Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Required handicap access to 2nd floor/elevator

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> > We'd like not to put in an elevator or even the shaft for future  
> > use.  Must we do this?  Are Common Houses typically treated like  
> > one's private home or a public building with required handicap  
> > features?  Thoughts and lessons learned?

You have to do this. Not just for inclusion of those who as of this  
moment may need it, but for all your residents and all their guests,  
forever.

And for your resales. There are two story condos selling for peanuts  
in Florida because they were built without elevators. This greatly  
reduces the number of people who can live in them -- not because they  
are handicapped (forever or at the moment) but because their friends  
are, or may be.

Once you live in a cohousing community this will be more obvious to  
you. Think about any building that lots of people use. If a party or  
dinner or community meeting was held in a room where no one could go  
if they had a broken a leg, needed to wheel a baby in a carriage, had  
arthritic knees, used a walker, etc., no party could be fully  
attended. In cohousing this would be deadly.

You can't build a community by automatically excluding some people or  
setting up the physical environment so it is hard to include them. You  
have a broken leg? Sorry, stay home til it gets better! Want to do   
your laundry, sorry, not here! If you don't have an elevator or a  
lift, only people who _never in their lives_ had any physical  
infirmity or injury would be able to live above (or below) the first  
floor.

 Two-story houses were popular when most people were dead before the  
age of 65. And they had large families so there was always a child  
around who could fetch and carry. And they didn't run around  
exercising so they weren't injuring themselves all the time.

Think about a person who was in a cast and on crutches for even 6  
weeks. Everyone's lives had to circle around where they could and  
couldn't go and was bringing them things all the time. Then multiply  
that by 65 (or so) people in your community who come up with all sorts  
of conditions. Or have to transport equipment and groceries and  
furniture up and down all those stairs. Get the elevator.

PLANNING

If you build a two story CH, how do  you design your community so the  
elevator becomes an asset that opens other possibilities. Having an  
elevator allows you to build up instead of out, for example. Units are  
more economical and you have more land for gardens and play areas and  
hammocks.

We are urban so we needed to maximize land use. The elevator allowed  
us to build 4 stories because our CH opens out on to the corridors  
that lead to those units. Our CH serves as a "lobby" for many. We also  
have town houses.

This is the direction I would go. What can the elevator do for you?  
They are expensive to install and to keep running but they are a  
godsend. We put in an electric door on our front door (one of our  
residents actually donated it) and the people who like it are not just  
those in wheelchairs for whom it was intended.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing,Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org