Rules
Part of Twelve universal design ideas for a real house
Universal design ideas rules: permits, codes, and approvals
Universal design ideas rules for a home access remodel: which projects need a building permit, which codes apply, and who else must approve.
Homeowners planning access work usually ask the wrong first question. It is not whether the work meets accessibility standards, because those standards do not govern a private house. It is whether the work meets the local building code — in most US cities and states, the International Residential Code as the state or city has adopted and amended it — and whether anyone else has a say, such as a condo board or a landlord.
Universal design ideas rules are really two subjects: a design philosophy, and the building code that decides what you may build. The philosophy is not enforceable on its own; the code is.
What to take away
- Your building code, not the ADA, decides what you may build in your own house. In most US jurisdictions that code is the International Residential Code, as adopted and amended locally.
- The permit itself comes from your local building department, the authority having jurisdiction, which also runs the inspections.
- Permits generally follow structure, plumbing, electrical and egress. Bars, handles and threshold ramps usually do not need one.
- Condos, co-ops and rentals add a second approval layer that is often slower than the city, and historic districts add another.
- Unpermitted work becomes a problem at sale, at refinance and at the moment of an insurance claim.
What usually needs a permit
- Moving or adding plumbing, including relocating a toilet or forming a wet room
- New or altered circuits, and anything hardwired such as a lift or a powered opener
- Structural openingswidening a doorway in a load-bearing wall, cutting a floor for a through-floor lift
- Changes to egress, including window and door alterations on a sleeping room
- Exterior work that alters grade, drainage or the footprint, such as a permanent ramp
What usually does not
Grab bars, lever hardware, rocker switches, offset hinges, threshold ramps, non-structural cabinet changes and lighting swaps on existing circuits. Ask the building department anyway. Jurisdictions vary and a two minute phone call is cheaper than a stop-work notice.
Portable vs Permanent Ramp
Portable ramp
- Permit
- Usually none
- Treated as
- Furniture
- Fixed down
- No
- Historic review
- Rarely
Permanent ramp
- Permit
- Usually required
- Treated as
- Construction
- Fixed down
- Yes
- Historic review
- Often
There is a gray zone. Portable ramps count as furniture and permanent ones as construction. The same slope can be permit-free one week and permitted the next, depending on how it is fixed down.
Historic districts add another layer. Exterior changes visible from the street may need design review from a historic preservation commission even where the building department is content, and that review is often the slower of the two approvals.
What universal design actually asks for
The ideas come from the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University, whose principles are equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive use, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use. None of them is enforced in a private house, but most of the work in this article — a step-free entry, lever hardware, wider openings — puts one of them into practice.
Which rules apply to whom
The rules people conflate are worth separating on paper. State and local governments have their own obligations under the Title II regulations, published as the Americans with Disabilities Act Title II regulations. Those obligations attach to the permit office and the inspection process itself, not to your house. The technical standard most accessibility codes and state amendments point to is ANSI/ICC A117.1, which also defines the Type A and Type B dwelling units used to show compliance with fair housing design requirements.
Separately, the Fair Housing Act reaches multifamily housing, and the Justice Department's housing and civil enforcement overview describes the enforcement side of that. Its design and construction requirements, published as HUD's Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines, apply to covered multifamily buildings from the drawing board and set features such as an accessible route into and through each unit and usable kitchens and bathrooms. If you own a detached house, none of that applies to what you build.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is a third strand: it covers housing that receives federal money, such as public housing and federally assisted developments. If you live in a covered multifamily building, or you rent, the picture changes and requesting a modification becomes part of the process.
Condos, HOAs and rentals
A board can regulate appearance, common elements, and structure, but fair housing law limits how far it can go. The Fair Housing Act requires owners and boards to permit reasonable modifications at the resident's expense and to make reasonable accommodations in their rules, and it lets them require that the interior be restored when the resident moves out.
Practical advice: submit drawings early, put the request in writing, name the functional need rather than the diagnosis, and offer to restore common elements where genuinely expected. Tenants should get written permission before spending anything.
Getting through the process
Start at the building department, the authority having jurisdiction that issues the permit. Bring dimensioned drawings, not sketches, and ask the plans examiner what they want to see before you file the permit application. Expect at least a rough-in inspection before the walls close and a final inspection before the job is signed off.
Contractors who work in access regularly know the local quirks, which is one more reason to use the questions in how to vet a contractor for accessible home design. The design ideas themselves are set out in our twelve universal design ideas.
