7 Lessons From an HOA Board’s Quiet Decision to Add a Wheelchair Ramp
HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - January 5, 2024
In this week's tip, we unpack a complex situation an HOAleader.com reader finds troubling. Be sure to read the entire question, but the basics are that a board decided in executive session to pull $16,000 from reserves to build a wheelchair ramp that the reader
doesn't think was necessary and that seems to benefit only the board president's wife. Oh, and it seems to have been constructed poorly.
Here is the first of seven important takeaways our experts offered about this complex
issue.
- An accommodation is an accommodation. Our experts note that it's important to remember that residents are entitled by law to reasonable accommodations, even if they're connected to those in power.
"I think that if an owner is a disabled resident, regardless of whether they're the wife of a board member, they're entitled to a reasonable accommodation," notes Janet Oulousian Aronson, a partner at Marcus Errico Emmer & Brooks in Braintree, Mass., who is licensed in that state, in addition to Rhode Island and New Hampshire. "That person is still a resident, and if they're disabled, they'd be
entitled to this accommodation, if it's reasonable, whether they're the spouse of a board member or not."
That said, it's not entirely clear how this request came about, says Bree Anne Stopera, an associate at Makower Abbate Guerra Wegner Vollmer PLLC in Farmington Hills, Mich., whose firm represents more than 2,000 community associations throughout the state. "To me, the
real question is whether approval is appropriate," she says. "I don't know if someone specifically made a request for this installation. Or did the board say they wanted to make this improvement to the community?
"This request may not have been from the board president's wife," she adds. "It may have been that the board thought access to this building was difficult for people
with disabilities, and it wanted to do the addition to the common elements by adding this ramp. Was that an appropriate decision to make? Without more facts, it's hard to opine on that."