Accessibility vs German Historical Monuments
Since it is disability pride month, let me vent about one thing that here in Germany is so fucking annoying, and especially in my city (with it being one of the cities that had more than average amount of buildings survive WWII) is a really headache: The German Government Office of the Protection of Historical Monuments. Which is a mouthful, but I think that is how it is translated. The German word is the wonderful: "Denkmalschutzbehörde."
Basically what this goverment office does is to make sure that historical monuments are protected. Which sounds nice. Because hey, historical architecture (and other historical buildings and infrastructure) are interesting and we can learn a lot about history from it. Great.
Only that there is an issue. Because in Germany the protection of historical monuments beats out the law on a bunch of other stuff.
One issue we have is a constant conflict between the protection of historical monuments and ecological protection stuff. You wanna make your building more energy efficient? I think not, it is a historical monument, you cannot do such big renovations! You want to use some modern energy technology in or around it (like photovoltaic, heat exchangers and what not)? Nope. You are not. Historical monument. And mind you: especially photovoltaic is not just a "this old building cannot have photovoltaic on the roof". No, no, no. The neighboring buildings also are not allowed to do that, because it would change the overall view onto the historical building. Which... yeah. Is a headache.
But none of this compared to the protection of historical buildings and accessibility. Because yes, technically there is a law in Germany that says that all public buildings, like offices, courts, schools, and what not, are supposed to be accessible. Meaning elevators, ramps, and stuff like that.
Only there is a problem: the German law values the historical value of buildings as more important than accessibility.
Which is... as bad as it sounds.
Again, I am living in a city in which a very good chunk of buildings survived WWII bombings. Which means that almost the entire city center is made up of buildings that have been constructed before 1900, and hence fall under the "historical monument protection". And due to it being the city center, there is also a bunch of government buildings in there. The court. The majoral office. A bunch of buildings related to university administration. Two schools. All of them inside of historical buildings. Most of them without elevators, or even ramps.
The city courthouse has an entrance only accessible after 16 steps on a staircase. The city has been petitioning the government to allow them to put a fucking elevator in there. But no. No elevator.
Technically there is an elevator at the back of the building. However, this elevator is so tiny, that anything bigger than your standard wheelchair does not fit. And given it is a courthouse, to use the elevator, you have to phone the security personal, of whom then one person needs to come out, take you around the building (on cobble stone, by the way, which is not amazing on wheelchair), unlock the backdoor and activate the elevator for you.
If you have an electric wheelchair that is bigger than normal? Yeah, tough luck. You gotta make sure the court is notified in advance so that your hearing can happen in the neighboring building.
Same with the university. So, the university administration is in a very big, very old building. Which on the inside does have elevators and ramps. Great. Sadly... the building is more than 300 years old, and the entrance has two steps. Not ideal, but, you would think, this is easy to install a ramp over. Which the university did. Because, it was just a fucking semi-permanent ramp. One of those that is anchored, but can easily be removed.
Yeah... we got sued by the office of monument protection for installing a ramp and with changing the look of the historical building. That ramp had to be removed.
I will note again: this is the building in which a lot of the university admin stuff is inside. into which students need to get. Including disabled students. So, what is the solution?
Yeah, you have to phone ahead, so that someone can put out the mobile ramp before you come.
And mind you: in all these cases the people responsible for the building (the city and the university) all wanted to have the accessibility stuff there. They were willing to spend money on this, and had even alotted it. But the upper courts again and again decide that disabled people having access to building that by law they should have access to is less important than the beauty of an old building being supposedly slightly lessened BY HAVING A FUCKING RAMP IN FRONT.
And this is such a fucking problem in Germany. Because... Germany has a lot of old buildings. And in a bunch of the cities that had less loss to bombing administrative stuff, schools, and what not are inside of old buildings. And if you are disabled, somehow the fact that an old building looks somewhat like it did 200 years ago beats out your legal right to access this building.
