Issue: Vertical accessibility to the second floor of a sorority house.
Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility to the existing second floor of a sorority house undergoing a $988,740 addition. The scope of the project includes the addition of a new chapter room, accessible sleeping rooms and toilet facilities on the main level. According to the applicant, all features provided on the second floor are duplicated on the first. If a shaft and elevator equipment room were added, it would reduce the number of parking spaces available as well as jeopardizing a 41” heritage oak the group is trying to preserve.
Project Progress:
The project is under design.
Items to be Waived:
Vertical accessibility to the second 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.