Last summer’s collapse in Surfside, Fla., exposed a startling truth: There are thousands of aging condo buildings that could be next — and few steps being taken to prevent another tragedy.
www.nytimes.com
Great article.
It really gets into how Florida is a ticking time bomb for this to happen again. The building boom after WWII and through the 80's was prized on how fast it could be completed rather than attention to detail. Things were built as cheaply as possible and corners were often cut. And corners cut more times than not were not caught. City zoning and building inspectors during this time period were in the business of generating revenue for the city rather than protection to people living in these buildings. There were a few class action lawsuits from the 1970s through 1990 where the biggest class action lawsuit was won against city building inspectors and zoning boards for being in league with developers to generate revenue for the city.
During this time period in many cases you could just bring your blueprints to the zoning board and they would give their stamp of approval without looking anything over. Building inspectors would do "drive by" inspections never leaving their cars.
There also wasn't much for building code until after Hurricane Andrew in 1991 was a major wake up call. Anything built before 1991 was considered being built in a time period that could only be described as "the wild west".
All these buildings are now 30 years old or older and the bare minimum of upkeep has been done to many of them. A chronic problem with Condos where no one wants to pay for it and the buck keeps being passed to the next generation.
Florida still is notorious for having corruption when it comes to building inspections and inspectors being bought off.
Florida, which by far has more condos than any other state, has a powerful lobbying industry and legal firms that only represent condos.
Pretty much any changes to code since the early 1990's has been blocked for being "too expensive" or "constrictive". The lobbyist and legal firms represent developers and property management companies. Not condo associations and their people.
One building inspector they talked to for this story said this should be a wake up call. That drastic changes are needed to code and the recertification process to prevent this from happening again.
Yet as of today, nothing has been done. The lobbyist so far have blocked everything saying now is not the time to act. We should be mourning for those lost and praying for their families and pick this back up next year.
The building inspector said let's be realistic, by putting off updating the code for a year the collapse will be "old news" and just like mass shootings, a year later the likelihood of passing any meaningful change is greatly dimissioned.
He has full expectations that not much of anything will come out of this because there is billions of dollars at stake and powerful lobbyist and law firms against any change that would cost their interest money.
Also, most all of the burden and costs of upkeep and recertification that has become part of code to date has been placed on the condo owners. Not the developers because condo owners don't have the same lobbying power.
