We’re now having to work on accessibility standards and compliance, and it’s clear this should have been addressed years ago. The reality is that someone dropped the ball in starting this project, and now we’re operating under a deferral that forces us to catch up under time pressure.
What makes this especially frustrating is that accessibility should have been built into the work from the beginning, not treated as an afterthought. The cost, delay, and rework required to fix this now are significant, and the project is far less efficient than it should have been. Someone failed to start this work when they should have, and now the company is stuck doing expensive retrofits under pressure. And they’re laying off the most important ppl needed to go forward.
Furthermore, accessibility matters, but government should not impose one-size-fits-all solutions on every business or building. The real issue is whether a mandate is proportionate to the cost, because a badly timed retrofit can become a huge and unnecessary expense if the work was never planned from the start. Private organizations should have flexibility to solve access problems in ways that fit their size, budget, and actual use, and accessibility should be built in early rather than forced in later through an expensive scramble. You can support equal access and still criticize wasteful, retroactive implementation.