EMOTIONS AP LLC-HOTEL/ROOMING HOUSE

Issue: Vertical accessibility to one unit on the second floor.

Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility to one room on the second floor of a five unit hotel/rooming house. The four ground level units are on an accessible path of travel and one is being altered to be fully accessible. According to the applicant, the building is historic, but no documentation was submitted. The alteration will cost $31,275 and a $41,450 estimate for an installation of a LULA was provided to substantiate the applicant’s assertion of disproportionate cost.

Project Progress:

The project is under construction.

Items to be Waived:

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.