City not trimming handicapped parking

The handicapped parking spaces and the gap between them -- and the commitment the city of Las Vegas made to the people who use them -- won't diminish after all.

A two-member City Council recommending committee on Monday voted to deny a proposed ordinance that would have shrunk the size of handicapped parking spaces and reduce the gap between them.

City Councilmen Michael McDonald and Larry Brown, who sponsored the measure, in effect killed the bill before it had a chance to go before the full council for vote at the Aug. 10 meeting. They said it was never intended to hurt the disabled community, but rather bring the city in line with the national standard.

Representatives of the disabled community, however, told the committee that the city already had made the proper move by having an ordinance that far exceeded what is required in the Americans With Disabilities Act.

"The ADA set the minimum standard, not the absolute standard," said Vince Triggs, director of the Nevada Association of the Handicapped, who initially voiced objections to the bill in a July 9 Sun story. "The city standard is extremely generous ... above and beyond the ADA."

The bill called for the city to reduce the size of handicapped parking spaces at new developments -- or at established developments that are being remodeled -- from a width of 9 feet to 8 feet. The bill also sought to reduce the two 5-foot access aisles on both sides of a handicapped space to a single 5-foot access aisle.

The proposed ordinance stems from complaints by area developers who say the current ordinance allows too much space for handicapped parking, especially at small businesses where available parking is limited. However, none of them voiced their opinion on the bill at Monday's hearing at City Hall.

Triggs said the ADA never was meant to be devastating to the business community. He recommended that the council take action that would allow it to grant waivers to the handicapped parking space size ordinance if a business could show a "clear demonstration of hardship" because of it.

McDonald said perhaps the council will grant such waivers.

Brown said the city should look at the matter case by case and that the council never intended "to give and take away."

The committee could have made a recommendation to pass, not pass or bring it before the council with no recommendation. But it apparently agreed with the members of the disabled community to not change what Triggs called "a really great thing."

"One thing I like about living in the city of Las Vegas is that it is different and above the normal," said Ronald Ray Smith, spokesman for the Disabled Rights Action Committee.

Smith, who uses a wheelchair, recommended that the city, which enacted the present ordinance at the start of this year, give it a little more time to work before attempting to change it.

"I have a van (with a wheelchair lift) and I need all of the available space," said Kurt Geiger, a Summerlin resident who uses a wheelchair. "Making the space smaller will create a lot of difficulty (for me)."

Clark County, which is not currently considering changes to its handicapped parking space standards, requires handicapped parking to be 9 feet wide, but allows just one 5-foot access aisle on either side of the space, as the city had been proposing.

As a result, by killing the measure, it could be argued that the city remains slightly more progressive than the county on the wheelchair space size issue.

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