Palm Beach County seeks to inspect 25-year-old buildings east of I-95

In the weeks since the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, local officials have been hoping for a concerted effort in Palm Beach County to prevent a similar disaster.

County commissioners today will weigh in on a new program, drafted by the League of Cities, that details a recertification process for hundreds of buildings in the county. Each local government would have to adopt the program; no countywide requirement for building recertification currently exists in Palm Beach County.

The program recommends that any building 25 years and older and east of Interstate 95 undergo safety inspections, starting with buildings 11,000 square feet or more and then 3,500 square feet or more. It proposes that buildings 35 years or older and west of Interstate 95 with the same square footage be inspected after that.

Buildings 25 years and older anywhere with modified balconies, decks and elevated walkways are also recommended to have inspections, the plan says, with inspections every 10 years.

The program says from October through December, building officials should notify owners whose buildings would fall under the reinspection guidelines that year. From January through March, the property owners would need to return a checklist of structural and electrical inspections to the county or city. Then they will be

given 180 days to make any life-threatening structural and electrical repairs.

Richard Radcliffe, League of Cities’ executive director, said officials have drafted the recertification plan to be a template for each municipality to use as it sees fit, allowing room for local governments to adapt it. Buildings subject to salt air that are more susceptible to erosion may want to consider plans different from buildings to the west that don’t face the same environment, Radcliffe said.

“We really believe that this should be done by the Legislature. This should be

taken care of on a state level, but we’re not about to sit around and let anybody be at risk, and if we produce a document or anything that is in anyway helpful to be used across the state, we’re happy do that,” Radcliffe said.

At a July 13 meeting commission meeting, commissioners directed staff to find out which buildings would fit the inspection requirements and to review other programs throughout the country on which to base the county’s model. County staff will give an update Tuesday.

Efforts to ensure buildings are safe have ramped up in Broward and Palm Beach counties since the disaster in Surfside where 98 people died after the condo building

collapsed. A condo in Coral Springs was evacuated after the city deemed it unsafe, and another condo building in Hallandale Beach evaded a mandatory evacuation Sunday by making necessary repairs of several safety concerns cited by the city.

Boca Raton could become the first city with plans for its own building recertification program, requiring a 30-year recertification and every 10 years after that if the building meets a certain height.

Broward and Miami-Dade counties are currently the only two in the state with required building safety inspection programs, and the League of Cities used Broward County’s as an example in drafting the program, Radcliffe said.