What's Wrong With ADA

"Arguably the most outspoken critic of visitability positions, Andrés Duany, a principal of Miami-based Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, minces few words when laying out his concerns with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and hardline evangelists of visitability concepts."

'The ADA does not have an administrative mechanism, it is administered by lawsuit -- not by bureaucracy, which is terrifying, because the inspectors don't have to catch anything in the design stage. So because it is very often not in black and white, it terrorizes architects out of making the highest possible tradition.'"

"That lawsuit component associated with the ADA is what's most chilling for developers and builders, says R. John Anderson, vice president of design for New Urban Builders in Chico, Calif. 'There's an immediate structural problem with federal accessibility legislation: It's civil rights legislation, enforced by someone suing you. If you're a builder, the best-case scenario if you run afoul of the ADA is that when a suit is brought against you, your liability insurance gets dumped. Next, you go to federal court and defend yourself at your own cost against an advocacy group or the federal government. If you win, you go home and try to resurrect your reputation and piece your life back together and go on, and try to get your liability insurance again.'"