Thirty-six years ago, my wife and I decided to build a new home—specifically, a home with all sorts of super-energy-efficient features. We purchased a set of plans and hired a contractor. But we were stopped dead-in-our-tracks by Sonoma County’s septic system rules, which required a wet-weather percolation test—something impossible to perform in the midst of a prolonged drought. We waited months for rain that didn’t come. County Health Department officials were firm: The rules are the rules.
But we learned some valuable lessons about those construction rules, regulations, codes, environmental protections and enforcement, and these lessons are still applicable decades later. To wit: If all the rules, regulations, codes and environmental protections were strictly enforced, construction and remodeling might grind to a halt; but “strict enforcement” is an extremely variable fiction, subject to conflicting interpretations, conflicting regulations, legal variances, legal challenges, grandfathered conditions, special exemptions and the discretion of human beings in a position of power over applicants such as builders, developers and property owners.
In our case, a sympathetic county employee in the Health Department decided our gently sloping property constituted a “hillside,” and that we could do a septic system without a wet weather percolation test but with a “curtain” or “French” drain upslope from the leach lines. Problem solved. Our wonderful contractor completed the home in 90 days flat. The lack of rain helped.
Recently, I interviewed this contractor, who’s now retired, and asked him about his lifetime of experiences building in Sonoma County. I was interested in snafus he’d encountered over the years and how problem situations were resolved. It wasn’t surprising that the first thing he mentioned was the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law in 1990 by President Bush (the elder).
To dip your toe in the ocean of ADA compliance issues, try reading “Common ADA Problems at Newly Constructed Lodging Facilities,” a 1999 treatise from the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights division, Disability Rights section. There are ADA rules about the clear opening width of doorways, about how many rooms in a hotel must be ADA-compliant, about how many rooms must have roll-in showers with attached fold-down seats and about visual alarms for deaf guests, “protruding object” standards, elevators, operating hardware, signage, accessible interior and exterior routes, parking spaces and swimming pool accessibility.
But the ADA requirement that may have produced the most horror stories for contractors is the rule that says the cross-slope of walking areas shall not exceed 2 percent. It doesn’t help that, according to civil engineers familiar with the law, the exact history of the 2 percent cross-slope requirement can’t be determined and there’s no standardized method for measuring cross-slope. Concrete walking areas need drainage and, thus, some slope, but if a later measurement shows that the cross-slope is 2.05 percent, the usual required correction is to rip out and replace the offending section(s) at the contractor’s expense.
That’s what happened to our contractor on a project in Sonoma County. The offending area was a large patio of colored, stamped concrete that had a few small sections measuring slightly over 2 percent cross-grade. There was no way to take out and replace just those sections, so the whole patio needed to be jackhammered out and repoured. Cost: $26,000+.
On the same project, there were three long (250 feet), covered walkways of post and beam construction that had 45 degree-angled structural braces. The architects thought the construction met ADA rules, and the county approved the plans, but an accessibility inspector said there was a possibility that a tall, blind person could hit his or her head on the lowest portion of the structural braces. The “fix” could have required tearing off and redoing the supports. But the county agreed to a creative work-around involving installation of rounded sconces on each of 80 posts. Cost: $4,800+.
On another project involving a hotel in Santa Rosa, a disability rights advocate had sued to force accessibility compliance. A 100-foot-long sidewalk measured 47.875 inches wide, but the ADA standard was 48 inches. Fortunately, the judge handling the case ruled it was unreasonable to require replacement of the sidewalk.
Many years ago, our contractor remodeled the bathroom in a Golden Gate Transit drivers’ lounge for wheelchair access, even though GGT rules at the time stipulated that disabled drivers weren’t eligible for hire.
Septic system compliance: Our contractor built a custom home where the owner had received county approval for a pressure distribution septic system. The property was later sold, and then the new owners needed to sell a year later. County septic inspectors checked monitoring wells and found that two out of eight wells showed higher levels of bacteria than allowed. Result: no work-around. The county condemned the system and the homeowners had to pay for a new “mound” septic system. Cost: $25,000. I wonder how many septic systems in the Russian River area would be condemned if inspected by the county.
About code compliance in general, our contractor confirmed the problem posed by code interpretation disagreements among field inspectors. He cited instances when one field inspector issued a list of corrections that were later changed by a second field inspector; or one field inspector issued a list of corrections but a fire marshal disagreed and issued a separate list; or a field inspector required a change that the contractor was certain the code didn’t require. Diplomacy was essential to foster good ongoing relationships.
You might think that the complex system of plan review and building inspection creates some liability for city or county governments if something that’s been approved turns out not to be code-compliant. No. Planning departments add a big red stamp to approved plans, placing the burden for compliance squarely on the builder. Both the city of Santa Rosa and county of Sonoma have language that translates as, “Just because we reviewed and approved something doesn’t make it right with the code.” I went to both the city of Santa Rosa and county offices to get copies of the latest big red stamps. It took four minutes to be seen at Santa Rosa offices and 50 minutes to be seen at the county.
