Boca Raton moves fast to protect condo dwellers
After the Champlain Towers South condo collapsed June 24, hundreds of panicked Boca Raton residents called the city. They wanted to know if their buildings were safe.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, the City Council responded forcefully. The council unanimously approved the toughest safety recertification requirements in Florida.
Granted, only two other local governments — Broward and Miami-Dade counties — even require updated safety inspections, 40 years after construction. But by acting just two months after the Surfside tragedy, Boca Raton may motivate other counties and cities to get tougher and to do so quickly.
Champlain Towers came down as the 40-year deadline approached, so Boca Raton will require structural and electrical inspections after 30 years and then 10 years after that. If the inspections show that repairs are necessary, the owners must submit a plan to the city within 30 days.
Implementing the ordinance will cost Boca Raton about $250,000 annually. The city must hire an engineer — on staff or a contractor — a code enforcement officer and an administrative assistant.
Council members, however, consider the money more of an investment than an expense. The ordinance, Mayor Scott Singer said, “will provide a great deal of reassurance to the market.”
Though investigators have not determined a specific cause of the Champlain Towers collapse, news reports already have shown that the builders had shady backgrounds and the town provided little oversight. Those are familiar themes in South Florida.
Between 1970 and 2010, the region’s population grew by nearly 3.5 million people. Even governments with strict standards would have had trouble keeping up. And South Florida generally was anything but strict. Local officials didn’t want to discourage all that property tax revenue.
Lax inspections resulted in shoddy construction. In some cases, the consequences were deadly. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 ripped off roofs in some communities but not others in nearby areas where inspectors had been more diligent.
Note that any city or county in Florida could have enacted a safety program during the population boom, but only two did. Even there, enforcement is spotty.
The Sun Sentinel reported last month that only three Broward County cities completed safety checks last year of buildings that were due for recertification. City officials blamed the pandemic, but the more likely explanation is that cities didn’t take the effort seriously.
In response to the Surfside tragedy, Boca Raton has moved faster than any other local government. Palm Beach County is working with the League of Cities on a set of standards, but any decision could be months away. Aventura has ordered inspections of all buildings nearing their 40-year review and told homeowner associations to share structural and engineering reports with the city.
One speaker Tuesday urged council members to delay approval until confirmation of what caused the Champlain Towers collapse. He cited news reports that the tragedy might have been due to unique factors that would reduce the need for a far-reaching law.
Only Councilwoman Yvette Drucker expressed similar concern. “I wish we had a little more time,” Drucker said. She wondered about “a lot of missing parts.”
But her colleagues disagreed. Andrea O’Rourke said, “Moving forward is important.” Monica Mayotte said the city “will learn as we go along.” Andy Thomson said, “This ordinance is substantial progress. We need to implement it as soon as possible.” Drucker then voted yes with the others.
Development Services Director Brandon Schaad acknowledged that the ordinance “is completely new to us.” The first notices will go out to owners in a few months.
The city has identified 242 buildings that fall under the ordinance. It covers structures that are more than three stories tall and measure at least 5,000 square feet or have at least 500 occupants. The ordinance exempts single-family homes and duplexes.
Schaad said there will be “an immediate backlog” of buildings. The city will get to them in four phases over four years, starting with those on the barrier island and moving west. City officials will need to make sure that individual homeowners — not just condo board members — know that inspections are coming.
There could be ramifications in Boca Raton and other places that enact similar ordinances. Condo owners will face costs to hire inspectors and could face more expenses if repairs are necessary. Some of those owners may be people on fixed incomes.
But as Singer noted, safety has become a selling point for the condo market. Knowing a building is safe is better than believing it to be safe. Like the city itself, Boca Raton residents who live or work in one of those 242 buildings should consider any costs from the ordinance to be an investment.
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