Building Homes That Are Easy to Live In: It Might Take a Law

Communities are passing legislation requiring that more private homes be built with wide doorways for easier navigation. —Photo by Image Source/Corbi

Judy Babbitt doesn’t much care for obstacles. The 59-year-old uses a wheelchair and lives in a home designed for easy access—no steps at the entrance, bathroom walls reinforced for grab bars, and wide doorways throughout. Babbitt believes that all homes should be accessible like hers, and as the director of the city’s Disability Access Office, she’s in the right job to maximize their number in San Antonio.

That was her objective in 2000 when she convened a group of builders, city officials and advocates for communities that encourage accessible homes. Together they hammered out a bill that makes sure at least some new homes are constructed free of barriers—homes referred to variously as being accessible, visitable or incorporating universal deisgn. The city passed the law in 2002.

Fast forward six years: Today San Antonio boasts more than 8,000 new barrier-free residences, the second most of any community in the nation, according to Eleanor Smith of the advocacy group Concrete Change.

Federal, state and local laws have greatly improved access to public and commercial buildings, but private residences remain the last bastion of built-in barriers. More and more communities are turning to legislation that compels builders to change that. Atlanta passed the first such law in 1992; last year five more communities followed suit, bringing the total to 35.

Passing a law, Babbitt says, is “a way to get things rolling quickly.” What’s more, she adds, there are a number of practical reasons to accelerate construction of accessible homes. The aging of 78 million boomers means that demand will grow quickly for homes that are easy to navigate, especially because some 80 percent of people age 55-plus say they want to grow old in their own homes. A significant number of those homes—some studies suggest one in four of all houses—will at some point have a resident with a long-term severe mobility impairment. Since the price of modifying a home runs about eight times what it costs a builder to incorporate easy-access design at the outset, Babbitt’s logic seems on the money.

Nor do the advantages apply only to people with disabilities. “You’ve got the elderly, or those with temporary disabilities, or, say, a mom with a toddler and a newborn in a stroller,” Babbitt says.

Laws mandating accessibility reflect many variations on a theme. Most of the laws apply only to homes built using public funds, according to a report by Concrete Change and the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Such homes include building projects that use tax incentives, loans, land grants, waived fees and federal block grants, says the report, which AARP funded and has scheduled for release in late August.

San Antonio’s ordinance, which Babbitt says was adapted from similar laws in Atlanta and Austin, Texas, mandates that new homes built on property connected to the city—say, sold to the developer by the city or offered with city tax incentives—be accessible.

How did builders respond? “Certainly the builders were not joyous about the changes, but before the ordinance, the subject had never come before them,” Babbitt says.

They weren’t innately opposed to building in accessibility from the ground up, Babbitt says, but rather had been programmed to build the same way since the 1940s. “As we know,” she says, “changes are difficult. Even positive change creates anxiety sometimes.”

San Antonio’s results are topped only by those in Pima County, Ariz., where a tough law has resulted in more than 16,000 homes with basic accessibility features. In 2002, Pima County became the first of three jurisdictions to require all new housing—government-assisted or not—to be free of barriers. Builders sued.

The plaintiffs—the Southern Arizona Builders Association and a Tucson builder—argued that the ordinance deprived homeowners and builders of the right to design private homes. They lost at every stage of the litigation, right through the state Supreme Court, which refused to hear an appeal.

The SAHBA has also lost some of its initial antagonism. “We support many of these features,” says Ed Taczanowsky, the current president and executive director of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association. (Though, he points out, the organization still opposes Tucson’s mandate for no-step entries because preventing water from leaking in can be tricky. “We’ll comply, but we haven’t found a solution yet,” he says.)

In fact, builders are showing interest in the growing market for accessible homes. The EasyLiving Home program, which started in Georgia and has spread to New Hampshire and Texas, offers builders a voluntary certification process for those committed to accessible construction. At the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, a 50+ Housing Council encourages innovative thinking to address the needs of older homebuyers. And later this year NAHB will rejoin AARP in sponsoring the second Livable Communities Awards Program, which includes accessibility among its criteria.

Last November, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., brought the issue before Congress and introduced the Inclusive Home Design Act, which would require all newly constructed, federally assisted, single-family houses and townhouses to meet minimum standards of visitability. In January the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity.

The United States isn’t alone in trying to prepare for its aging population: Earlier this year England announced that all public housing built after 2010 and every home built after 2012 must incorporate 16 accessibility features, such as ground-floor bathrooms and stairs wide enough to accommodate stair lifts.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Smith of Concrete Change senses future allies among builders: “Lots of them have parents or relatives with disabilities, or maybe their own knees aren’t feeling so good. I’m thinking of starting a new group, Builders Against the Grain, to help with home access legislation.”

Mike Klesius was a contributor to the AARP Bulletin before recently becoming an editor at Air & Space magazine.