From retrofitting an older building some years ago, I well recall that an ADA compliant ramp has at most a 1:12 pitch (one inch rise per foot) and must provide I forget how many square feet of flat landing outside the door (to allow opening the door after reaching the level of it). So if your doorsill is, say, 2 feet above grade -- not uncommon, 3 steps -- that's a 24-foot long ramp minimum. It's hard to tell from the pictures in the article, but it looks like there's more like a four-foot rise to that coffee shop. That's a 48-foot ramp, of a certain width, with a railing.

Few existing buildings have room for such a ramp on a straight run. So, easy fix you think, we fold the ramp in a hairpin. But wait; wherever it changes direction you must have a level landing of I forget how many square feet, to allow the chair and the attendant pushing it, to turn the corner.

By the time you add a compliant ramp to an existing building you are likely to have covered a lot of ground with ramp. If you had that much ground to spare, and can give up the landscaping or outdoor patio it once was.

The alternative is a wheelchair lift. Like a little outdoor elevator platform. These are fairly expensive to buy and install, but require much less space.

Unfortunately $100K is not that much in the Bay Area. I had to spend $50K total 10 years ago to make my side walk ADA compliant (as it is front of a bus stop) when I bought my place in SF. They would not issue any further building permits otherwise. And that was a fairly simple job without any stairs.

Take a look at ADA requirements regarding ramps: https://www.adawheelchairramps.com/wheelchair-ramps/ada-guid...

You need at least 30 feet of ramp for a 2 and a half foot incline. I don't know about the environment this coffee shop is set in, but these standards would make it impossible for non-corporate shops to exist in many cities around the world. Most cities don't have 30 feet of space outside open and free for building ramps that (being generous) 0.1% of every store's potential customers will use. You can compact that 30 feet with a couple bends, but then you vastly increase width of the sidewalk space required.

Assuming this building doesn't have a mass expanse of free space extending around its premises, it probably required restructuring of the building itself, which takes quite a bit of time and money, as well as lost business while this single person waits for their coffee or $60,000.

Even for California that seems a bit … steep (pun intended).

Sure, there’s a relatively high minimum wage. And maybe one has to get planning approval. And maybe an engineer’s sign-off. And possibly get some sort of union labour force to install it. And maybe an environmental impact study? Still doesn’t make sense that a wheelchair ramp would incur three times the U.S. median income.

Or maybe it does, and that explains why it’s so difficult to get anything done.

From the pictures in the article, it looks like there are at least two flights of stairs involved, and the one near the door is too narrow to add a ramp that a wheelchair can climb. (Simply putting a ramp over the stairs wouldn't cut it; it'd be too steep to roll up.) I can certainly imagine how adding ramps to this building approach could require some major restructuring.

You also need to redo things like the bathrooms.

Sounds like other fixes were needed:

"Crema Coffee owner June Tran said bringing her 100-year-old building up to code would cost $100,000."

It looks like they'd have to redo a significant portion of the front of the building to make it work, from the street up to the patio, then up again to the door. (Which, itself, may need replacing.) My guess is that $100,000 is a rounded up, order of magnitude estimate rather than a specific amount.

The permits are likely $70,000.

Even motorized weatherproofed wheelchair lifts cost an order of magnitude less than that.