ADA & Fair Housing Parking for Oregon Apartments

Three Laws, One Parking Lot

Apartment and multifamily parking is more complicated than most commercial parking because three different legal frameworks can touch it: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Fair Housing Act (FHA), and Oregon's building code. Each applies to a different part of the property, and a property manager who only thinks about one of them can miss obligations under the others.

This page untangles how those three frameworks apply to Oregon apartment parking. The general ADA standard is in our ADA parking compliance guide for Oregon, and this is general guidance, not legal advice.

Where the ADA Applies at an Apartment

The ADA, specifically Title III, governs public accommodations. At an apartment community, the residential units themselves are generally not public accommodations, but the public-facing parts can be. The most common example is the leasing office. A rental or leasing office open to prospective tenants functions as a place of business open to the public, and the parking serving it can carry ADA accessible-parking obligations like any commercial lot.

Other public-facing amenities, if open to the public rather than residents only, can pull in ADA coverage too. So the ADA's reach at an apartment is typically the leasing office and any genuinely public areas, with the standard count and design rules applying to that parking.

Where Fair Housing Applies

The Fair Housing Act governs the residential side, and its approach to accessibility is different from the ADA's. For covered multifamily housing, the FHA sets design and construction requirements that include accessible features in and around the dwellings, and on the parking side it requires that accessible parking be available to residents and guests with disabilities on an accessible route to the covered units.

The FHA also imposes a duty to make reasonable accommodations. A resident with a disability can request a designated accessible parking space near their unit as a reasonable accommodation, and the property generally must grant it absent undue burden. This is a resident-driven obligation that has no real parallel in the commercial ADA world, and it means an apartment property's accessible parking is not static; it can have to flex to resident needs.

Where Oregon Code Applies

On top of both federal frameworks, Oregon's building code governs construction and alterations. New multifamily construction and significant renovations are reviewed against the Oregon Structural Specialty Code at permitting, which carries its own accessible-parking and accessible-route requirements. So a property being built or substantially renovated in Oregon meets the state code regardless of how the ADA and FHA lines fall. Our Oregon ADA parking requirements page covers this state layer.

Counting Across the Property

Because different rules apply to different areas, the count is not a single number for the whole property:

• Leasing office and public areas generally follow the standard ADA table, roughly one accessible space per 25 serving that area, with the one-in-six van ratio. Our accessible parking count requirements page has the table.
• Resident and guest parking for covered units follows the FHA's requirements for accessible parking on an accessible route to the units, plus whatever reasonable-accommodation spaces residents request.
• New construction or alteration is reviewed against the Oregon code's requirements at permitting.

A property manager has to think in terms of zones, leasing office, resident parking, guest parking, rather than one lot-wide count.

The Route to the Unit

For the residential side, the accessible route is especially important because it connects parking to homes, not just to a storefront. A resident with a disability needs a continuous accessible route from their accessible parking space to their dwelling, within slope limits, wide enough, and free of obstructions, as our ADA accessible route to the door page describes.

Apartment routes are often long and cross multiple surfaces, parking lot, sidewalk, breezeway, courtyard. Each transition is a place the route can break with an un-ramped curb or a step. When a resident requests an accommodation space, the route from it to their unit has to actually work, not just the space.

A Practical Approach for Property Managers

For an Oregon multifamily operator, a workable approach:

• Treat the leasing office and public areas as commercial ADA parking and count them accordingly
• Provide FHA-compliant accessible parking and routes for residents and guests of covered units
• Handle reasonable-accommodation requests promptly, designating spaces near the requesting resident's unit
• Bring new construction and renovation through the Oregon code's accessible-parking review
• Audit periodically, since fading paint and resident turnover change the picture over time

This is general guidance, and the specific application of the ADA, FHA, and Oregon code to your property depends on its age, layout, and operations. An accessibility professional or attorney can confirm what applies.