Q&A: Accommodating the handicapped is not only the law but also the right thing to do

QUESTION: I’m a dedicated long-term board director with industry certificates thanking me for outstanding membership in the community. As president I pride myself on being fair, but the board is receiving too many accommodation demands by people claiming to be disabled. People are using their “disabled” status to gain advantages that don’t relate to their handicaps.

Continuous demands for frivolous accommodations are wasting board time and association resources, which is why many truly disabled owners are being denied their rights. Using a disability as an excuse to demand concessions that have nothing to do with a disability creates animosity in our community. First, someone wants a wheelchair ramp, then handrails, wider doors, handicapped parking, etc. It never ends. Residents complain that accommodations change the ambience of our planned community and the needs of a few are dominating all the rest of us.

Parking spaces are pre-assigned so there’s no need for handicapped spaces. The objective of handicapped parking is to allow persons with limited mobility to exit a wheelchair-equipped vehicle or have the shortest possible walking distance between their home and parking. If they’ve been driven, a caretaker guides the distance needed to walk. The same goes for the textured yellow cutouts we cut into our sidewalks at street corners; it assumes a blind person will somehow drive themselves to the parking space and require a touch-sensitive walkway to find their way to the street. This is absurd. If someone drove them there, that person is certainly capable of guiding them to the door.

There is no benefit to the blind in having a handicapped parking space as there’s no possibility they will be driving by themselves and there’s no guarantee another handicapped person will not park there. A caretaker of a disabled person does not need a disabled parking space! What do I have to do to get this across to our owners?

ANSWER: Being an “outstanding member of your community” is not a substitute for expertise in evaluating disability accommodations and medical conditions. Although you may be a dedicated board director, there are benefits to sensitivity training. It is the association’s legal obligation and the board’s duty to comply with modification and accommodation requests for physically impaired residents and employees. Interfering with obligations imposed by federal and state law can create a liability for the association you purport to dutifully serve.

Facilities, including developments and associations that may have received any federal funds, are subject to accessibility laws and, even if no federal funds were obtained, these guidelines offer a blueprint for compliance. For example, pedestrian-facility design must comply with standards in the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. Title II of the ADA also requires “effective communications” with persons with disabilities.

The U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration recognize people have differing physical abilities. They have published guidelines about how to construct sidewalks that take into account how the aged, handicapped and others navigate their way with varying agility, balance, hearing and vision, among other things.

For example, a manual wheelchair provides easy mobility on flat, firm, obstacle-free surfaces, but it’s difficult to maneuver on stairs, steep grades, cross slopes and uneven transition points like where a sidewalk meets a street. Both powered and manual wheelchairs can become very unstable and difficult to control on sloped surfaces. Every association should be concerned about wet, icy or snow-covered walkways and ramps, as they have little or no slip resistance, making them even more dangerous without handrails.

How does the inclusion of a wheelchair ramp or nonskid surface change the “ambience” and “character” of your planned community? The textured yellow warning pads at street corners you criticize help the visually impaired to recognize an intersection and assist anyone in a wheelchair to slow down and not lose control, ending up in traffic.

A method of gaining better understanding of the needs of the handicapped is through sensitivity training. Such training can include disability-simulated situations, such as navigating throughout the day while wearing a blindfold or being confined in a wheelchair to experience its limitations while maneuvering around sidewalks. Training will also make you aware of “invisible disabilities,” those which are not readily identifiable to the able-bodied person. Disability awareness training should be made available to all board directors.

Generally, even if a disabled resident has assistance, it is reasonable to allow for accommodations, such as specially marked parking spaces. Every resident is entitled to ingress and egress from their unit, and handicapped spaces do not detract from other residents’ use and enjoyment of property; it merely evens the circumstances. Why make things more difficult?

Zachary Levine, a partner at Wolk & Levine, a business and intellectual property law firm, co-wrote this column. Vanitzian is an arbitrator and mediator. Send questions to Donie Vanitzian, JD, P.O. Box 10490, Marina del Rey, CA 90295 ornoexit@mindspring.com