After Surfside condo collapse, changes proposed in Miami-Dade building regulations

The Surfside condominium collapse could lead to a string of changes in Miami-Dade County’s building code, high-rise regulations and the local approach to guarding against structural damage from sea-level rise.

A previously confidential list of pending legislation filed by Miami-Dade commissioners after the June 24 catastrophe shows more than two dozen proposals in the pipeline.

Those include legislation to speed up the current requirement for building recertifications every 40 years, and rules to bolster maintenance funds for condominiums and affordable-housing projects.

There also are studies on how to prevent the structural damage that comes with flooded garages — an issue that appeared to be a chronic problem at the oceanfront Champlain Towers South complex, where more than 100 residents and guests remain unaccounted for after the building fell.

“After Hurricane Andrew, everything changed,” said Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, referring to the building-code reforms enacted after the 1992 storm devastated what was then called Dade County. “We have to look at everything.”

Proposed legislation typically doesn’t become public until it appears on a commission agenda, but the Miami Herald obtained the summary of the post-Surfside operations through a public records request to the County Attorney’s office. Language of the draft legislation was not available Friday.

Legislative proposals in the commission pipeline since June 24 include:

▪ Help for condo associations: When the Champlain Towers South tower fell, it was at the start of conducting $9 million in repairs called for in a 2018 engineering report that outlined structural needs for the 1981 complex.

Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins said she wants to explore creating a government fund where associations could borrow money to complete structural repairs in a timely manner. “If an affluent community is putting off a $9 million repair bill, what about our condos in Westchester and Opa-locka?” she said. “We can up the building code all we want. But it doesn’t address the financial realities of the situation.”

▪ Lists of who is living in apartments: A new rule that residential buildings must maintain logs of occupants that are updated every six months. The sponsor is Jose “Pepe” Diaz, chairman of the commission.

▪ Task forces: Commissioner Keon Hardemon wants one on the 40-year recertification process, Commissioner Raquel Regalado wants one on building safety, and Commissioner Kionne McGhee wants one “to investigate the Surfside tragedy.”

Regalado said she doesn’t want to wait for recommendations from the administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who said she’ll be meeting with experts on building safety for her own plan. “This is happening in real time,” she said of public alarm about building safety. “We need to move on it.”

▪ Sea-level rise questions after Surfside: Sosa’s legislation calls for a study on sea-level rise impacts to lower-level garages like the one at Champlain South with reported flooding issues. It also calls on local laws to mitigate those impacts. “You’re talking about salt water touching areas that it never touched before, because of sea-level rise,” she said. “We need to analyze everything.”

▪ More county oversight: A Cohen Higgins proposal would require private inspectors to notify Miami-Dade regulators if they discovered structural dangers in a building. Under current rules, they’re only required to notify the local government in charge of recertification — which is a city for about half of the properties in Miami-Dade. “These type of things have to come to the county,” she said. “Small towns may not have the resources to handle it.”

▪ Tougher rules on building inspections:. Champlain Towers South launched its repairs as it pursued a 40-year recertification in Surfside, a process required under county law. Legislative proposals in Miami-Dade include adding waterproof and seawall inspections to the recertification requirements, and multiple plans to cut the time in half and start mandating 20-year recertifications.

Commissioner Oliver Gilbert said his proposals would focus on residential properties similar to Champlain South: older buildings heavily exposed to salt water.

“We really need to know if older buildings on the beach, that might have had the upkeep, would face this type of catastrophe,” Gilbert said.

This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 5:07 PM.