Issue: Vertical accessibility from the lobby to the first floor hotel rooms.
Analysis; The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility from the lobby of a hotel to guest rooms accessed by steps on the first floor level. The project is undergoing a $250,000 alteration and work done over the preceding three years brings its scope to $293,667. There is a passenger elevator from the lobby to accessible rooms located on the second floor. According to the applicant it would cost $78,581 for two chair lifts or $68,513 for two ramps to access the first floor.
Project Progress:
The project is in plan review.
Items to be Waived:
Vertical accessibility to the first floor, 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.