ADA Unisex restroom compensate for a non ADA multi user restroom

[FakeArchitect]

Hello,

In a fit out renovation, presently just a shell space. Can an adjacent ADA single user restroom compensate for a non ADA complaint multi user restroom that is with no circle, T shape clearance or even door clearance compliance? Restrooms are located adjacent, within 6' of each other. Is there any sort of clause that can let this slide?

Thanks

 

[Yikes]

You didn’t say where the project is located, but assuming you are referring solely to ADA Standards and not some additional local code, see 2010 ADAS 223.2 exception #1:

213.2 Toilet Rooms and Bathing Rooms. Where toilet rooms are provided, each toilet room shall comply with 603. Where bathing rooms are provided, each bathing room shall comply with 603.

EXCEPTIONS:

1. In alterations where it is technically infeasible to comply with 603, altering existing toilet or bathing rooms shall not be required where a single unisex toilet room or bathing room complying with 213.2.1 is provided and located in the same area and on the same floor as existing inaccessible toilet or bathing rooms.

 

[FakeArchitect]

@Yikes Appreciate the response and reference to code. Technically infeasible would be open to interpretation, lol. but the layout is entirely new/designed in an empty fit out space. The local code that would apply is TAS, I believe it says something along the same lines if I am not interpreting it completely wrong.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

@Yikes Appreciate the response and reference to code. Technically infeasible would be open to interpretation, lol. but the layout is entirely new/designed in an empty fit out space. The local code that would apply is TAS, I believe it says something along the same lines if I am not interpreting it completely wrong.

I don't find anything "lol" about accessibility or the ADA, and technically there isn't much open to interpretation about what "infeasible" means after the ADA has been in effect for more than three decades. Here's the definition, from the 2010 ADAS:



Here it is from the Texas Accessibility Standard:



Except for the advisory sentence at the end, in italics, the Texas definition is the same as the ADAS definition. If you are working in an open, empty space, pretty clearly nothing is "technically infeasible" according to this definition.

Overall, the Texas TAS follows the ADAS very closely.



The ADAS offers the following comment after section 213.2:



Same advisory comment in the TAS:



The bottom line is that you would have to demonstrate to the Department that you meet the definition of infeasible. I think there's no question that you do not.

 

[Yikes]

Please confirm “yes” or “no’ to each of the following:
1. Your proposed project is an interior alteration within an existing structure, like a tenant improvement.
2. The multi-user restrooms are already existing, either within the alteration space or elsewhere in the building.
3. If #2 is “yes”, the multi-user restrooms are not themselves proposed to undergo alteration.

See TAS 202.4.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

Please confirm “yes” or “no’ to each of the following:
1. Your proposed project is an interior alteration within an existing structure, like a tenant improvement.
2. The multi-user restrooms are already existing, either within the alteration space or elsewhere in the building.
3. If #2 is “yes”, the multi-user restrooms are not themselves proposed to undergo alteration.

See TAS 202.4.

See post #3

... the layout is entirely new/designed in an empty fit out space.

 

[Yikes]

See post #3

I don’t yet trust that post #1 + post #3 fully described the situation, hence my request.

 

[FakeArchitect]

@Yankee Chronicler My sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused due to the language used. I greatly value your guidance and comprehensive response. Looking at the sections they are pretty straightforward, in my case the layout would not be considered technically infeasible, within itself.
Thanks again for the detailed explanation & references

 

[FakeArchitect]

Please confirm “yes” or “no’ to each of the following:
1. Your proposed project is an interior alteration within an existing structure, like a tenant improvement.
2. The multi-user restrooms are already existing, either within the alteration space or elsewhere in the building.
3. If #2 is “yes”, the multi-user restrooms are not themselves proposed to undergo alteration.

See TAS 202.4.

Appreciate the follow up on this,

1. Yes
2. There is a multi user restroom around 150' of this proposed one which is compliant

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

2. There is a multi user restroom around 150' of this proposed one which is compliant

Within the same tenant space, or serving a different tenant?

Unfortunately, as of a couple of days ago I'm locked out of UpCodes because I'm not a paid subscriber. Texas has adopted the IEBC, but I don't know if they amended or deleted this section from the ICC IEBC:



I am of the opinion that the intent of this -- as well as of the ADA and the TAS -- is for all toilet rooms to be made accessible. We tend to forget that the ADA was never intended to be a building code. The ADA is anti-discrimination law. It establishes that, to the greatest extent possible, persons with disabilities are supposed to be able to go where everyone else goes and do what everyone else does. Creating a design that allocates "the crips" to a separate toilet room is, to the ADA, no more acceptable in principle than making Rosa Parks ride in the back of the bus. The idea of giving "the crips" an accessible single-user toilet room instead of just making the primary toilet rooms accessible is a throwback to the "separate but equal" attitude that underlay racial segregation.

[End of sermon]

 

[Yikes]

Appreciate the follow up on this,

1. Yes
2. There is a multi user restroom around 150' of this proposed one which is compliant

Let me ask a different way:
You mentioned a nonaccessible multi-user restroom in post #1, and you said it was 6’ away from an accessible single accommodation restroom.
Is that nonaccessible multi-user restroom existing, or proposed?

 

[FakeArchitect]

Let me ask a different way:
You mentioned a nonaccessible multi-user restroom in post #1, and you said it was 6’ away from an accessible single accommodation restroom.
Is that nonaccessible multi-user restroom existing, or proposed?

Both the restrooms mentioned in post #1, non complaint multi user restroom and complaint unisex restroom within 6' of each other are new / proposed.

Appreciate you sticking around. Thanks!

 

[Yikes]

Per TAS 202.3, the new multiuser restroom is an alteration to the existing shell space and all new restrooms must comply with the scoping requirements of TAS 213.
Since it is new and not existing, and I don’t see any scoping exceptions within TAS 213, the new multiuser restroom must be made accessible.

I once had a client who wanted only a cluster of single occupancy restrooms (new) instead of multi-user restrooms. 213 allows that only 50% of those in a cluster need to be accessible.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

Also TAS 202.4 (also taken directly from the ADAS, and mirrored in the IEBC):



It says "rest rooms," not "one of the rest rooms" or "some of the rest rooms."

 

[FakeArchitect]

@Yikes , @Yankee Chronicler Thank you for the constant feedback and direction. Your answers helped me solve my initial question & I learned a lot in the process. I am now a little more educated than I was few days ago.

You guys are awesome!!!

 

[steveray]

Nothing allows a multi user to be non-accessible....Except bad enforcement....