A new City Council bill that will be introduced Monday will require homes built with public funds to be handicap accessible.
All new dwellings, including single family homes, will have to comply with building specifications mandated by the U.S. American With Disabilities Act. The bill?s sponsor, Council member Robert Curran D- 3rd District said that any builders getting financial help from the city, state of federal government will have to make new city dwellings user friendly for disabled residents.
“There are a lot of disabled people in the city who need accessible housing,” Curran said. “If you use any sort of public money, you have to make the house ADA complaint.”
Public assistance, Curran said, means not only money but land grants or payments in lieu of taxes.
“If you build a house privately, you could build whatever you want, but any sort of public assistance means you have to accommodate handicapped people” Curran said
ADA compliant means wheelchair accessible ramps, entrances without steps, and wide doors. The bill is a part of five year effort by the Mayor?s Commission on Disability to craft legislation to help city home builders comply with the federal law.
Luciene Parsley, a staff lawyer for Maryland Disability Law Center, said the bill is long overdue. “I think it?s a great idea working with low income people with disabilities looking for accessible housing, with our age housing stock it?s very difficult.”
Parsely said that Baltimore City has a higher percentage of people using wheelchairs than almost any city in the country, and has a similarly high number of people with other types of physical limitations that can make getting up and down the stairs of an old row house difficult:
“The number of people [with] mobility impairments is very high in the city, I deal with handicapped people all the time who can?t find housing” she said.
According to Curran, exemptions will include be projects that are already in the process of getting approval, and buildings being remodeled. “We?re not saying that people that have drawings on the board have to do this,” Curran said.
