After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, South Florida strengthened its building code standards.
After the Parkland shooting in 2018, Florida overhauled its school safety and gun control laws.
Quick reaction from our elected officials at the state and local levels after these tragedies probably prevented future deaths.
Coastal high-rise condos are a way of life for many Floridians. Who’s making sure their associations and local governments are doing what it takes to keep them safe after the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside? This is where the state Legislature needs to step in. Lawmakers will have a better idea of what reforms are needed once an investigation into the causes of the collapse is done, but that could take months.
One things seems clear so far: Florida’s building inspection requirements need strengthening.
As the Miami Herald’s Mary Ellen Klas reported, Miami-Dade and Broward counties are the only counties in Florida that require building re-inspections — both mandate buildings go through the process 40 years after construction, then every 10 years after.
That’s alarming and must change with a statewide requirement. Even though Miami and Broward are ahead of the pack, their 40-year time frame seems too arbitrary.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat, wants the Legislature to impose statewide inspection requirements based on a “scoring system” that will dictate whether a building needs to undergo a review based not only on age but also location, among other factors. For example, a beachfront condo, exposed to saltwater intrusion, a high water table and sea level rise, should undergo an inspection sooner than a building of the same age in landlocked Doral. Pizzo also wants to take into consideration the time period in which construction happened to account for the shoddy construction standards that were common in the 1980s. The Champlain was built in 1981.
The reasoning for Pizzo’s proposal, which hasn’t been filed as a bill, seems simple:
“Champlain South would probably not have crumbled and fallen if it were in Doral,” Pizzo said.
The second step should be an obscure Florida law that deals with condo maintenance — the can that’s often kicked down the road because of cost.
Under Florida statute, associations are required to maintain financial reserves to pay for future roof replacement, building painting and pavement resurfacing, as well as any other deferred maintenance expense or replacement cost over $10,000. Concrete work, such as the type that was needed at the Champlain, is not included because some buildings might not need it the same way they might need a paint job in 10 to 15 years.
Here’s the other problem: State law also allows reserves to be waived with a vote by a majority of condo owners attending a meeting. Ryan Poliakoff, a lawyer who serves as counsel to condo associations, told the Editorial Board at least half of the condos he represents choose not to maintain a reserve or to maintain only a portion of it.
The reasons for that are understandable — reserves require fees that many condo owners are not willing or don’t have the means to pay. But that also means that when those repairs are due the association either pushes them off or is hit with a large bill that requires members to approve a loan and special assessments in many cases — a process that can drag out.
Poliakoff said he has no direct knowledge as to whether Champlain Towers had a reserve and spoke only in general terms.
Lawmakers could look at revamping that law by, for example, prohibiting condos from waiving reserves and calculating it as a percentage of the condo’s appraised value, Poliakoff said, though that’s not an idea he necessarily endorses. Reserves are currently calculated based on a formula that takes into account the remaining useful life of the items to be fixed and estimated replacement costs, which can run into millions of dollars.
Such proposal would likely get push-back from condo owners and have the unintended consequence of possibly making condo living less affordable, especially for those on fixed income.
Yet deferred maintenance might turn out to be a matter of life and death, depending on what the investigation into the Surfside collapse unveils. This is at least worth a discussion in Tallahassee.
Condo board maintenance decisions are often the cause of clashes between owners who want to pay for long-term maintenance and those looking to sell soon or who wonder why they should pay for improvements they won’t see for decades. Board members, who serve on a volunteer basis, are often caught between those factions. It’s not an easy job.
“You can only imagine the screaming that goes on in these [board] meetings,” Poliakoff said.
These are only starting points for policymakers. State lawmakers won’t convene to pass bills until next year, which gives them plenty of time to research. Unfortunately, that’s also plenty of time for the public to move on from this issue. They shouldn’t.
Editorial by the Miami Herald
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