...a stupid sentence from 1991 ADA Guideline

OK, here is an example of a stupid sentence from the 1991 ADA Guideline:

     9.2  Requirements for Accessible Units, Sleeping Rooms and Suites

     9.2.2  Minimum Requirement
          (8) Sleeping room accommodations for persons with hearing impairments required by
          9.1 and complying with 9.3 shall be provided in the accessible sleeping room or suite.

This sentence says that all wheelchair accessible room must be designed to accommodate a guest in a wheelchair and also a guest that is hard of hearing.  This infers that all people in wheelchairs are also hard of hearing, absolutely ridiculous in my opinion.  The ADA Final Rule of 2004 got it right:

     section 224.2 Guest rooms with mobility features (wheelchair)
     section 224.4 Guest rooms with communication features (hard hearing)

and;

     section 224.5 Dispersion.
     Not more than 10 percent of guest rooms required to provide mobility features
     complying with 806.2 shall be used to satisfy the minimum number of guest rooms
     required to provide communication features complying with 806.2.

So, what does this mean?  It means that if your accessible rooms today are both your wheelchair rooms and your hearing impaired rooms you are not in ADA compliance, because only 10% of your wheelchair rooms can be counted as also being hearing impaired rooms.  You are going to be short on the number of accessible rooms required to provide communication features (hearing impaired rooms).

Again, any questions feel free to call me at (702) 649-7575 or email me at hfalstad@accessts.net.

Hank.