramps for ADA. Plus the public-building bit requires some 
fire/panic egress lanes be kept clear, as well as requiring ADA exits 
besides the front door main entry. Handicap parking slot in the common 
house lot, access ramp connecting to path from there. 

So the expenses were ramps, panic hardware, fire extinguishers, bathroom 
fixtures and more space there, and signage. 

We don't have a bath or shower. When we were looking at a two-story plan 
we learned that the most affordable sort of elevator is what's called a 
wheelchair lift: like a 5x5 elevator.
 Some years back, it ran about $20,000. 

Lynn Nadeau RoseWind Cohousing Port Townsend WA
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