Roundtable on ADA - legal requirements of Americans with Disabilities Act for building owners - Review and Forecast, Section III - Interview

Real Estate Weekly, June 24, 1992 by Therese Fitzgerald

Therese Fitzgerald for Real Estate Weekly: Our discussion will focus on the responsibilities of buildings owners in complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Title II of the act, for Public Accommodations and Commercial Buildings, went into effect Jan. 26 and there is still a lot of confusion in the property community. This exchange will concentrate on that portion of the law. We will also touch on Title I, Provisions for Employers, which goes into effect next month.

Let us begin by going the table and introducing ourselves.

Charles Rizzo, president Charles Rizzo & Associates: We are building and sidewalk consultants. I'm here representing Building Owners & Managers Association of Greater New York (BOMA). I chair the subcommittee for ADA.

Robert A. Kandel, Esq. of Kay, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler: We're attorneys, and I represent owners and tenants who are working through the issues presented by Title III, and also our firm represent people involved in Title I.

Neal I. Korval, Esq. of the law firm of Vedder, Price, Kaufman, Kammholz & Day: my specialty is in labor law, representing companies, both large and small, and we're trying to gear these companies up for implementation of Title I.

Architect Arthur Lasky, partner in Vandeberg & Lasky Architects: We've been trying to help owners and tenants as they try and figure out what the issues are involved with Title III.

Architect Raymond Ivy of Ted Moudis Associates: We've been involved with owners and tenants for Title III implementation.

Marolyn Davenport, vice president/ Regulatory Affairs, Real Estate Board of New York: We represent owners and building managers and have taken a very good look at the law and are trying to identify areas where we hope the Department of Justice will clarify things, and we're trying to assist our members with compliance.

Jim Weisman, Esq. attorney for the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association: We helped draft ADA and lobbied for it, and have been in the forefront of the accessibility movement for the last 15 years in our area.

Al Hagedorn, publisher of Real Estate Weekly.

Architect Steven Zirinsky: I have a small practice in New York.

REW: I thought we could start with a brief overview of the provisions of Title III.

Weisman: As of January 26 Title III requires existing buildings to remove barriers that impede access to the disabled. In one of the congressional committee reports on the bill, Congress estimated that 85 percent of existing barriers would not be removed, because, that which is removable has to be "readily achievable." Readily achievable means without great difficulty and expense, and that terminology is, unfortunately, vague. But, as applies to building owners, managers and tenants, I think it's less vague.

In addition to that, all new construction for places of public accommodation, has to be accessible. Basically, that's Title III. If the barrier can't be overcome alternative service must be provided in a place of public accommodation.

REW: And places of public accommodation are defined as?

Weisman: As just about anyplace the public can go, even if it's behind a controlled area. In other words, if you have to get past a receptionist to get to it, but you can get to it, it's still a place of public accommodation. In the private sector, employee-only areas are not places of public accommodation, but everyplace else would be. If you see customers or clients there, that would be a place of public accommodation.

Kandel: I'd add two components to this introduction. One, to focus on alterations of existing properties, where a slightly different standard applies, and that is you have to comply with ADA standards unless it would create undue hardship. In addition, there's the requirement that if you are altering a primary function area where there is a main activity of that particular space going on, for example - bank floor - you'd be obligated to spend up to 20 percent of the cost of the alteration to alter the path of travel to certain support services such as water fountains, bathrooms, telephones, and the like.

Weisman: As well as from the streets to the primary function area.

Kandel: And then the third area of Title II, of course, is new construction, in which you have some sort of structural impracticality before you are given an exemption.

Weisman: There's almost no exemption.

Long-Term Process

Kandel: Otherwise you're obligated to go out and build in accordance with the ADA standards. I think it's important to view the law, as Marolyn suggested earlier, as the statement of a long-term process, really a continuation of long-term process which I think started to get under way in the early 1970's. The government started to set forth standards for government projects, for housing, for other areas, for providing greater access to the general community to those people with disabilities. It's now reached its culmination, perhaps, in the ADA, in its application to private real estate, private holdings. In reaching it, it sets forth a vision for the next 20 or 25 years for the way in which buildings are to be redeveloped and brought up to whatever the then current design standards.