Article Courtesy of  The Miami Herald

By BEN TORTER

Published February 12, 2006

A group of frustrated Sunny Isles Beach residents has told city officials they will march to City Hall for the Feb. 16 commission meeting if they aren't issued permits to replace windows that were blown out during Hurricane Wilma.

Windows in about 40 apartments on the south side of the Oceania III condominium, 16485 Collins Ave., were blown out during the storm Oct. 24.

The city claims the permits have been held up by an October 2005 building code change that removed a grandfather clause that allowed buildings to be repaired to whatever the hurricane code was when they were built.

March organizer Julius ''Happy'' Zebede met with city officials -- including building official Clay Parker, City Attorney Hans Ottinot and Police Chief and Interim City Manager Fred Maas -- Thursday morning.

He said the meeting showed him the city's hands may be tied by the changed building codes but that it is trying to help.

The city gave Zebede permission to march, and he promises it will be respectful. He said he holds no hard feelings against the city but wants to highlight hurricane code on a county level.

''This march will be a vigil, not a showdown,'' Zebede said. He expects about 200 people to join him, including residents of Arlen House, Pinnacle and all five Oceania towers.

Oceania III was built in 1991, before Hurricane Andrew demolished south Miami-Dade, resulting in stricter building codes today. Until just before Wilma, buildings were allowed to make repairs up to the code under which they were built. Residents want to be allowed to fit their windows with the regular, tempered glass, augmenting it with shutters -- repairs that would meet the old building code.

''I have shutters, and nothing happened to my apartment,'' said Vivienne Canlas, who lives on the 16th floor and faces south.

But Parker said if he allows them to install regular windows and shutters, the county may make them replace everything with impact glass.

Parker said Oceania's board and he have filed appeals with the county to be allowed to use regular glass and shutters.

Iqbal Shaikh, senior code compliance specialist with Miami-Dade County said the case will be heard Thursday by the Miami-Dade County Board of Rules and Appeals.

''If the board rules that they can put in quarter-inch glass and shutters, then so be it,'' Parker said.

Aside from the discomfort of residents having to live in dark and boarded up apartments for three months, replacing the glass has now become a race against time.

The 2006 hurricane season begins June 1, a deadline that Parker admits will be hard to meet no matter what type of windows are used.

''We will definitely have to be prepared to evacuate buildings this hurricane season,'' Parker said.

Though they understand the red tape, residents who have been living in boarded up apartments since Wilma just want windows.

Esther Murray lives alone and said she has ants and flies coming through cracks in the plywood covering her blown-out sliding glass doors. One interior wall in her apartment is destroyed.

During Wilma, Murray hid in a bathroom while glass shattered, and chairs and paintings and furniture blew around her trashed apartment.

Since then she's been living in one small and windowless room.

''I'm dying to just sit on a couch and look out the window at the sea,'' Murray said.