DOPS Standard

NRU
July 18, 2018
Rob Jowett

Implementing the most recent provincial standard to ensure public spaces are accessible to people with disabilities is proving to be challenging in terms of its scope and technical requirements.

The AllAccess Public Space Initiative is intended to help organizations become compliant with the Design of Public Spaces Standard in the 2005 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. The standard ensures that all new public spaces--such as sidewalks, trails, parks, playgrounds, and parking facilities--are accessible to people with disabilities.

Funded by the provincial government, the initiative is being jointly led by the Canadian Urban Institute and Human Space, a division of Quadrangle. It is intended to clear up confusion around the standards which came into full effect at the beginning of 2018.
“There’s just a basic lack of awareness about what the AODA scope is and what the Design of Public Spaces scope is,” says Human Space accessibility strategist Lorene Casiez. “You have people who are knowledgeable about accessibility… but when it comes to what are the exact technical requirements of the AOD and design of public spaces that sometimes has been identified as a gap to us.”

CUI planner and researcher Ariana Cancelli told NRU the initiative includes researching challenges and opportunities for achieve compliance with DOPS, raising awareness of DOPS requirements, and running workshops to broadly share this information.

“We’re trying to help practitioners, so designers, planners, municipalities, property owners, and other people involved in the design and development of public spaces to better understand and implement the [DOPS] standards.”

The goal of the AODA is to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025. The act comprises five integrated standards--customer service, information and communication, employment, transportation, and design of public spaces.

Compliance with the act is generally enforced by the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario. Enforcement is conducted through paper audits, through which businesses and government departments submit compliance reports detailing how they have met the requirements.

AODA Alliance chair David Lepofsky told NRU that the legislation and its implementation falls short of its goals. The alliance advocates for people with disabilities.
“[The provincial government’s] idea of an audit was not to go to a place and see if they’re actually doing stuff to become accessible,” he says. “All they’re doing is asking whether you have the records you’re supposed to have on what you’re doing on accessibility.”

Lepofsky says that implementation of the act’s requirements began to slow down around 2012, and that it has not been a provincial priority for the last five years. The alliance released a letter on July 17 addressed to seniors and accessibility minister Raymond Cho, calling on the new provincial government to create a strategy to get implementation back on schedule.“We went from not moving fast enough to grinding down to a halt.”

The AllAccess Public Space Initiative has scheduled a series of workshops that will take place this fall.