Request for third ramp isn’t about blame, it’s about Rock Hill residents’ disabilities

Ruth Masters can’t walk up or down steps. She has one leg. She gets around in a wheelchair. At the apartment where she lives, the wheelchair ramps are on the building’s side and in the rear.

Masters and several other residents would like a ramp at the front. They all live at the Courtyard at Highland Park, in an old textile mill.

There is no legal requrement for another ramp, but residents there would like one.

“For me to come all the way to the front, to go the senior center, it takes a long time to get around,” said Masters, 65. “The rain? Forget it.”

Resident Sheila Koehler, 68, said she asked several weeks ago if the company that owns and manages the property would add a third ramp. There are more than 100 apartments there for seniors or people with special needs. York County Access buses make passenger pickups and drop-offs at the front entrance.

“It would be far more convenient and safer for everyone here,” Koehler said.

Rock Hill officials say the building is in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act for access, and has been since it opened more than a decade ago. Landmark, the property owners and managers, would have to seek permission from city officials for another ramp because the building is considered historic, dating back to the late 19th Century, said Katie Quinn, spokesperson for the city of Rock Hill.

The property management group that operates the apartments would have to apply to Rock Hill’s Board of Historic Review for a Certificate of Appropriateness, Quinn said. The city has not received a request, Quinn said.

All entrances of a building do not have to have handicapped access to meet accessibility requirements, Quinn said.

A Rock Hill representative for Landmark said the corporate office in Winston-Salem, N.C., is handling the residents’ request. Corporate officials said last week in an emailed statement accompanied with pictures of the other access ramps on the property that the building complies with Americans With Disabilities Act.

Still, the residents are hoping for a ramp for the front.

The entrance that faces Standard Street and is adjacent to the York County Council on Aging senior center where many residents go five days a week for meals and activities has stairs but no ramp.

“It would make it a lot easier for people here. I am 89 years old, and I use a walker,” Rose Gilson said.

Betty Robinson, 93, who also uses a walker, said, “it would be a whole lot shorter” to go in and out at the front using a ramp rather than going around the building. “Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes the way it is now and if it rains I just stay inside,” she said.

The senior center has nothing to do with the maintenance or management of the apartments, said Lyn Garris, spokesperson for the council on aging.

This story was originally published October 17, 2017 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Request for third ramp isn’t about blame, it’s about Rock Hill residents’ disabilities."