Friday, September 23, 2005
By Kevin Rollason
 
 
DISABILITY advocates would like every single home and business in the proposed Waverley West development to be accessible.

Jim Derksen, who yesterday was at a forum on visitable housing -- designing houses to make it easier for people with disabilities to live in and visit -- said construction of the new subdivision, expected someday to be as large as the city of Brandon, is a golden opportunity for accessibility.

"It's a tremendous opportunity," said Derksen, the now-retired first executive director of the province's disabilities issues office. That office was created in 2002. We have the chance to have a large community of 20,000 to 30,000 people be entirely accessible. That would be the largest single accessible neighbourhood in the world.

"And there's no reason we can't do it because the land is owned by the province."

Derksen said there is precedent around the world because the United Kingdom has a law where no residences can be built unless they have a zero-step entrance.

And Eleanor Smith, an American-based visitable house advocate, in the city to speak at the forum, says the city should be like Bollingbrook, Ill., which has a law that every new house has to have basic access. "The cost of putting access into a new house during construction is less than the cost of a bay window," Smith said.

A visitable house is one that features a no-step entrance for people with disabilities, wider doorways, and a wheelchair-accessible bathroom on the main floor. Unlike accessible housing, no ramp is needed to get into the house.

The forum was hosted by the province, City of Winnipeg, and the University of Manitoba's department of architecture.

But while Christine Melnick, minister responsible for persons with disabilities, attended the forum, she would not comment on making all buildings in Waverley West visitable and accessible, or whether the provincial government will enact laws to force builders to construct visitable houses.

However, Melnick said the province is creating the position of a housing design consultant to help create more visitable and accessible homes for people with disabilities.

Melnick said the new consultant will work with members of the public, as well as builders, developers, community groups, and government agencies to make houses more accessible or visitable before they are constructed.

back to Events