Fairhope, Alabama
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| Narrow sidewalk. |
NEW HANDICAPPED RAMPS A PROBLEM
Councilman Brown said the city's Bike and Pedestrian Committee wanted feedback from the city council about what could be done about new ramps installed by the property owner in the 400 block of Fairhope Avenue last spring that extend way out onto the sidewalk (the former Andres Wine building).
Brown: "Do you think it is appropriate as is? Or need to put in a jut-out (widen)?"
Councilman Burrell replied he hated losing parking spaces downtown ... but did not like the ramps way out in the sidewalk either.
Burrell: "A handicapped person ... trying to get down that sidewalk ... would have a problem there." He suggested compact car or golf cart parking spaces on the street may allow for the sidewalk to be widened.
Councilman Boone agreed something needed to be done: "I didn't like it from the start."
Burrell questioned how the need for ramps in the downtown would be addressed in the future in other places downtown ... and was told by building official Cortinas "going forward ... we'll try to address it in the confines" of buildings instead. He said this site had special limitations that would have resulted in loss of half of the interior space had the ramps been put inside.
Federal ADA regulations require that handicapped access be implemented when buildings are substantially remodeled.
Fairhope Avenue Properties, LLP is the owner of the property. A consignment clothing shop and postal shipping/printing service occupy two of the storefronts; a third space is still vacant.
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| Compact car parking proposed. |
Comments
The promiscuous use of capital letters suggests a thrill about a faraway and corrupt and out-of-touch elite dictating how we run our city, our businesses, and our lives. It also suggests a poor understanding of federalism and a willingness to surrender to the high-mounting abuses thereof. How very sad.
I am not so thrilled, and I am not so willing.
Good intentions (I give the ADA the benefit of the doubt, here) are not guarantors of good policy. Pick a law, pick an agency. They've mostly run amok, and we pay with dollars and countless petty tyrannies.
I am in accord with your distaste for high tax rates and low-concern politicians, but CAPS do not make truth.
1) The Colony deeded city land to Fairhope when the latter incorporated, and the former owns just 20% in and around the municipality. Thus, the proscriptive dreams set forth in the Colony's charter have very limited force.
2) The city tax is not 8.5%, but rather 2% at its highest, depending. Alabama (4%) and Baldwin (3%) extract the bulk of your change. As I suggested, the more distant tour rulers, the worse it gets for us.
As for the claim that more than two dozen businesses have obtained COs without ADA compliance, I hope that you're correct. The time has come for local resistance to federal tyranny. If Leftist mayors can flout federal law with sanctuary cities, than the rest of us can choose freedom in place of overweening statism.
I am glad that you're engaged, and that your contributions to dialogue are civil--a two-headed rarity in 2020.