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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommission On Disability - Minutes - 01/26/1998COMMISSION ON DISABILITY MEETING MINUTES January 26,1998 2:00 pm Council Liaison: Michael Byrne Staff Liaison: Nancy Stirling Members Present: Members Absent: City Staff Present: Guests: Mark Kramer Nancy Baker Alan Apt Stacey Abate Kathy Lassen Initha Stuckey Amy Rosenberg Mark Cummings Felix Lee, Building & Zoning Nancy Stirling, COD Staff Liaison Jean Batchelder, Access by Design Chairperson Kathy Lassen called the meeting to order at 2:16 pm. Laura Burnett Don Fish Ray Sanderson I. Approval of December 1997 Meeting Minutes At this time of the meeting there were not enough members present to form a quorum to be able to vote on the minutes. Voting was tabled until later in the meeting when enough members are present or until the next meeting. Addendum: By 4:00 pm of this meeting, there were enough members present to review and vote on the minutes. Any changes or additions to the meeting minutes were requested. There were none. Nancy Baker moved to accept the minutes as they now stood,- Laura Burnett seconded. The vote to accept the meeting minutes as they now stood was unanimous. II. Presentation/Discussion: Felix Lee, Building & Zoning Department Felix Lee was present at this meeting to provide further information about the differences between the current 1991 Uniform Building Code (UBC) the City currently follows, and Commission on Disability Meeting Minutes Page 1 January 26, 1998 the 1997 UBC which the City is reviewing and proposing for adoption early this year. Last year, a committee was formed, the Building Code Review Committee, to review the 1997 UBC. Members of the Commission on Disability participated on this committee. The Committee has reviewed the 1997 UBC and has put together their recommendations. Now, the Building & Zoning Department are going out to various boards and commissions to get their input on the recommendations. The Commission on Disability is the first to do this. In areas concerning accessibility, the differences between the 1991 code and the 1997 code are: • Instead of 100% of ground floors ('91 UBC) being fully accessible, according to ANSI standards, only 2% of total number of units in a project ('97 UBC) would be required to be fully ANSI accessible, defined as "Type A" units. • After the 2% is applied, all the rest of the ground floor units in a project would be "Type B" accessible, which follows the guidelines of the Fair Housing Act. State regulations [C.R.S. 9-5-112] are also required to be followed in any project of 7 or more units and are applied along with the UBC requirements. State regulations require that 14% of the total number of units in a project be ANSI-1980 standards. Differences between state regulations and UBC Type B regulations are in the areas of the kitchen [requires kitchens to be Type A] and the bathroom [water closet locations]. Some members expressed concerns over the [drastic] change from 100% ANSI accessible ground floor units to 2%. There was also concern over the state regulations. Right now, as they exist, it gives a higher percentage of ANSI accessible units. The concern is how long will the state regulations exits? Is there a possibility that they could go away and only the required 2% of the 1997 UBC be left? Some members expressed that they would like to see the state requirements be included in the City Code — that way if the state regulations go away, the City Code would still stand and require the 14%. Alan Apt motioned to have the City Code rewritten to include the state requirements. Mark Kramer seconded the motions. The vote was unanimous. Felix said he would work on rewording the City Code to include the state requirements. He will send this to Nancy to distribute to the Commission members. This, of course, would need to go through the City Council for approval. Felix announced that a Public Open House is scheduled for the public to attend and offer their comments to the proposal to adopt the 1997 UBC. It is scheduled for February 25, 6:30 to 9:00 pm in the Council Chambers of the City Hall Building. He will also be sending out newsletters announcing the open house. Nancy hopes to get copies of this newsletter so she can forward them on to interested parties and organizations in the community. Commission on Disability Meeting Minutes Page 2 January 26, 1998 III. Request for Appeal Felix brought to the Commission's attention of another appeal for a variance. The appeal was made by P&B Partnership and is very similar to the one the Commission just went through with the Building Review Board and CECO. After reviewing the appeal request the Commission decided on the following recommendation: 1) In regard to the CARE Housing units, support the contractor's provision to make all ground floor units (12 units) according to Type A specifications as outlined in the 1997 UBC. 2) For the other 56 units provided by P&B, recommend that this project be constructed in accordance with the 1997 UBC (i.e., 2% of total number of units by TypeA) and include the 14% state requirements according to C.R.S. 9-5-112. The members agreed that there is a high demand for low-income housing such as those provided by CARE housing, especially among the population of disabled citizens. The Commission wanted the Building Review Board and the contractor to understand that these recommendations reflect a major concession by reducing the number of Type A units from 24 (as required under the current 1991 UBC) to 8 (under the 1997 UBC and state requirements). Don Fish motioned to put these recommendations to a vote; Laura Burnett seconded. The vote was unanimously in favor of these recommendations. IV. Review of 1997 Annual Report Nancy sent out copies of a draft of the 1997 Commission on Disability Annual Report to be reviewed by the members. The Chairperson asked if anyone had any changes or comments. Mark Kramer suggested changing the wording in the paragraph about the Dial -a -Ride Advisory Committee from "under" to "a subcommittee of." Other than this, there were no other changes or recommendations. Alan Apt motioned to approve the Annual Report with the change as noted above; Amy Rosenberg seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous. V. Other Business: A. Nancy sent out in the agenda packet a memo in regard to changes made to the wording of the Human Rights Ordinance proposal. Changes reflected the suggestions and comments the Commission had submitted to the City Manager and the City Attorney. B. CSU Disabled Resources: Kathy and Nancy met with the Mayor and with Rose Creston and Gerry Bomotti a month ago to discuss issues relating to accessibility on the CSU campus. Kathy wanted the Commission to invite Rose and Gerry to an Commission on Disability Meeting Minutes Page 3 January 26, 1998 0 upcoming Commission meeting to discuss how the Commission can help CSU with issues relating to individuals/students with disabilities. What is CSU's plans for disability awareness and accessibility? How can the COD help to increase awareness and promote services for students? Rose and Gerry will be invited to the February meeting. C. Kathy announced that she will not be able to attend the March meeting of the COD. This means that Mark Kramer, as the Vice -Chair, will preside that meeting. D. When is CSU's disability awareness event? Nancy will contact Rose Creston at CSU. E. Mark Cummings was unable to attend this meeting but passed along information to Kathy concerning the video that is being put together. He has met with the City's Cable personnel, Carson Hamlin and Michael Gitter. They will be putting together for the Commission a script for the video [due to scheduling and other projects, the script may not be available until March]. Once the script is available, the Commission will be able to review it and make comments. F. Nancy received information from former Commission member Angela Byrne. Social Services is now distributing "Quest Cards" which are like debit cards in that individuals use them in place of food stamps and for housing payment assistance. Angela discovered that this cards are physically difficult to utilize — the counters that the card scanning machines sit on are very high for those who use a wheelchair. A person sitting in a wheelchair cannot see the keypad on the machine and may not even be able to reach the machine itself. Angela has discussed this situation with the Manager of the KingSoopers store on South College Avenue. It seems, from her information, that the manager is trying to help as much as possible and has even contacted the company that makes the machine. Angela's concern is that this problem would exist at every market or store that utilizes these machines. Alan Apt suggested that perhaps the Commission could send a letter to each market in town advising them of this situation and perhaps offer options (i.e., have the market provide at least one checkout aisle where the machine is at a level that it can be used by individuals in wheelchairs). The Commission decided to discuss this further. G. What is happening with the Disability Awareness group? Last summer, Blair Leist, Kathy, and Nancy were part of a committee looking into ways and activities to promote disability awareness — but since the flood, this has been shelved. Nancy will ask Blair is he could attend the February meeting of the Commission to give an update or let us know who the Commission should talk to about this. Also, what has happened with the Therapeutic Recreation Specialist position vacated by Jennifer Fesperman? The meeting was adjourned at 4:36 pm. Commission on Disability Meeting Minutes Page 4 January 26, 1998