Thomas P. Murphy, chair of the Disability Law Center of Massachusetts, says that if the cost of House renewal tops this cutoff, “they will have to meet the standards of accessibility that would be required as if it were new construction.”

The exact cost of House renewal is not yet known, but Harvard administrators and disability law experts both forecast that Harvard’s renovations will exceed the cap, thus bringing the Houses under the auspices of state codes and the ADA.

According to lawyers, the ADA—which was passed in 1990 after the construction of all 12 Houses—stipulates that a certain percentage of rooms in each House must be accessible, as well as all common spaces, such as dining halls.

The rules have their nuances though. Dingman recalls that in the early 1990s, when Yard dorms were renovated, Harvard decided that it would be nearly impossible to make all of the dormitories—which date back as far as 1720—accessible.

Dingman says the interiors of some dorms, including Thayer, were converted from their previous vertical entryway format into horizontal floors, making them accessible. But to get around the challenge of changing the interior makeup of dorms such as Wigglesworth and Straus, Dingman says that Harvard obtained permission from the city of Cambridge to group the Yard into four quarters and ensure that each zone had accessible rooms, rather than every individual building.

However, Murphy does not believe that treating multiple Houses as one building would be legal today.

“If they’re doing renovation to each of the Houses, then each individual House renovation should meet the standards. Within each one, there should be fully accessible common areas and a disbursement of accessible rooms,” Murphy says.

However, there are other ways to avoid the ADA requirements.

“In some circumstances you can ask for release—for a variance from the requirement,” says Ann M. Sobolewski, an attorney who specializes in real estate law. “Depending on the age of the building and whether or not they have any historic protections—which some of these buildings very well may—you can get some exceptions.”

Murphy agrees, “They have to do it if it’s feasible, and it’s possible, especially with buildings that are very old, that it may not be structurally or architecturally feasible for them to make certain areas accessible.”

However, he says that Harvard would be hard-pressed to make a case that it cannot afford to update its historic buildings.

“The age of a building or the fact that it would be difficult to do isn’t alone a defense for not doing it,” Murphy says. “For a school like Harvard that has the resources that they do, I don’t think the financial argument would carry much weight.”

GOING FORWARD

Irrespective of potential legal exceptions, administrators say that accessibility is a major goal of House renewal.

“Apart from the law, we want to have options as much as possible,” Dingman says.