ENGINEERING BUILDING II

Issue: Vertical accessibility to all rows of seats in a tiered lecture hall.

Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility to all rows of seats in an 80 seat lecture hall that is undergoing an alteration. The four required wheelchair seating locations are located in the back row with adjacent companion seating. Three of the four companion seats are fixed, while the fourth would allow a moveable chair. The project will cost $890,000, and according to the applicant it would be technically infeasible to ramp all levels or provide individual lifts because of the space constraints imposed by the lecture hall’s existing walls.

Project Progress:

The project is under construction.

Items to be Waived:

Vertical accessibility to all rows of seats, as required by Section 553.509d, 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.