Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: common house permitting and Cities

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend Washington
Our 2800 sf common house is ADA accessible, to the extent indicated by the 
building codes. We have ramp to front porch, ADA lavatories (2). But we were 
not expected to have ADA kitchen. For common sense reasons, including 
accessibility, we have a low end on our kitchen prep island, useful for 
anyone sitting, also for children, and for a short-ish person like me who is 
kneading bread, using the electric mixer, etc. A person in a wheelchair 
could not however use everything in the CH kitchen, in terms of upper 
cabinets, microwave, back burners etc. But one is typically cooking with 
others, so different people do different things, anyway. 

We were classed "public" but not "commercial". I believe it was N-1, but I 
could be wrong: it was the broadest category of public gathering place, akin 
to a church parish hall. Our kitchen is not required to be commercial or 
certified. 

We had to argue our way out of having to have 4 (!) bathrooms. They figured 
it based on the square footage for various functions. We found that it made 
a difference, for example, to call it an Exercise Room, vs a Rec Room. A 
couple other adjustments like that - all truthful, still - and we were down 
to two lavatories, each unisex and ADA. And they have been quite adequate 
for even our largest events. 

We had to respect fire requirements, for egress corridors, exit signs, 
power-outage floodlight thing, fire extinguishers, posted occupancy max. But 
nothing that didn't make some sense. 

The only other struggle had to do with getting out of a requirement for some 
sort of incredibly reinforced floor. We did prevail on that. Not training 
elephants in there or anything. 

It helped that we had a generally helpful building department at the City. 

Lynn Nadeau
PS It was fun to see some of you at the Seattle Art of Communities 
conference: wow was that wonderful! Consensus panel with Caroline Estes, 
Laird Schaub, and Tree Bressen. Portland City Repair slideshow with Mark 
Lakeman. And so much more. All-Star...