For a homeowner with a garage, charging can be relatively straightforward. But for someone who rents an apartment, lives in a condo, uses shared parking, or has mobility or other accessibility needs, “access to charging” is just the first step — chargers must also be reliable, affordable, and physically accessible to the drivers who want to use them.
About one in four Michiganders live in multifamily housing, where residents often have less control over installing charging at home. That makes charging at apartments, condominiums, and other multifamily properties an important part of making EV ownership accessible to more people. In addition, over 30% of Michiganders have disabilities, ranging from physical to sensory and cognitive, who often choose to live in multifamily housing because of increased accessibility requirements in building code.
Michigan has an opportunity right now to get multifamily EV charging right and create infrastructure that is accessible by design. EGLE’s Clean Fuel and Charging Infrastructure (CFCI) program has awarded $10 million for EV charging at multifamily properties, with funding supporting both existing and new developments. As these projects move from funding to implementation, decisions about where and how chargers are installed will shape residents’ charging experiences for years.
Accessibility should be part of the conversation from the beginning
For people who live in single-family homes with private garages or driveways, home charging is often relatively simple. A charger can be installed where the vehicle is parked, and the driver can plug in overnight.
Multifamily residents face different challenges and often lack the ability to customize their charging options. They may share parking spaces, rely on assigned or unassigned spaces, have limited control over electrical infrastructure, or live in buildings where adding charging requires decisions by a property owner, developer, homeowners association, or other entity.
Our Multifamily EV Charging Guide gives property owners, managers, and other decision-makers a starting point for understanding how to bring EV charging to multifamily properties.
But access has another dimension that deserves attention: whether the charging infrastructure is actually usable by the people it is intended to serve.
Designing for people, not just vehicles
For people with disabilities, who make up nearly 1/5th of drivers, the difference between having a charger nearby and being able to use it can come down to design. The location of the charging space, the path between the vehicle and the building, the amount of room available to maneuver, the placement and operation of charging equipment, lighting, signage, and other details can all affect the experience of using a charger.
For disabled drivers, home charging offers the flexibility to customize the setup around their specific needs, whether that means mounting the charger at an accessible height for a wheelchair user, placing it higher for a tall driver with a bad back, or adding custom hooks to keep the cable within reach for someone with limited hand dexterity. These decisions for multifamily charging should be considered as part of the initial site planning and design process.
Forth Mobility and Spark Access have developed an Accessible Design Reference Guide for EV Charging at Multifamily Housing Properties, which provides more detailed guidance for property developers, engineers, contractors, incentive providers, and others planning EV charging projects. The guide draws on existing standards of interaction from building codes and accessibility standards under the Fair Housing Act for common amenities like EV charging, highlighting human-centered design requirements.
The broader lesson is simple: good charging infrastructure starts with thinking about the people who will use it.
The best multifamily charging projects won’t simply ask how many chargers a property can install. They’ll also ask what the charging experience will look like for the people who live there: What does that infrastructure mean to a resident aging in place? What does that infrastructure mean to someone who slips on the ice and uses a mobility aid for months as they recover?
That means considering accessibility alongside questions about electrical capacity, parking, cost, operations, and future growth. It also means recognizing that thoughtful accessibility can benefit more than one group of drivers. Designing a charging space with adequate room to maneuver, clear pathways, accessible controls, and good visibility can make the experience easier for people with a wide range of mobility, vision, hearing, or dexterity needs.
In fields of accessible design, we hear of “The Curb Cut Effect”, which brings the realization that universal design rooted in ensuring people with disabilities can independently participate ends up benefiting everyone. Just as curb cuts (invented in Michigan in 1945!) helped revolutionize how we move through cities on bikes, in strollers, and receive deliveries in a barrier-free way, accessible EV charging has the same opportunity to provide universal, adaptable benefits. The Curb Cut Effect can apply to EV charging if the infrastructure is designed mindfully.
Most importantly, these considerations are easiest to address before installing infrastructure. It is much easier to make good decisions during design than to retrofit a site after the concrete is poured and the equipment is in place.
We have an opportunity to get this right
Michigan is moving from planning for EV charging to building it. The state’s CFCI investment is helping bring charging to multifamily properties across the state, creating infrastructure that residents will use for years to come.
That makes this an important moment to think beyond simply getting chargers in the ground.
We should be asking whether the infrastructure we’re building works for the people who need it — whether residents rent or own, park in a garage or a shared lot, have a disability, or simply have different needs than the person who designed the site.
For more detailed guidance, property owners and project teams can explore Clean Fuels Michigan’s Multifamily EV Charging Guide and Forth and Spark Access’s Accessible Design Reference Guide.