The project (office building) has a few private (executive) offices which have their own assigned private toilet. This is intended for use only by the assigned executive. As such, the toilet is not accessible to other employees or guests. It would be logical to assign these under "private toilet" however, recent guidance documents have a qualifying condition for the type of building where "only facilities in residencies and apartments, private bathrooms in hotels and hospitals, and restrooms in commercial establishments where the fixtures are intended for the use of a family or an individual are considered private or private-use facilities. All other facilities are considered public or public use."
Given this, should the private toilets in office buildings be considered public even though only 1 person has access to it? To be clear, the toilet has 1 lavatory and 1 water closet and accessible only thru the private/executive office space; room is secured by lockset by the user.
Hoping for your advice.
thank you and regards,
Pabs
Trista Brown
Project DirectorWSP USA
449 thumbs up
November 17, 2016 - 5:37 pm
Hi Pablo, based on the RG language at the top of page 88, I'd say this qualifies as private because the fixtures are used by an individual. You could include a narrative explaining this so that the reviewer understands the situation, just be sure that your calculator is set up to show that a very small percent of occupants actually have access to these fixtures.
Alternatively if your prerequisite/credit achievement isn't affected you could complete the calculations conservatively and classify these restrooms as public.