‘We led the charge.’ Miami-Dade passes building safety reforms on heels of state changes
Buildings taller than three stories in Miami-Dade County will fall under a newly tightened set of safety and inspection requirements after county commissioners unanimously passed the changes during a Wednesday afternoon hearing.
The changes, which will, among other tweaks, require buildings to be inspected and recertified earlier in their lifespan — 30 as opposed to 40 years after construction — are the culmination of county-led safety reforms that began in the aftermath of the Champlain Towers South collapse, which killed 98 people nearly a year ago.
Those efforts started before state lawmakers picked up the debate on condo safety reforms, eventually passing a significant overhaul during a special session last week. County commissioners, who had been operating for several weeks under the likelihood that nothing may come to pass at the state level, had to amend their ordinance this week to conform with the new state law in some ways.
But there is also a major difference: In Miami-Dade, all commercial and residential buildings over three stories tall are subject to the inspection requirements, not just condominium buildings as laid out by state law.
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“This goes to show you what we can do collectively when we put our minds to it, and we don’t have to wait for Tallahassee to get things done,” said Commissioner Rene Garcia, the lead sponsor on the ordinance. “We really led the charge.”
Another major difference in the reshaped ordinance, now that lawmakers have passed their bill, is that commissioners lengthened the runway for condo associations to ramp up for the changes. They will have about two and a half years to align themselves with the new rules, which go into effect at the end of 2024.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 4:35 PM.
Ben Conarck
Miami Herald