To the editor:

Why is Bainbridge still building Peter Pan housing — as if we’ll never grow up? As a PhD gerontologist, Bainbridge Island senior and community board member, and cheerfully aging boomer, I follow new housing on the island with great interest.

While there are many attractive and environmentally thoughtful new buildings under construction, there has been little or no attention to aging in place. My husband and I plan to move in the next few years and have significant cash to invest in our last home — which needs to be accessible, walking distance to stores and amenities, low maintenance, and universal design.

It appears that many of the marketers giving tours haven’t even heard of universal design—design that is elegant, invisibly easy, and usable for a wide range of capabilities.  Think, for example, of a single lever faucet one can work with an elbow or closed fist, rather than two levers to adjust for volume and temperature.

My boomer cohort are the people new housing is often created for and marketed to so why are developers not taking our future needs into consideration?

JEANNETTE FRANKS

Bainbridge Island