Introduction
 Elements of Visit-ability
 Contemporary Housing Design
Advantage of Visit-ability
 Why Hasn't visit-ability Gained Wider Acceptance?
Costs of Visit-ability
 Case Studies
Advocacy Strategies
Recent Visit-ability Initiatives
Conclusion
Source Cited/Appendix/Acknowledgement

Case Studies

Infill Housing
Centennial Village
Village at East Lake
Habitat for Humanity
Co-housing Community

Centennial Village townhouse

Figure 12: A Centennial Village townhouse provides an excellent example of how a two-story townhouse can be made Visit-able. It contains ground floor apartments with wider bathroom doors.

East Lake development project

Figure 13: The East Lake development project shows the improved designs, which consisted of zero-step entrances and ground floor half baths with wider doors.

Visit-able Habitat for Humanity home

Figure 14: A Visit-able Habitat for Humanity home shows how a zero-step entrance can be achieved by grading/berming a sidewalk up to a porch.

Visit-able Home, Decatur, GA

Figure 15: A home in Decatur, GA shows that a Visit-able home does not have to be built on grade. This two-story home is built high off the ground and has both steps and an inclined ramp leading to the front entrance. The steps are designed to create a neighborhood gathering place.

Figure 16:A ranch-style Visit-able home. The home is built on grade and is more convenient for the homeowner who uses a wheelchair.

Figure 17: A group of multi-story townhouses. It proves that townhouses can also be Visit-able. The access road on the other side of the townhouses provides a stepless entrance to the homes for both homeowners and visitors. The bottom level is used for granny flats or rental units.

Infill Housing
Some of the first Visit-able homes were built in the Summerhill neighborhood under Atlanta’s 1992 Visit-ability ordinance. Single-family homes are selling for approximately $150,000 to $225,000. Waivers of utility impact fees were granted to many of the households based on income guidelines. This public subsidy required them to build Visit-able homes. Approximately 25 houses in the area incorporated the Visit-ability requirements.

Because the homes are in a preservation district, building the first floors well above grade was required to fit with the existing neighborhood. All of the homes have a high front porch with several steps. Access was achieved via a wooden ramp leading to a back or side deck. Residents who had Visit-able homes and were not currently disabled reported that ramped access and other Visit-able features were an asset to them in their daily lives and would have been desirable as design options regardless of the ordinance. The ramp made it easier for them to carry groceries, bicycles and other heavy items in and out. However, many new houses in the neighborhood do not have accessible entrances. The city either allowed some builders to slip past the ordinance, or they applied the ordinance only to the homes whose households qualify for a waiver of impact fees (for utilities) based on income.

Centennial Village
Centennial Village is an inner city Hope VI Public Housing Authority project located near Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Many townhouses were built at three rent levels: public assistance, income-based sliding scale, and market rate.

Although the initial set of townhouses was not Visit-able, Concrete Change succeeded in convincing the Atlanta Housing Authority to modify their design, which originally included only the required 5% accessible units.

Ground floor units in the latter phases of the project all have zero step entries and wide bathroom doors. A design with two-story townhouses stacked over single story units was adopted to accomplish this goal.

It is important to note that these zero step entrances were achieved on sloping terrain by using creative planning and grading of the site.

Parking in the back has direct access to the units on grade. The entries are nicely designed to define a personal territory for each unit without raised porches. Street access to some ground floor units requires the use of stairs, but an accessible path is provided by a sidewalk behind a retaining wall. The path and wall created more private open space in front of the ground floor units.

This example demonstrates that Visit-ability requires a new thought process. One should not ask, “How can I put a compliant ramp on this house?” but rather, “How can I arrive at the outcome I desire, while dealing successfully with the constraints of the project?”

Villages at East Lake
Another Hope VI development on the outskirts of Atlanta, Villages at East Lake, is a very large project built in two phases. It provides good contrast between an unfortunate lack of access and an excellent provision of access. Phase I consisted of two-story town houses. It initially contained only the required 5% accessible units, leaving the remaining 60+ townhouses with two steps up into each home.

Concrete Change members were discouraged that these townhouses went up AFTER Visit-ability was achieved at Centennial Homes. So, advocates organized complaints about this oversight and Visit-ability was provided in the second part of Phase I. Over 60 townhouses, all having zero-step entrances and ground floor half baths with wide doors were constructed. Phase II offers even more commendable access including both the 5% full access required by law and widespread Visit-ability. The building types are a combination of stacked flats designed to appear from the outside as multi-storied town homes as well as numerous single story duplexes.

Habitat for Humanity
Concrete Change also worked with the Atlanta Habitat for Humanity chapter to build single-family Visit-able units. Visit-able features were designed to “blend in” with the neighborhood so that access was provided without visual impact. If properly achieved, Visit-ability is right in line with one of the goals of universal design – social integration. Visit-ability creates housing that blurs the line between who has accessible housing and who has housing that is designed simply for improved livability.

The Candler Park Neighborhood contains over 20 of more than 300 Visit-able homes that the Atlanta affiliate of Habitat for Humanity has constructed since first being persuaded by Concrete Change to build all new homes with Visit-able features in 1989. These very affordable homes, built partially with volunteer labor, cost approximately $35,000 - $50,000. They all have zero-step entrances achieved either by grading/berming a sidewalk up to a porch or by constructing a short wooden deck-like ramp. All have crawl spaces. Access was achieved on a wide variety of terrains from level to steeply inclined.

As described earlier in this primer, the RERC on Universal Design at Buffalo worked successfully with two Western New York chapters of Habitat for Humanity.

The Habitat chapter in Buffalo was generally enthusiastic about the idea of building accessible homes but planned on doing so only if a client needed it. The RERC convinced them to try building Visit-able homes as an option for all clients. We helped the chapter redesign their basic model to be Visit-able. Although they initially planned to build only one Visit-able home as an experiment during the summer of 2000, all their clients chose the new plan over the original. What started out as a demonstration of the benefits of Visit-able features became three Visit-able units built with the enthusiastic support of the homeowners. Three more were built in 2001.

In Spring 2000, the executive director of the Flower City Chapter of Habitat for Humanity in Rochester, New York attended a housing conference where Edward Steinfeld, RERC Director, made a presentation on Visit-ability. Prior to the conference, the Flower City Chapter had been working with advocates at the Center for Disability Rights in Rochester to design and build accessible homes for specific clients. This contact with the RERC built upon the previous advocacy efforts and extended the application of accessibility in the form of Visit-ability to all new homes built by the Chapter. After the board decided to adopt Visit-ability, the director of the Flower City Habitat Chapter visited the RERC on Universal Design at Buffalo where he learned more about the concept of Visit-ability. Over a period of a few weeks, a new plan for a Visit-able house was developed and reviewed by both RERC and Habitat staff. After a few iterations and reviews, the Flower City Chapter adopted the design for all its new homes.

Co-Housing Community, Decatur, GA
This project may represent the best example of universal design because it includes neighborhood planning as well as home design.

East Lake Commons is a privately developed co-housing community in Decatur, GA, where Eleanor Smith and one other wheelchair user live along with non-disabled neighbors ranging in age from a few months to 85 years old. The 64 attached townhouses and 3 single-level homes all have zero step front entrances and 60 are equipped with wide bathroom doors. Visit-ability was adopted by the original members of the group and it has become a universal feature of all houses built in the community.

No one has problems accessing either public or private spaces within the development. The advantages and experience of full access are shared by all rather than causing the social segregation that results from partial accessibility.
Figures 15 and 16 illustrate the flexibility of Visit-ability as a housing design strategy. The owners of the house in the first photograph wanted it raised high off the ground. One of the owners of the house in the second photo uses a wheelchair, so they had it built on grade. The townhouses in Figure 17 are Visit-able with access from the pedestrian path side and have rental apartments that are accessible from the rear. These apartments are designed to provide either rental income or serve as granny flats for aging parents. The central community dining hall and recreation building are also fully accessible.