Issue: Vertical accessibility to all rows of seats in an auditorium/lecture hall.
Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility to all rows of seats in a new, 249 seat auditorium which is part of a $77,170,000 museum complex composed of a four story contemporary art museum, gallery space education space, administration and parking. The auditorium, as designed, has five accessible seating locations with companion seats located at the front and rear of the facility. According to the applicant, a constructing a series of ramps to make all levels accessible would increase the footprint by fifty percent.
NOTE: Five seats are permissible using the new federal guidelines; however, the ratio specified in Chapter 11, FBC, requires six.
Project Progress:
The project is under design and in plan review.
Items to be Waived:
Vertical accessibility to all rows of seats, as required by Chapter 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.