MIAMI – A Miami-Dade
County grand jury charged with looking into the deadly
Florida building collapse said the state must pass sweeping
reforms to avoid similar tragedies.
Among the recommendations included in the 43-page report:
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A county ordinance requiring the recertification of buildings every 10 to 15 years instead of every 40 years, which should be extended statewide.
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Mandating periodic inspections before recertification inspections are accepted.
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Removing a provision of the Florida Condominium Act that allows condo boards to waive their obligation to fund reserves for building repairs.
The report came almost six months after the 12-story, 136-unit Champlain Towers South building collapsed in Surfside, Florida, killing 98 people and sending shockwaves around the world.
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“If we do not build
safely, if we do not immediately institute suggested
improvements to the policies and procedures ... we predict
that the Chaplain Tower South Condominium building will not
be the last partial building collapse in our community,” the
report stated.
The report pointed to lapses by the condo board to make
timely repairs dueto lack of reserves and criticized the
Florida Condominium Act for allowing a condo board to waive
its obligation to fund reserves for repairs.
Abieyuwa Aghayere, a professor of structural engineering at
Drexel University in Philadelphia who reviewed the
building’s original design plans for USA TODAY, applauded
the report's recommendation to shorten the recertification
period from 40 years to 10-15 years, something he pointed
out in the wake of the collapse.
"Given that building codes change about every three to six
years, the 15-year recommendation by the grand jury seems
reasonable to me," he said. "It will enable problems to be
caught on time before they become major issues that would
cost enormous amounts of money to fix – as was the case in
Surfside."
Fernandez Rundle said her office is waiting until the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal
agency tasked with investigating the collapse, has concluded
their investigation before announcing whether criminal
charges could be filed.
Miami-Dade County's top prosecutor said lawmakers had the
unprecedented opportunity to turn many of these civil
infractions into criminal offenses.
“This would put condo owners, board associations and
everyone on notice that if you fail to do the simplest
things; hold honest elections, keep minutes, turn over
engineering reports it’s potentially a crime and
investigators are going to come looking,” Fernandez Rundle
said.
It's not the first time the office has asked a grand jury to
investigate condo associations and boards.
In February 2017, a Miami-Dade County grand jury issued
recommendations on condominium records and financial and
election misconduct, including a provision prohibiting
associations from employing or contracting service providers
owned or operated by a board member. The measures were
adopted by the Florida Legislature and signed into law.
Mary Ann Ruiz, a Miami-area condominium attorney who
represents mostly individual owners, said she expects the
grand jury report to spur Florida lawmakers into action and
advocate for changes to state regulations.
"This report arrives just in time," Ruiz said. "The tragic
events in Surfside show us that an overhaul of Florida
condominium laws is long overdue."
Though building codes in Florida are among the strictest in
the nation, safeguards have focused on the construction of
new buildings as opposed to the condition of existing
structures. After developers conclude construction,
maintenance and repairs fall squarely on condo association
boards.
Except for a brief two-year period, the state has had no
oversight mechanism to regulate repairs or maintenance of
condos in nearly 60 years. The Sunshine State does not
mandate post-construction inspections nor have enforcement
measures should contingencies arise when unsafe buildings
are identified.
Florida law allows condo associations – often saddled with
having to shore up millions of dollars in repair costs – to
defer paying for maintenance costs.
Such was the case of Champlain Towers South, which had about
$706,000 in its cash reserves. A 2018 report by Morabito
Consultants, a structural engineering firm based in
Maryland, put the bill for maintenance at the $15 million
mark.
Though the cause of the building collapse is unknown, a
cache of documents provided to USA TODAY in July revealed a
slew of irregularities ranging from flaws in the original
design and structural issues in disrepair.
In 2008, the state Legislature passed a law that would
require condo associations to inspect their buildings every
five years and provide a plan to deal with repairs. This is
known as a "reserve study."
The measure was repealed in 2010.
Recertification requirements are absent around the state.
Only two counties in Florida, Miami-Dade and Broward,
require buildings to be recertified after the 40-year mark.
Municipalities in both counties mandate that condo
associations or owners hire engineers to verify the
structural integrity of the property.
The measure came into effect after another Florida tragedy:
In 1974, a federal office building that housed the Drug
Enforcement Administration's Miami field office collapsed,
killing seven employees and injuring 15 others.