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Witnesses tell House committee universal design goes beyond building codes; VHFA outlines practical menu approach
Summary
Witnesses at the House Committee on General and Housing urged lawmakers to treat universal design as a broad, proactive approach rather than only a checklist; the Vermont Housing Finance Agency described a pragmatic ‘‘menu’’ policy for projects it funds, cited data gaps on accessible units and flagged costs and enforcement questions for any statutory standard.
Sarah Lauderville, executive director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living, told the House Committee on General and Housing on April 24 that universal design is ‘‘a proactive approach that anticipates human diversity from the start’’ and should be treated as a set of guiding principles rather than a prescriptive code.
Lauderville reviewed the history of the concept and the seven commonly cited principles — equitable use; flexibility in use; simple and intuitive use; perceptible information; tolerance for error; low physical effort; and appropriate size and space — and warned that those principles do not by themselves translate into technical building requirements. "The principles describe what good design should achieve, but they do not prescribe how to achieve it in a particular building," she said, adding that many Vermont spaces remain inaccessible despite the Americans with Disabilities Act establishing a baseline…
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