Disability Technology & News

A Blueprint for Accessibility

A Blueprint for Accessibility
By Barbara Ruben
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, January 6, 2007

Fifteen years ago, Caryl Dawson’s plane crashed while she was on a trip to Antarctica. She fully recovered, but the Gainesville real estate agent has always wondered what she would have done had she become disabled.

“If I had been hurt, I couldn’t have lived in any of the houses I’ve lived in since then,” she said.

So when she heard about a Prince William County house that has incorporated dozens of innovations for people with disabilities and is open to the public for tours, she immediately signed up to be a volunteer guide.

Centex Homes built the demonstration house, located in New Bristow Village, a development still under construction in Bristow. A coalition of groups, led by the Prince William Area Agency on Aging, began showing it off to the public last month. The house will be open through the end of March, when Centex will put it on the market.

A price for the house won’t be set until it goes up for sale; Centex houses of a similar size in New Bristow Village begin in the upper $500,000s.

“This is just the beginning of a revolution to change the way we build houses and communities to enhance safety and adaptability and comfort for the rest of their residents’ lives,” said Leon Harper, chairman of the Greater Prince William Coalition on Housing and Universal Design. “We have raised the bar. Other counties and states must now rise to the challenge to meet the needs of our changing populations.”

The house incorporates the principles of universal design, meaning that features of the house can accommodate people of all abilities.

For Martin E. Nohe (R-Coles), who is on the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, the concept was a revelation.

“I’ll be honest, I had absolutely no idea what universal design was when I joined the board three years ago,” he said. “There are design features in here to help the disabled and the aging, but the features also help everyone. The word universal is very important.”

In the Universal Design Demonstration House, a wide sloping walkway connects the house to the driveway. The large cream-colored Colonial’s entryway is flush with the foyer, making it easy for a wheelchair to roll inside the three-foot-wide door.

Inside, an open floor plan makes maneuvering easy, and wood floors and low-pile carpeting keep height transitions to a minimum, which is helpful not just for wheelchairs but also for those who use canes or who have visual impairments.

For Melvin Padgett, who can see very little but can distinguish between light and dark, the most exciting feature is the staircase. Each step is constructed with wood of two contrasting colors, making them easy to see and distinguish from each other.

“This is the first time I have actually been able to see steps,” said Padgett, who lives in Woodlawn.

The contrasting dark counters and light backsplash in the kitchen also caught his attention, as did the terra cotta-colored tiles surrounding the white bathtub.

“I live in a standard home. I looked for months, believe me, but I couldn’t find anything” with accommodations for the visually impaired, said Padgett, who is a loan specialist with Carteret Mortgage and a member of the Prince William County Disability Services Board.

At 53, Padgett said he is too young to live in an age-restricted retirement community that might have built-in design features that would make seeing easier for him.

Bill Fuller, who uses a wheelchair, said that the kitchen’s knee-height cupboards with roll-out shelves and the variable counter heights would be helpful.

The house’s pantry on the first floor and large landing on the second can be converted to accommodate an elevator. The 48-inch stairs are wide enough to install a chairlift.

“This is an incredible example of universal design. It’s so wonderful to have a demonstration house. It’s one thing to talk about universal design, and another to see it,” said Fuller, who is a housing initiative officer with the Virginia Housing Development Authority in Richmond.

Typically, demonstration houses are open for just a week or two before going on the market, whether they highlight universal design or other features, Harper said. Open for four months, the Bristow house is probably the longest-running universal design house in the country, he said.

Dawson, 63, who lives in the retirement community Heritage Hunt, said it doesn’t come close to having all the features of the demonstration house. Elsewhere, houses are even less accessible.

“Finding a rambler is nearly impossible. So many people want to stay in the community but can’t find a house that meets their needs,” she said.

Centex Homes is now exploring how it could help change the market.

“We hope in the future to incorporate these features in our homes,” said Frank Disbrow, Centex’s special assignments manager for D.C. area construction services. “Centex wanted to look at universal design and put it into a prototype house. . . . It takes a lot of rethinking.”

That reevaluation had to take place before the company broke ground. The foundation for the house, for example, must be a foot lower so the entry can be flush with the ground. Bathroom walls were reinforced to support grab bars in the future.

While some features, such as elevator shafts and wider doorways, are much easier to build into a house as it is constructed, others can be added to existing homes. For example, doorknobs can be replaced with easier-to-use levers, or single-lever faucet handles installed, with relatively little trouble or expense.

The architect of the universal design house, William Devereaux of McLean, recommends starting with small changes and making larger ones as budgets allow.

“One thing is really important about this house — this could be any house,” he said. “Some features cost nothing, some cost a little bit, some cost a lot.”

Virginia offers residents a state income tax credit for retrofitting houses to make them more accessible. The credit is equal to 25 percent of the total cost of the accessibility features or $500, whichever is less.

Del. Michèle B. McQuigg (R-Prince William) said she will sponsor legislation to increase the tax credit during the upcoming session of the General Assembly.

The District and Maryland don’t offer similar credits, though Maryland has a demonstration program in some areas allowing low-cost loans for retrofits.

The Universal Design House is at 10616 Poagues Battery Dr. in Bristow. It is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Call 703-792-6400 for more information. Or go to http://www.pwcgov.org/, click on government; then, under government agencies, choose the Area Agency on Aging; then click on “Universal Design Demonstration House.”

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