The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has specific guidelines that apply to restrooms, bathrooms, or, as the government refers to them, toilet rooms. This is to ensure that anyone in the building can access these facilities if necessary. Examples include making stalls wide enough for a wheelchair or providing ramp access if the restroom is on an elevated level.
In many cases, businesses use single restrooms with multiple stalls, with at least one stall being wheelchair accessible to satisfy ADA regulations. But some businesses use clusters of single-person bathrooms. Instead of having separate women’s and men’s bathrooms with multiple stalls, the business may have six individual rooms that anyone can use. These are arranged in a cluster to make them easy to locate, operating similarly to a larger bathroom – while giving people more privacy. What does this mean for ADA compliance?
50% compliance
In these cases, at least half of the bathrooms need to comply with ADA regulations. If there are six rooms in total, at least three of them must be accessible to those with disabilities.
This does not mean that only people with disabilities can use these facilities – they are open to everyone. But requiring that half of them be ADA compliant ensures that everyone has an option for restroom use in that building.
Does your business comply?
You could face lawsuits or legal action if you believed you were in compliance but were not. For instance, maybe you renovated one of the bathrooms to be ADA compliant, thinking that was enough, but you actually needed to renovate two or three of them to meet the 50% rule. If you are facing litigation, be sure you understand your legal options.