Accessible housing issues

[IronDev]

I think one issue with these smaller apartment (say basement to level 3) or really, something like even small 6-unit apartment has to have these accessibility rules. This also includes powered doors for entrance and exits. The reality is, that ‘affordable’ housing used to include small apartment dwellings, that can no longer be built unless they fulfill new building code. While these rules are good, they haven’t help when it comes to affordable housing, nor the building of smaller apartment units. And to be honest, I haven’t seen anything like this being built in years.

Wait, is that really true? A 4 story apartment building with 8 apartments (2 on the “basement” level, a half story below grade) has to have the apartments accessible? If true that is appalling. Not every apartment in the city needs to be accessible.

There is a reason why every (new) commercial establishment needs to be accessible. Actually two reasons which work together: (1) if it’s not that way then having a mobility disability becomes a severe handicap and (2) it’s not that expensive to make it happen. Especially nowadays when most retail is single-story, it’s trivial to make sure there isn’t a gratuitous step at the entrance; in many cases the accessibility code is really just something we can point at when somebody does something stupid to insist they fix it.

But in residential real estate, it’s entirely different. A huge fraction of the population has no problem at all climbing a couple of flights of stairs, and requiring them to pay for accessibility is a severe infringement on their rights, specifically their right to house themselves.

But back to the original question, is that really true?

On the other hand I know of at least one unthinking “accessibility” requirement (or at least I assume it’s a requirement): new townhouse complexes typically have designated disability parking spots. These are obviously a good idea for commercial establishments; we give people with lower mobility the best spots near the door. But in a townhouse complex, visitors who need good parking should just be allowed to park in the driveway of the specific unit they are visiting; the owner can park in visitor. It does not make sense to reduce the amount of normally useable visitor parking by designating a random few spots as disability spots.

It is true! https://www.ontario.ca/page/accessibilit...lding-code

15% of units in a new multi-res building have to be barrier-free, this is rounded down. So an 8 unit building would require 1.2 BF units (which rounds down to 1)