Summary
A No-Cost Building Permit: Every 11 seconds somewhere in the country an older adult is treated in an emergency room because of an injury due to a fall. 50% of falls occur at home. To help residents age 60 and older and younger adults with disabilities improve their home environment, Age Friendly Sausalito joined with City’s Community Development Department to create the Age Friendly Home Adaptation Grant Program enabling homeowners and renters to make accessibility improvements to their dwellings with a no-cost or reduced fee building permit. This new program makes it more affordable to obtain building permits to make homes safer and more accommodating to the changing situations and conditions in life. The Age Friendly Permit can be utilized for individual or aggregated adaptation improvements and is free with a project valuation cost of a maximum of $10,000. Other concurrent remodel improvements that are not eligible adaptation improvements will be subject to the standard permit fees. All eligible residents may be issued up to two home adaptation permits within a one-year period for adaptation improvements of $10,000 for each home adaptation permit. This program was inspired by comments received during an Age Friendly assessment about the complexity and expense of permits. It was born in a follow-up community meeting of older adults concerned about aging in place in a seaside town built on a steep hillside, with multilevel houses and many stairs. Joining the Age Friendly Taskforce in designing the program were a retired architect, fire chief, independent living advocate, building inspector and city finance director. The City embraced the program making residents safer and increasing accessible housing, by dedicating funding to offset loss of permit revenues.
Key facts
Main target group: Older people in general
Other target group(s): Adults living with disability
Sector(s): Health, Housing, Urban development
Other sector(s): Safety
Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs
- Accessibility
- Ageing in place
- Dementia
- Healthy behaviours (e.g. physical activity)
- Inequities
- Inclusion