Another Residential Real Estate Developer Gets Belted With Disability-Based Housing Discrimination Suit; Inaccessible Bathrooms & Inadequate Kitchen Space For Wheelchair-Bound Residents Among Alleged Conditions Existing In Eight Of Builder/Landlord's Central Ohio Apartment Complexes

In Columbus, Ohio, The Columbus Dispatch reports:

• Two housing advocacy groups have filed a federal lawsuit accusing a major Columbus developer of violating the Fair Housing Act in eight of its central Ohio apartment complexes.
  
  The Central Ohio Fair Housing Association and the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center filed the suit [] against Metro Development and affiliated companies.
  
  The suit alleges that the apartment complexes violate federal law by failing to include, among other things, accessible bathrooms, adequate kitchen space for a tenant in a wheelchair, accessible mailboxes and a handicapped-accessible route to the entryway.
  
  Jim McCarthy, president and CEO of the fair-housing groups, said “the most glaring” problem is bathrooms that do not allow someone in a wheelchair to close the door behind them and transfer from the chair to the toilet. In addition, the complexes lack entrance ramps, forcing tenants in wheelchairs to climb curbs.
  
  “I’m not sure how someone in this day and age could fail to recognize that this isn’t accessible,” McCarthy said.

For more, see Fair-housing groups' suit: Apartment complexes aren't handicap-accessible. accessibility