By Justyna Rechberger
For people with disabilities accessing many businesses in Centretown is still proving to be difficult.
“It’s a real challenge for me to get inside places now,” says long-time Centretown resident Hank VanDyke. He is sipping a coffee on the Centretown Pub patio while sitting near the staircase leading into the pub.
VanDyke uses a wheelchair after losing his leg in May.
The clause in the Ontarians with Disabilities Act of 2001 exempts older buildings from certain accessibility provisions.
Many businesses in older bulidings are protected under a grandfather clause.
Design award incentives along with newly proposed legislation may do little to improve the problem.
“Heritage buildings can’t be modified without approval,” says Mike Brady, member of the Accessibility Advisory Committee. “But that doesn’t mean modifications can’t be made.”
To provide incentives for businesses, Brady sits alongside architects, city staff, interior designers and persons with disabilities on a panel of judges to select this years winner of the Accessibility by Design Award . The award is given for innovative solutions to architectural and design barriers facing people with disabilities.
But this year the panel only received seven submissions, and none from the Centretown area.
Terry Gilhen, community developer with Disabled Persons Community Resources (DPCR), was offering a similar award but speculates that a combination of poor advertising and lack of awareness in the community stifled the response.
“We didn’t get any nominations,” says Gilhen
He says the lack of nominations doesn’t reflect reality and there are numerous examples of simple innovative things people are doing to improve
accessibility.
Take Faizy Hassan, owner of Mr. Discount on Bank Street. He recently added some rounded cement under the step of the entranceway leading into his store, to make it wheelchair
accessible.
“Many customers, they appreciate it,” says Hassan, pleased with the increased business and customer satisfaction.
Bob Martineau, owner of Big Buds, on Bank, says he’s “getting everybody’s money” since he’s installed ramps and electric door openers.
Still, says Gilhen, “the business community is not as accessible as we would like.”
There is no place for a ramp, says Ed St. Jean, owner of the Centretown Pub, which is protected by the grandfather clause.
“It’s too narrow and too steep and would become a problem for the rest of the customers,” says St. Jean, although arrangements have been made to accommodate VanDyke.
VanDyke says he is determined to make it up the steps with the help of a prosthesis.
Inaccessible entrances, washrooms, crowded aisle space and high counters are a few problems facing VanDyke and a significant and growing group of people, says Gilhen, and that’s just the physically impaired. Various barriers for those with hearing, visual and learning disabilities also exist.
“Businesses underestimate the size of the market. We aren’t talking about a minority,” says Gilhen, explaining that with an aging population, one in five will be disabled by 2025.
Coincidentally, this is the year Ontario is planning to become barrier-free, as proposed by the new legislation of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government which has seen its first reading.
If passed, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2004, will improve society and economy by imposing mandatory accessibility standards on all public and private buildings, with the changes being phased in over the next 20 years.
Somerset Counc. DianeHolmes says she doesn’t think the newly proposed provisions will be retroactive, meaning they will apply only to newer buildings in the Centretown area.
“Most property owners and managers look towards ensuring access to buildings for all potential clients,” says Daniel Bourdeau, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Ottawa.
“You have to look at the feasibility of retrofitting a building,” says Bourdeau. “Sometimes it’s just so costly and prohibitive it doesn’t matter how much the owner is willing to put down.”
Also, from a heritage standpoint, the integrity of building design should be respected, says Lazear.
It can be expensive to find bricks that conform to the characteristics of a building,
explains Brady.
Holmes suggests portable wooden ramps are a good short-term and inexpensive solution.
“We have a responsibility as a city to be able to provide access to small businesses,” says Holmes.
In the meantime, VanDyke says he wouldn’t mind browsing through some of the interesting shops in Centretown, but still finds the entranceways restrictive.
“When I go to a restaurant now, if it doesn’t have access, too bad, you’ve lost my business,” says VanDyke.