Multifamily gets a seat on the accessibility board
Multifamily gets a seat on the accessibility board
2026-09-15 · Pennsylvania · Regulation
What happened. Act 16 of 2026, signed 6 May 2026 and effective 5 July 2026, rewrites the machinery by which the accessibility provisions of Pennsylvania's Uniform Construction Code get reviewed and adopted — and puts a multifamily-housing representative on the board that does the reviewing.1
The board, as reconstituted
The act amends the Pennsylvania Construction Code Act at §§ 103, 106, 301(a)(4), 304(a)(3) and (a.1) and 703(b)-(d)(2), and creates an Accessibility Advisory Board Administration Account. The board is now "composed of 11 members, seven of which shall be appointed by the secretary," and the composition requirement reads: "At least six members of the advisory board shall be public members, three of whom shall be persons with physical disabilities, one shall be an architect registered in Pennsylvania, one shall be a member of the business community, and one shall be a representative of the multifamily housing industry."2
Member terms move from "[two] four years."
The new review cycle
New § 106(d) sets out a full process for "updated accessibility code sections." Review commences 21 months after publication of a new International Code Council edition, "beginning with the 2024 ICC codes." There is a 120-day public comment period noticed in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, at least one public hearing, and per-section voting — sections drawing reject-or-modify comments "shall require a vote of at least seven advisory board members." The board reports to the Secretary within 24 months.2
The review criteria are now explicit, and one of them is "The economic and financial impact of the section, including the impact on the end consumer."
Why this is association news rather than builder news
Because this is the process that decides what accessibility requirements apply to new and altered condominium and multifamily buildings in Pennsylvania — and "altered" is the word that reaches existing communities.
An association undertaking substantial work on a common element is doing an alteration, and alterations pull in code requirements that new-construction-only thinking misses. Lobby renovations, entrance reconfiguration, elevator modernisation, clubhouse and amenity refits, parking reconstruction and pool-area work can all trigger accessibility provisions depending on scope. The board that just gained a multifamily seat is the board that will decide, section by section, which of the 2024 ICC accessibility requirements Pennsylvania takes up and which it rejects or modifies.
The economic-impact criterion matters for the same reason. It gives the board a named basis on which to decline a requirement on cost grounds, and it names the end consumer — which in a condominium is the unit owner paying the special assessment.
What the four-year terms change
This looks like housekeeping and is not entirely. A two-year term on a board whose review cycle now runs 24 months meant a member could be replaced partway through a single code review. Four-year terms mean members see a cycle through. Combined with the seven-vote threshold for rejecting or modifying a section, the effect is to make the board's output more stable and harder to swing between cycles.
The seat, and what it is not
One seat, described as "a representative of the multifamily housing industry." That phrase covers apartment developers and owners as naturally as it covers condominium associations, and nothing in the act says the appointee must come from the community-association side. Associations and rental multifamily have genuinely different interests here — an apartment owner absorbs a compliance cost as an operating expense, whereas a condominium association passes it to owners as a special assessment, and the two constituencies do not always want the same outcome.
The practical consequence is that the seat is an opportunity rather than a guarantee. Who fills it, and whether Pennsylvania's community-association constituency engages with the appointment, decides whether it represents them at all.
How to actually use this
The review is a public process with a 120-day comment period noticed in the Pennsylvania Bulletin and at least one public hearing. That is a genuine opening — unusually, it comes with a statutory criterion that invites exactly the argument an association would want to make, about cost falling on the end consumer.
The step that costs nothing is to watch the Pennsylvania Bulletin for the comment notice on the 2024 ICC accessibility review. A board facing a known future project — an elevator modernisation, an entrance rebuild — has a concrete cost figure, and a concrete figure is worth considerably more in a rulemaking comment than a general objection.
What to watch next
The trigger is publication of a new ICC edition plus 21 months, starting with the 2024 codes, and the report is due within 24 months of commencement. So the substantive decisions about which 2024 accessibility sections Pennsylvania adopts are being made on a timetable that runs through this period rather than at some distant point.
Worth noting alongside it: a separate bill, HB 358, would set standards for elevators in apartment buildings and condominiums by amending the same Construction Code Act. It was referred to the House Housing and Community Development Committee on 27 January 2025 and has had no action since.3 Elevators in Pennsylvania condominiums remain governed by the code as adopted, not by any association-specific statute.
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