common exit access on rooftop - California

I live in Los Angeles in a 12-unit building built in the mid 1980s. Each unit has its "own" rooftop deck area, but there are no formal wall dividers and everyone can walk the entire rooftop, and the HOA is responsible for maintaining the rooftop surface. There is a central stairway leading from the roof to a central courtyard. For many years most owners were elderly and didn't use their rooftops at all, but now a slew of new owners have moved in and would like to use their rooftops more but are running into an issue. The HOA president is extremely difficult and passive aggressive so it is hard to get information from him and many of us are trying to "learn on our own" as it were, what the rules and regulations really are. We have been told that post-Northridge, the rooftop deck must be kept with a 4' walkway along the outside walls so that if anyone needed to exit via the rooftop during the middle of the night in an emergency, they can do so without interference (though, in fact, there are exhaust vents built into the walls that people would stumble over if that were the case). If the decks had been built with personal walls in the first place (as most nearby buildings have) then the rooftop wouldn't be treated as a common walkway and this wouldn't be an issue, but since it was pre-northridge that wasn't thought of. In fact, I'm told neighbors used to put up little picket fences to mark their spaces, but they were told they had to remove that when this rule was enacted.

The building wasn't really built for this in mind so having that large a common egress pretty much eliminates the ability to use the rooftop as personal space because that takes up literally almost half of each person's area (the corner units have it the worst having to take 4' on both sides of their space).

I was just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this and if they ever found a solution? (like maybe making the rooftops no longer common area so it doesn't need to have a public walkway?)

Thanks for any advice...

Rooftop decks are one of those things that sound so cool until you start looking into the details.

Most roofing materials are not well suited to foot traffic and will fail prematurely if used as a walking surface. The structure holding the roof up is likely to be designed for a much lower load than the floor below it as you have no snow load to worry about. For example, your floors may have 2x6's on 16-inch centers and 3/4 inch plywood subfloor and your roof may be only 2x4's on 24" centers with 1/2" plywood on top.

Slope is required to drain water off a roof. Even a flat roof is not really flat. If there is too much slope to walk on the roof comfortably, you have to start building decks. This creates a whole new set of problems: mounting a new structure on the existing roof or removing part of the roof to connect to the structural elements below; piercing the roof membrane with nails, screws, or bolts; placing a load on the roof trusses that exceeds their design limits; altering drainage; preventing inspection and repair of the roof under the deck.

Even low walls or fences to separate one owner's space from another involves nailing through the roof membrane and voiding its warranty. Leaving everything to gravity is a bad idea as sooner or later the wind will blow things off the roof and onto innocent bystanders below.

My advice: on one of those rare evenings when there are no earthquakes, mud slides, wild fires, or smog alerts, drag some aluminum lawn chairs up to the roof and celebrate sunset by sipping a pitcher of margaritas. Later, have a designated driver take you and all the other stuff back downstairs and wait for the next calamity-free day to do it all over again. But attach nothing and leave nothing.

It sounds like the original builder missed the boat on his design. If he would have built block firewalls between each unit and extended them a few feet above the roof then each unit would have a semi-enclosed area on the roof. He did everything except build the necessary walls and retrofitting is likely outside the realm of possibility.

I would be very concerned about people grilling on what I assume to be an asphalt-based roof. I just sounds like a fire waiting to happen right above your home.

I would also be concerned about furniture left on the roof. One good gust of wind and that lovely umbrella table becomes a deadly object falling from the sky.

Like I said before, a roof top deck sounds cool but reality interferes.