3.2 Target Housing, Child-Occupied Facilities, and the 1978 Ban

Target Housing, Child-Occupied Facilities, and the 1978 Ban

Quick answer: Target housing is housing constructed prior to 1978, except housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities or any 0-bedroom dwelling, unless a child less than 6 years of age resides or is expected to reside in that housing (745.223). A child-occupied facility (COF) is a building or portion constructed prior to 1978 that the same child under 6 visits on a four-part hours test. The 1978 CPSC ban is why “pre-1978” is the trigger. Do not treat every pre-1978 painted component as lead-based paint — test it (or assume LBP) against 1.0 mg/cm² or 0.5% by weight.

If you mis-classify the property, you will staff the wrong credential, skip or file the wrong notification, and write the wrong occupant protection plan. This section is a sorting rule, not a history lesson.

Target housing (745.223)

Target housing means any housing constructed prior to 1978, except:

• Housing for the elderly, or
• Housing for persons with disabilities, or
• Any 0-bedroom dwelling,

unless any child who is less than 6 years of age resides or is expected to reside in such housing.

Housing for the elderly is defined in the same section: retirement communities or similar types of housing reserved for households composed of one or more persons 62 years of age or more at the time of initial occupancy. “Most residents are retired” is not the test. The community must be reserved for 62+ households at move-in.

A 0-bedroom dwelling is housing in which the sleeping area is not a separate bedroom — typical studio, efficiency, or loft. A 1972 warehouse loft with an open sleeping alcove is a 0-bedroom dwelling. A 1972 two-bedroom flat is ordinary target housing.

Constructed prior to 1978 means the building’s construction date, not the date the current paint was applied, not the date of the last rehab, and not the year the lease started. Housing constructed in 1978 is not target housing under this definition. Housing constructed in 1977 is.

The exception is lost dwelling by dwelling when a child under 6 resides or is expected to reside. It is not a building-wide forever exemption once one apartment has a grandchild on the lease.

Child-occupied facility — the hours test

Child-occupied facility means a building, or portion of a building, constructed prior to 1978, visited regularly by the same child, under 6 years of age, on at least two different days within any week (Sunday through Saturday), provided that:

• each day’s visit lasts at least 3 hours, and
• the combined weekly visits last at least 6 hours, and
• the combined annual visits last at least 60 hours.

The regulation’s examples: day-care centers, preschools, and kindergarten classrooms. A COF can be an entire building or only a wing, classroom, or basement suite. The rest of the building is not automatically a COF.

All four time elements must be true for the same child under 6. A building that many different children pass through for 20 minutes does not become a COF. A child who comes every weekday for 4 hours easily clears 3 hours/day, 2 days, 6 hours/week, and 60 hours/year.

Why 1978 exists — and what it does not prove

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) banned consumer paint above 0.06 percent lead, effective for residential use in 1978. That ban is why Title X and 745.223 use construction prior to 1978 as the housing trigger. After the ban, new residential paint was not supposed to be formulated as lead-based paint.

That history does not mean:

• every pre-1978 painted component is lead-based paint, or
• every post-1978 painted component is lead-free, or
• you may skip inspection, XRF, or paint-chip analysis because “the house is old.”

Lead-based paint is still a measured definition: ≥ 1.0 milligrams per square centimeter or ≥ 0.5 percent by weight (745.227(h)(1)). Pre-1978 paint is more likely to be LBP, especially on housing built before 1960, but likelihood is not a laboratory result. Inspectors and risk assessors test components with a distinct painting history. Supervisors read those reports. If the report says a 1971 door casing is below the LBP definition, you do not abate it as LBP just because the house is pre-1978. If no testing was done and the contract treats all paint as LBP, that is a contract assumption, not a 745.223 definition.

Industrial coatings, marine paint, and some specialty products are outside the CPSC consumer-paint ban story. Do not import those into a residential Subpart L exam item unless the fact pattern gives you a tested result.

Four exam traps to sort on paper

1. The 0-bedroom loft. A 1974 converted mill loft with a sleeping loft and no separate bedroom is not target housing unless a child less than 6 resides or is expected to reside. A childless couple’s loft is out. The same loft listed for a family with a 2-year-old is in. Do not confuse “small apartment” with 0-bedroom: a one-bedroom efficiency that actually has a walled bedroom is target housing.

2. The 62+ building with a visiting grandchild. Housing reserved for 62+ at initial occupancy is not target housing. A grandchild who visits does not, by itself, make the dwelling target housing. The exception falls only if a child under 6 resides or is expected to reside. Weekend visits fail that test. A court-ordered custody arrangement that places the child in the unit during the school week is “resides or expected to reside.” Separately, if the same grandchild’s visits also meet the COF hours test in a portion of the building (unlikely for a two-hour Sunday visit; possible for daily all-day caregiving), that portion can be a COF even when the dwelling is not target housing. Ask both questions.

3. Daycare in a 1975 church wing. The education wing is a classic COF if the same children under 6 attend on the hours test. The 1975 sanctuary used for adult worship is not a COF merely because it shares a roof and a construction date. Abate the wing as a COF; do not automatically expand Subpart L to the entire church campus.

4. Post-1978 addition vs. pre-1978 original. A 1955 house with a 1990 family-room addition is mixed. The 1955 original is target housing. The 1990 addition was not constructed prior to 1978, so it is not target housing. 745.227(b)(2) even lets an inspector skip components determined to have been replaced after 1978. You still follow the risk-assessment report: soil against the old foundation, dust in the original living area, and any pre-1978 components remaining in the addition chase (windows reused from the original house, for example) may still be in play. Do not write one “whole house is target housing because part of it is old” sentence and stop thinking.

What the supervisor does with the classification

Once you know whether the site is target housing, a COF, both, or neither:

• Neither (post-1978 office with no COF, 1985 apartment, 62+ building with no child residents and no COF daycare): Subpart L abatement certification is not the federal trigger. Other rules (OSHA, State, contract, HUD if assistance is involved) may still apply.
• Target housing and/or COF: certified firm, certified supervisor, 745.227 (or the authorized-state equivalent), notification, occupant protection plan, post-abatement testing by a certified inspector or risk assessor.

Classification happens before you bid. Construction year comes from tax records, a plaque, or the inspection report — not from the color of the trim.