ADA Parking Compliance Audit in Hood River, Oregon: What to Expect

What an ADA Parking Audit Looks Like in Hood River

An ADA parking audit is a structured inspection of your lot against the 2010 ADA Standards and Oregon's accessibility law. For Hood River owners, it usually happens for one of three reasons: a complaint or demand letter arrived, paving or striping work is planned and you want to correct everything at once, or you are buying or leasing a property and need to know what compliance issues come with it. In a high-traffic Gorge tourism town, the first trigger — a complaint from a visitor — is more common than in quieter markets.

This article explains what the process involves so you know what to expect before the inspector shows up. For the broader framework, start with our ADA parking compliance guide for Oregon, and for the general step-by-step, see the ADA compliance audit process.

Step One: Counting Spaces and Checking the Ratio

The audit begins with a count. The inspector totals your spaces and compares the accessible count against the required ratio — roughly one accessible space per 25 in smaller lots, with at least 1 in 6 accessible spaces being van-accessible. A Hood River lot with 45 spaces needs 2 accessible spaces and at least one van-accessible. Lodging and recreation businesses sometimes set their count for shoulder-season traffic and come up short at peak.

Step Two: Measuring Dimensions and Slope

Each accessible space is measured for stall width (8 feet minimum), aisle width (5 feet standard, 8 feet for van), and combined footprint. Then slope — and in Hood River this is the heart of the audit. Accessible spaces and aisles cannot exceed 2 percent in any direction, and the Gorge wall's steep grade makes slope the single most common and most serious finding here. A digital level verifies slope at multiple points; many Hood River lots discover that one or more accessible spaces simply sit on too steep a grade and need regrading.

Step Three: Signage and Pavement Markings

The inspector confirms each accessible space has a vertical sign with the International Symbol of Accessibility mounted at least 60 inches to the bottom, a "Van Accessible" plate on van spaces, and Oregon's required fine-amount plate. On the pavement, they check the accessibility symbol is present, correctly proportioned, and not faded past legibility, and that access aisles carry diagonal hatching. The Gorge's punishing sun, wind, and wet winters fade paint fast, so faded symbols are an especially frequent write-up in Hood River.

Step Four: Accessible Route and Surface Condition

A compliant space is useless if you can't reach the door. The inspector traces the accessible route from the accessible spaces to the entrance, checking continuous width, curb ramps, level changes greater than a quarter inch, and running slope — which, on Hood River's terrain, is often the hardest part of the route to keep compliant. They also flag surface defects inside accessible areas: cracks wider than half an inch, potholes, ponding water, and crumbling asphalt. Gorge freeze-thaw produces these defects faster than valley conditions.

Step Five: The Report and Punch List

You receive a written report listing each finding, its location, and the standard it violates. A good report sorts items by severity and cost — separating cheap fixes (raise a sign, repaint a symbol, add hatching) from larger ones (regrade for slope, rebuild a curb ramp). The 10 most common ADA parking violations shows the kinds of items that typically appear. This punch list becomes your remediation plan and your evidence of good-faith effort if a complaint is ever filed.

What Hood River Owners Do With the Results

Most owners handle the low-cost, high-visibility items first — signage, symbol repainting, aisle hatching. The slope and route corrections that dominate Hood River audits get scheduled with the next paving cycle, so the regrade and repave happen together and the cost is shared. If a restripe is already planned, the audit findings fold directly into the layout work; see parking lot striping in Hood River.

An audit is a snapshot of your lot against the standards on the day it is performed, not a legal opinion. Its value is the specific, measured punch list that tells you exactly what to fix and in what order.