BCAB #1669 - Overhead Doors in Access to Exit, Sentence 3.3.1.11.(1)

April 15, 2010

BCAB #1669

Re: Overhead Doors in Access to Exit, Sentence 3.3.1.11.(1)

Project Description
The project in question is a new hotel and condominium with underground parking classified under Part 3 of the Code. The developer wishes to provide secure parking for the condominium owners by locating their parking in stalls surrounded by structural walls, columns and non-structural walls separating the parking from other uses on the storey. Access to these secure stalls is proposed to be through standard residential type overhead garage doors. Only four of the 20 secure stalls would also be equipped with man doors because there is no room for such doors in the remaining stalls.

Reason for Appeal
Access to exit is required from every floor area and Sentence 3.3.1.11.(1) requires doors providing access to exit from suites or rooms not within suites to swing on a vertical axis. The proposed overhead garage doors do not swing on a vertical axis.

Appellant’s Position
The appellant contends that garages accessed only by a sectional overhead vehicle door are a common occurrence and inclusion of vertically hinged man doors within these doors is unwarranted and impractical. The appellant understands these types of doors to require a high degree of maintenance and they are susceptible to jamming.

Building Official's Position
The building official maintains that an overhead garage door does not meet the requirement for a door swinging on a vertical axis for egress purposes as required by Sentence 3.3.1.11.(1).

Appeal Board Decision #1669
It is the determination of the Board that to conform with Sentence 3.3.1.11.(1) the private garages must be provided with egress doors that swing on a vertical axis.

George Humphrey, Chair