Omg. Thank you all so much for working on this!
(CC'ing Maureen & Yar who are planning to meet up with me & Tara Monday, to talk about our longer-term accessibility plan).
Fwiw I don't know if the keycard access is ADA-compliant or not. If I had to guess, I suspect it is compliant since folks swipe at grocery stores and other mandatory-accessible places -- and as long the swipe is not mounted too high up, which I don't think it is -- but, I've never looked into that specifically so I can't say for. Something to look up.
I can't think of anything non-compliant about having a locked door, openable by the electronic / swipe system. IE my understanding is, when the card is swiped, the throw is engaged and the door can be opened by just pushing down on the handle. The outstanding issue is likely the amount of force required to then open the door which last I checked was >5lb/pressure.
On this tip BTW I also went over this week and renewed our associated, recently expired electrical E permit that I realized would have also prevented us from finalling this B permit (I think we forgot to extend the electrical with the building permit so it expired, cost to renew: $205) so now there is no block in that respect either..
Our new/old E permit for the record:
Yay, the signs arrived? Joe, that's great! I don't think I ever heard back as to whether they were ordered so I'm relieved to hear it -
Re: fulfilling the entryway accessibility requirements in general, first it might be a good idea to briefly skim the B permit's accessibility worksheet as submitted (quick):
Some things on this worksheet we're not gonna do right now, like the kickplate for example -- since, even if we have it on hand (which I think we do?) installation makes little sense to me at least without the automatic opener it's supposed to activate -- while installing a nonfunctional button like this would actually open us up to increased liability, compared to not having it..
But hopefully the signage will allow us to schedule the final inspection, close our sole open complaint and then finally be done with it :)
It should be said though that, since as I understand it, we will now have accessibility signage outside advertising the corner door an accessible entrance, we are at significantly increased risk of accessibility or code complaint, since the corner door is not yet actually legally accessible.
The most noticeable aspects being: last I checked:
..still >5lb opening pressure for the wider door,
..>2% grade in the front landing, and
..the sidelight door is also very hard to open (i think the closer is mis-adjusted for that smaller door)
Therefore, IMO with the signs up we really do have to make that door actually accessible ie install an automatic opener --
Earlier this year, I got a quote on that for materials & labor (primarily in order to help Mary Ann prepare for an accessibility grant):
The 'Open Sesame' opener listed in the above quote is $2800 -- half of that cost is labor, warranty, code compliance stuff. (The other stuff is to e.g. replace our residential platform lift with a commercial one, if the one jerry had stored for us is no longer available..) I do hear these openers break down all the time so it might be worth it but we should think about getting this done IMO.
To this end I would propose if we have any extra funds (such as from the excess ~$30K from the $1M stock donation?), we have these contractors out to install the opener and then we no longer need to worry about having a genuinely accessible front entrance since it will provide equivalent accommodation re: the opening force & exterior grade.
my 2c -
Thank you Joe!!
Best,
David