NAIL BAR

Issue: Vertical accessibility between two levels of a nail salon.

Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility between two levels of a nail salon undergoing an $8,000 alteration. The original business is located in a single bay of a strip shopping mall and is expanding to include the bay next door, which has a 16 inch difference in floor level. Each bay is 19 feet wide, and it would, therefore, be impossible to construct a ramp with the required 72 inches of end clearance in the available space. This would also encroach on the required means of egress. Estimates of $5,000-12,000 were submitted for installation of a lift between the two levels. Since there is no interior means of connecting the levels, patrons would have to go outside from one entrance to the other for access to the other side of the salon. An existing covered walkway with a slope less than 1:12 connects the two bays.

Project Progress:

The project is in plan review.

Items to be Waived:

Vertical access between two levels of a nail salon, as required by Section 553.509, Florida Statutes.

553.509 Vertical accessibility. Nothing in Sections 553.501-553.513 or the guidelines shall be construed to relieve the owner of any building, structure or facility governed by those sections from the duty to provide vertical accessibility to all levels above and below the occupiable grade level regardless of whether the guidelines require an elevator to be installed in such building, structure or facility, except for:

(1) Elevator pits, elevator penthouses, mechanical rooms, piping or equipment catwalks and automobile lubrication and maintenance pits and platforms;

(2) Unoccupiable spaces, such as rooms, enclosed spaces and storage spaces that are not designed for human occupancy, for public accommodations or for work areas; and

(3) Occupiable spaces and rooms that are not open to the public and that house no more than five persons, including, but not limited to equipment control rooms and projection booths.

Waiver Criteria: There is no specific guidance for a waiver of this requirement in the code. The Commission’s current rule, authorized in Section 553.512, Florida Statutes, provides criteria for granting waivers and allows consideration of unnecessary or extreme hardship to the applicant if the specific requirements were imposed.