What if Champlain Towers South had been inspected 20 years before it collapsed and killed 98 people last year?
It’s hard to dwell on the what-ifs. But since the tragedy in Surfside, many experts, as well as the Miami Herald Editorial Board, have agreed that engineers should have looked at the building’s structures sooner. At the time of the collapse in June, the tower was going through Miami-Dade County’s re-certification process, required 40 years after construction.
If waiting 40 years is too long, imagine not requiring building inspections at all. That’s the reality in most of Florida. Luckily, lawmakers from both parties agree that needs to change.
Bipartisan legislation approved by the House last Thursday would reverse Florida’s let-it-be approach to condo safety. The last time we saw lawmakers react this quickly was after the Parkland shooting in 2018 prompted them to strengthen school security mandates and gun control laws.
These post-Surfside reforms are long overdue, but they might come with a sticker shock for condo owners in buildings that haven’t seen proper maintenance in decades.
Currently, only Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and the city of Boca Raton, require buildings to undergo re-certification — 40 years after construction in both counties and 30 years after construction in Boca Raton.
Senate Bill 1702 and House Bill 7069 would make inspections a requirement statewide 30 years after construction and then every 10 years thereafter for buildings of at least three stories. Buildings within three miles of the coast would have to be re-certified in 20 years and then every seven years under the Senate version, and in 25 years and every 10 years in the House bill.
The Senate’s shorter timeline for coastal buildings is preferable, given how saltwater can cause damage in as little as five years, said Allen Douglas, executive director of the Florida Engineering Society, which was part of a working group that looked into possible changes to Florida’s building codes after Surfside.
The re-certification would happen in two phases: Phase 1 would require a visual inspection that’s relatively affordable for condominium associations — ranging from about $5,000 for a 100-unit building to $20,000 for larger ones, Douglas said.
If “structural distress” is found, a more expensive Phase 2 inspection is required that “may involve more intensive destructive and nondestructive testing,” according to a legislative staff analysis of the bill. The exact costs depend on the type of work that needs to be done, Douglas said, and could involve cutting sections of columns to check rebars.
Many older buildings might find themselves in need of Phase 2 work, Douglas said. There are 105,000 condo units that are more than 50 years old in the state and 912,000 older than 30. A good number of those condo associations have voted to not maintain financial reserves for deferred maintenance, as they are allowed to do under the law. That means unit owners could be hit with hefty special assessment fees.
Neither the House nor Senate offers mechanisms to help homeowners pay for such costs. If that’s not addressed this year, it should be a priority when lawmakers reconvene in 2023. Otherwise, they risk making the state’s affordable housing crisis even worse.
The Legislature could, for example, extend Florida’s PACE program, which offers eligible homeowners low-interest loans for energy conservation and hurricane-hardening improvements, to cover condo maintenance, William Sklar, chair of the Florida Bar’s Condominium Life Safety Advisory Task Force, told the Editorial Board.
The Senate and House bills also require associations to pay for “structural integrity reserve studies” (every three years in the Senate version and every 10 years in the House’s) to ensure they have the resources to finance needed structural improvements.
The House would prohibit condo associations from waiving the funding of reserves or collecting less in reserve funds than required for items in a reserve study. The Senate would maintain associations’ ability to waive or reduce reserves. But it would force them to include a “statement in conspicuous type” in their annual budget if that happens or if the association fails to follow the reserve study’s recommendations.
As the Senate and House negotiate a final bill version, they will have to weigh in the higher monthly condo fees that come with maintaining robust reserves versus the potential financial and safety risks involved in not saving for a rainy day.
It’s a tough balance but, with 98 lives already lost, safety should be a priority.
The Florida Bar task force, for example, recommended raising the necessary votes for waiving reserves from a simple majority to 75% of unit owners attending a meeting. The group also recommended prohibiting associations from reducing reserves below 50% of what’s required by law and that alternative funding methods for deferred maintenance be established when reserves are waived.
The debate over reserves might be a sticking point, but the House and Senate so far agree that condo associations need to be more transparent. After hearing how some associations make it hard for owners to access crucial information, so do we. The bills entitle owners, prospective buyers and renters to see inspections and reserve studies.
The legislation doesn’t go as far as Senate Bill 642 filed by Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, R-Doral, that would have required a statewide searchable public database of information on condominium associations. The measure is stalled, likely because such a database would be an expensive undertaking. If the state is going to spend money, condo owners who can’t afford maintenance should be first in line. Rodriguez should file her bill again next year.
The Legislature is taking a first — and substantial — bite of the apple. Preventing another collapse likely will require revisiting this issue again in following years. Lawmakers should not think that they’re done after 2022.
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