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Just Released: Multifamily Building Conformance with the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines

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The "Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines" (the
Guidelines) were developed by HUD in 1991 to assist
builders, architects, local government officials, and
others in the building community to adequately meet the
Fair Housing Act requirement that "covered multifamily
dwellings" be designed and constructed to include certain
features of accessible design. The Guidelines were
developed to serve as a single, reliable source for
information on compliance, and have quickly become the
most commonly known and utilized guidelines in the
industry.

A new report by HUD's Office of Policy Development &
Research (PD&R) presents a quantitative assessment of the
extent of conformance with the Guidelines, and presents a
series of explanations for patterns of conformance and
nonconformance. "Multifamily Building Conformance with
the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines" also provides
baseline estimates of compliance to support assessment of
future technical assistance and enforcement efforts.

The study is descriptive in nature: it provides a
statistical picture of multifamily conformance with the
Guidelines from a broad national view. A survey,
consisting of 291 questions about technical items
relating to accessibility, was conducted at 397
multifamily housing projects. The survey included a
review of site and building plans, on-site inspections of
buildings, and tabulations of individual building
evaluations to obtain detailed data on the degrees of
conformance and nonconformance. The analysis of survey
data also included follow-up discussions with 20
architects and builders who offered their perspectives on
the reasons behind the types and extent of conformance
and nonconformance.

Data were summarized in two ways:
(1) To calculate the percentage of surveyed dwelling
units that were observed to be in conformance with each
of the survey elements; and
(2) To construct summary scales or clusters of elements
that showed similar patters of conformance.

Key study findings include:
(1) The percentage of conformance for individual items in
the survey ranged from 33.2 percent to 100 percent for
projects surveyed in the field, with the bulk of items
displaying conformance percentages in excess of 80
percent. Conformance percentages ranged from 24.1 percent
to 100 percent for architectural plans.
(2) Of the 291 items included on the survey, 130 items
showed conformance percentages of 95 percent and above
for architectural plans for which they were applicable;
79 items showed conformance percentages of 95 percent and
above for dwelling units and buildings in the field to
which they were applicable. Overall, architectural plans
showed slightly higher levels of conformance than did
projects in the field.
(3) Conformance scores were uniformly high for
Requirement 1 (Accessible Building Entrance on an
Accessible Route); Requirement 2 (Accessible and Usable
Public and Common Use Areas); Requirement 3 (Usable
Doors); and Requirement 4 (Accessible Route Into and
Through the Covered Unit).
(4) Conformance scores were somewhat lower for
Requirement 5 (Light Switches, Electrical Outlets,
Thermostats, and other Environmental Controls) and
Requirement 7 (Usable Kitchens and Bathrooms).
(5) Conformance scores were lowest overall for
Requirement 6 (Reinforced Walls for Grab Bars).
(6) Scores on the 16 composite conformance measures are
generally similar for architectural plans and the
projects built from them.

"Multifamily Building Conformance with the Fair Housing
Accessibility Guidelines" is available on the Web at
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/fairhsg/multifamily.html
or in printed form for a nominal charge by calling HUD
USER at 1-800-245-2691.

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