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FHA Guideline vs ANSI A117.1

Joined
Jun 7, 2014
Messages
166
Location
Hawaii
I was told by an attorney to forget all the requirements in the 1991 guidelines and the Design Manual. He said the guidelines lowers accessibility i could have problems later on. He said because HUD refers to ANSI A117.1 so when there are words not defined we are supposed to defer to the ANSI Standard and use that to fill in the blanks. Is this what other contractors are finding out? This would be for FHA covered dwellings and FHA tax credit funded housing.

Is there a comparison between FHA Guidelines and the ANSI A117.1 1986?
Which one allowed only one handrail down steps?

Thank you.
 
If you are a contractor I would ask the Architect.

The building department enforces the building code and does not rule on appropriate of accessibility standards not adopted by the jurisdiction.

It is my understanding that the building code provisions have been deemed to satisfy the accessibility requirements thus providing a safe harbor. Can somebody verify?.
 
FAIR HOUSING ACT DESIGN MANUAL
STATE AND LOCAL CODES
All states and many cities and counties have
developed their own building codes for accessibility, usually based in whole or in part on the specifications contained in the major national standards such as ANSI and UFAS. Many states also have nondiscrimination and fair housing laws similar to the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

When local codes differ from the national standard, either in scope or technical specification, the general rule is that the more stringent requirement should be followed. Many states also have provisions that a certain percentage (often 5%) of new multifamily housing must meet more stringent physical accessibility requirements than required under the Fair Housing Act. In such cases, both the state’s mandated percentage of accessible units must be provided and all dwellings covered by the Fair Housing Act must meet the Guidelines
 
These are the safe harbors - Safe Harbors. The idea is to choose one for purposes of Fair Housing compliance, so we're discussing safe harbor #3. The scope is in the guidelines. It refers to ANSI A117.1, such as saying "Stairs nearby or within sight of accessible route must comply with ANSI 4.9." ANSI A117.1-1986 4.9 then shows all the requirements for stairs, including handrails on both sides. One of the hazards of using 1986 as your safe harbor is it also requires a 12-inch horizontal extension at the bottom of the handrails. That dropped out in later editions.
 
Housing remains a moving target, depending on your role/roles: Developer, landowner(private/public/university), designer, builder, AHJ, funding source, tenant, it depends.
 
These are the safe harbors - Safe Harbors. The idea is to choose one for purposes of Fair Housing compliance, so we're discussing safe harbor #3. The scope is in the guidelines. It refers to ANSI A117.1, such as saying "Stairs nearby or within sight of accessible route must comply with ANSI 4.9." ANSI A117.1-1986 4.9 then shows all the requirements for stairs, including handrails on both sides. One of the hazards of using 1986 as your safe harbor is it also requires a 12-inch horizontal extension at the bottom of the handrails. That dropped out in later editions.
Extension is still required in ANSI and IBC, one tread length continuing the slope of the handrail.

To the OP: You must follow both the FHADM and whatever safe harbor you choose. It seems like most places are on the 2009 ANSI but you can choose any of those listed by HUD if there isn't a local adopted accessibility code.
 
Jean, we can be most helpful to you if you can get very specific about the particular project. I assume this is housing, because you mention FHA.
Yes, the project has to comply with FHA at a minimum, if it has 3+ units of rental housing or 4+ units of for-sale housing.
You did not say what city or state the project is located in. Your local building official can advise you if there are applicable state and local accessibility codes, in addition to whatever the life-safety codes say about handrails .

Does the housing have a leasing office? If so, it's a place of business, subject to ADA Title III.

Does the project utilize public funds to purchase, construct, or operate the site or the housing? If so, the housing is considered "public housing" and is also subject to the requirements of ADA Standards for dwelling units.
If it has public funding, did that funding originate from the federal government (tax credits, CBDG or HOME funds, HUD mortgage grants, military housing, etc.)? If "yes" then you are subject to Section 504 and the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards, which have 12 additional requirements beyond ADA.

Lastly, you didn't say whether the stairs in question were inside the dwelling units, or in a common area.

As Mark Handler said, if you are working for the architect (or other design professional of record), you have to look at all the codes and regulations that are deemed applicable for the project, and then you have to meet or exceed all of those. In practice, that means you have to select whichever applicable requirement is most stringent.

If you work for the building contractor and are not a design professional of record, it is typically not your responsibility to design the stair or handrails. This should be a question that you ask the design professional. That said, oftentimes the answer will be buried in a bunch of accessibility notes pasted onto the plans.

There are very few exceptions in the code where only one stair handrail is needed. Typically it is only the interior of an individual dwelling unit, on a stairway that connects different floors within that unit, when that unit is either (a) privately funded, or (b) publicly funded, but not one of the minimum 5% and one-of-each-type of unit required by ADA or local codes to be accessible, or required by local codes to be adaptable. Again, don't take our word for it, because there are many exceptions to the general statement in the last sentence, and we know almost nothing about your particular project.
 
I think the real question is more exacting than best practice, the building code, or accessibility codes that include places of public accommodation. It's what the subject line of this thread calls FHA Guideline vs. ANSI A117.1. But it isn't one against the other. It's both. To those of us who design or build apartments, the relationship between these two documents is important.

See all the ANSI references on the page attached below from the FHADM.
 

Attachments

  • Fairfull_2-17.pdf
    2.7 MB · Views: 16
Last edited:
Yikes - Both private multi family and IRS tax credit affordable low income. As far a codes go I am using the scoping set forth by congress to HUD in the 91 guidelines, then applying the appropriate requirements (ANSI A117.1 1986 which is the only authorized standard congress mandated to HUD becuase it was the only one in existance during the passage of the law and UFAS but it was not authorized through congress just using because HUD says so) outside of the modest intention for accessible housing from congress. There are a lot of citations relating to the modest accessibility features congress wanted HUD to maintain. The modest features are easier to understand if you read the comments and responses of HUD. The State is Hawaii and our state building codes have removed chapter 11 and subplanted it with an form that generally says to follow federal accessibility codes. From the 91 guideline "
Response. In the preamble to the
proposed guidelines, the Department
stated in relevant part as follows:
"These guidelines are intended to
provide a safe harbor for compliance
with respect to those issues they cover.
Where the ANSI Standard is not
applicable, the language of the statute
itself is the safest guide. The degree of
scoping, accessibility, and the like are of
course limited by a principle of
reasonableness and cost." (55 FR 24371)
In House Report No. 711, the
accessibility requirements of the Fair
Housing Act were referred to by the
Congress as "modest" (House Report at
25), "minimal" and "basic features of
adaptability" (House Report at 25). In
developing the Fair Housing
Accessibility Guidelines, the
Department was attentive to the fact
that Congress viewed the Act's
accessibility requirements as
reasonable, and that the Guidelines for
these requirements should conform to
this "reasonableness" principle—that is,
that the Guidelines should provide the
level of reasonable accessibility
envisioned by Congress, while
maintaining the affordability of new
multifamily construction. The
Department believes that the final
Guidelines conform to this principle of
reasonableness and cost.
 
I think the real question is more exacting than best practice, the building code, or accessibility codes that include places of public accommodation. It's what the subject line of this thread calls FHA Guideline vs. ANSI A117.1. But it isn't one against the other. It's both. To those of us who design or build apartments, the relationship between these two documents is important.

See all the ANSI references on the page attached below from the FHADM.
Thank you for the figure for steps.
 
Jean, if it is an IRS tax credit project (not LIHTC), then in addition to your local (Hawaii) codes, your attorney will likely tell you that you are subject to the 2010 ADA Standards for public housing, and you are subject to UFAS. Your local building department will not check for compliance on this. It is something that your investors will check (if they are smart), and of course you could be subject to a future ADA discrimination civil lawsuit if you do not comply.

You will need at least 5% of the units (and at least on of each type of unit that is provided on the project, e.g 1 bed/1 bath, 3 bed /2 bath) to be mobility accessible throughout the entire dwelling unit. that means you will need the accessible units to be flats, no stairs inside the unit. There will also be specific parking requirements for those mobility units. For example, if your project is providing at least one parking space per unit, then all of the mobility accessible units need their own accessible parking stall. for the remainder of your private units, you would follow FHA. See ADAS 208.2.3.1, 233.3.1, 233.3.4, , 804, 809 (including 809.2.1, etc.), 603, etc.

2010 ADAS is generally a safe harbor for UFAS, but their are a few exceptions. The most notable one is that if you provide a common laundry room for use by the residents, than 100% of the washers and dryers need to be accessible; in other words, no stacking appliances. See the document known as the HUD "Deeming Notice":
https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...in-federally-assisted-programs-and-activities


1617740810640.png


1617740825060.png
 
Yikes, thank you for the great information. I'm probably going to stick with the 91 Guidelines, and the ANSI A117.1 since that was the only one congress sanctioned in the Bill for HUD FHA Adaptive Housing Programs. HUD has also deemed the 1986 ANSI A117.1 as providing compliance with FHA as long as you use the guidelines and q&a with it. HUD is not allowed to tell us what to use or they will be in a position of telling me what rules to use like a county building code department and congress said they cannot do that. The 91 Guidelines, and the ANSI A117.1 1986 are simpler for me to use and much easier to sort out the exact adaptive modest accessibility components HUD will be looking for from that text. Thank you kindly for your generosity and help, I really appreciated it.
 
Yikes, thank you for the great information. I'm probably going to stick with the 91 Guidelines, and the ANSI A117.1 since that was the only one congress sanctioned in the Bill for HUD FHA Adaptive Housing Programs. HUD has also deemed the 1986 ANSI A117.1 as providing compliance with FHA as long as you use the guidelines and q&a with it. HUD is not allowed to tell us what to use or they will be in a position of telling me what rules to use like a county building code department and congress said they cannot do that. The 91 Guidelines, and the ANSI A117.1 1986 are simpler for me to use and much easier to sort out the exact adaptive modest accessibility components HUD will be looking for from that text. Thank you kindly for your generosity and help, I really appreciated it.
You're misunderstanding how Federal laws and rules work. HUD is authorized to create rules to administer the Fair Housing Act (The FHADM is one of them). They have added many safe harbors in their rules since the law was passed, all within their authority granted by the act. They recently added the 2009 ANSI/ICC A117.1 as a safe harbor. You still need to follow both standards.
HUD can absolutely tell you what to use under the Fair Housing Act. In fact, whatever they tell you supersedes the AHJ if the AHJ has less stringent requirements. I continually tell my architects that it doesn't matter if the AHJ waives an FHA requirement, the DOJ can still come after you with an enforcement action, you still have civil liability for depriving equal access.
 
Another way to say it is that local accessibility codes and federal accessibility standards are not exclusive of each other. They are complementary to each other. You attorney should not be telling you to "forget" what local code says vs. FHA says vs. ANSI 117.1 or vs. what ADAS says.
It's not either/or, it's both/and.

Your dwelling units have to comply with the most stringent requirements of both the local codes and FHA and (if it's public funded housing) ADAS.
In practice, that means that if one applicable code or regulation says provide a stair handrail on a minimum of one side of the stairs, and another applicable regulation says provide a stair handrail on both sides of the stairs, then you provide handrail on both sides of the stairs in order to satisfy all applicable requirements. (BTW, I don't know of any code that says you must provide handrail on a maximum of one side of a stair.)

And to be clear, your local building department will only enforce what is written in the local building code. They are typically not authorized to plan check for regulations outside their jurisdiction; they will leave compliance up to you. It's up to you to read FHA and ADAS and determine (1) if, their scope applies to your particular situation, and if so, then (2) how to satisfy both their technical requirements and the local building code.

I hope that explanation helps you to protect yourself from professional liability exposure. Best wishes, Jean!
 
Yikes, I forgot to tell you that your 4/6/21 attachments and information is very valuable. Thanks for your consideration and help.
Do you happen to know if FHA requires the owner to maintain the accessible features? For instance have you ever come across an older facility to do work to upgrade it for FHA accessibility thats gotten worn out? I know the ADA requires the features to be maintained.
 
First of all, keep in mind that the Fair Housing Act Design Manual is all about the design and construction of a building, not about the maintenance of a building. The maintenance of a building is the responsibility of the owner. In this particular case, you would do well at the end of the project to document (photograph) the installed features, and write a CYA letter stating that it is the responsibility of the owner to maintain the accessible features in accordance with applicable regulations. (For what it's worth, some states are going to require the owner to sign a statement of maintenance that gets pasted onto the plan check set. This is similar to agreeing to maintain stormwater compliance, etc.).

Second, design is just one part of the overall Fair Housing Act. Fair housing includes things such as (for example) nondiscriminatory rental policies, which are the responsibility of the owner.

Thirdly, there can be unique situations where the tenant requests a "reasonable accommodation" to modify a building feature beyond FHADM requirements.
For example:
  1. Your building code only requires handrail on one side for life-safety reasons, on a 3' wide stair that's inside an apartment unit.
  2. Your federal accessibility regulation requires handrail on both sides.
  3. You install handrail on both sides.
  4. The tenant, who is extremely large, requests that one handrail be removed so that they have enough clear width to get up and down the stairs.
  5. The owner can remove the handrail, and require that tenant to put money into an escrow account to re=install the handrail after that tenant terminates their lease.

Regarding my first statement, see page 2 of the FHA Design Manual:

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Page 22:

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Page 23 (cont'd)

1620573335100.png
 
Yikes - its been a while and I have been integrating the information you provided. In your April 5, 2021 you say "Yes, the project has to comply with FHA at a minimum, if it has 3+ units of rental housing or 4+ units of for-sale housing." I could not find the reference to 3+ units defined for rental only. That would be another significant amount of housing as it would apply to work force housing projects that I have seen being built with 3 or less units. I was thinking up to three was not covered by the FHA?
 
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