Explanation
Background
The City of Columbus, Department of Public Service, has a construction program to install curb ramps that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) throughout the City, including within the City’s several historic and design-review districts. One of those historic districts is the German Village Historic District, which was established by Columbus City Council and is described in Section 3119.25 of the Columbus City Codes.
Standard ADA curb ramps are installed with plastic detectable warning strips, concrete surrounding the warning strips, and concrete curbs. These standard curb ramps are installed in the City’s non-historic neighborhoods, including Linden, the Hilltop, Clintonville, East Broad Street, Morse Road, Northwest Columbus, the University District, and in most neighborhoods of the City. The German Village Society (the “Society”) has requested curb ramps and sidewalks that are anywhere from four to six times more expensive than the standard City curb ramps due to the material involved and the engineering design work required to craft a custom-made curb ramp for each individual curb within the German Village Historic District. Namely, the Society has requested brick inlays leading to the detectable warning strips, as well as sandstone curbs. Brick is more expensive than concrete. Sandstone, meanwhile, is a scarce resource available only from a limited number of quarries in the country. Further, sandstone is not a malleable material like concrete. Because of this fact, sandstone requires a skilled mason to fabricate the sandstone into the exact dimensions for each individual curb. The Department of Public Service is currently under contract for the construction of 55 curb ramps in the German Village Historic District
The Department and the German Village Society engaged in discussions to attempt to arrive at a compromise solution for the installation of the 55 curb ramps. Although progress was made during th...
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