Recently, the Sun Sentinel published an opinion piece by Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan casting the Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals as some sort of secretive star chamber that sets overly onerous rules for building inspections and forces them to occur too frequently. Frankly, it’s surprising that only a few decades on, we’ve already forgotten the lessons taught to us by the sheer destruction of Hurricane Andrew.
Because of that hurricane, we produced the unified Florida Building Code. The main changes, besides consolidating numerous codes, was to bring in a High Velocity Hurricane Zone (HVHZ) section. This is not mandatory but can be adopted by local areas, as Miami-Dade and Broward counties did. The question is, why didn’t the rest of the state adopt HVHZ? Is it because hurricanes do not affect the rest of the state? No, in fact, hurricanes hit the rest of the state with a higher frequency than they do Southeast Florida. Broward County has a higher, safer standard for its citizens because the members of the Broward County Board of Rules and Appeal (BORA) determined that it was essential.
BORA is not some secret organization that makes determinations covertly. It is a board made up of members of the public, most of whom are construction professionals. They meet on a regular basis at public meetings attended by stakeholders. Building officials not only depend on the members of the board but the code specialists who make up the permanent staff for the department. When a building official and contractor do not agree, the board can be called on to review the situation and make a determination. If BORA did not exist, these issues would be required to go before the Florida Building Commission, which would take months and require travel to wherever the board is meeting in the state at that time.
When changes to the code are required, BORA is able to deal with the problem on an expedited basis instead of waiting for state updates, which only occur every three years. This saves contractors and developers real money through being able to have these decisions on a monthly basis.
But the problem Mayor Ryan seems to have with BORA is commercial building inspections. First, this is not some novel idea. The Building Safety Inspection Program is more than 30 years old, first adopted by Miami-Dade and eventually by Broward. It is now required throughout Florida after the Surfside tragedy. Once again, South Florida counties have led the charge to not stop short and ensure life, health and safety. Yes, the requirements for South Florida are greater than what the Florida Legislature has mandated for the new program. But the only real thing that has changed for Broward County is the requirement that buildings be inspected more frequently; the rest is pretty much the same as it has been since the inception.
The Building Safety Inspection Program looks at more than just whether a building will collapse — and yes, despite Ryan’s dismissive tone on the idea, there does need to be inspections on one-, two- and three-story buildings. In recent years, we have seen the lack of maintenance and the lack of reserve funds that have led to increased problems when the buildings are cycling and are required to be inspected. There are numerous two-story buildings that are less than 30 years old that are in critical need of major repairs. There are many one-story buildings that, through the inspection process, have been discovered to have illegal, unpermitted and unsafe electrical conditions that need immediate repair. The only difference between a high-rise building and a two-story building that may collapse is the number of injuries and death.
This year is an abnormality because of the decrease in years to require an inspection. Building departments in South Florida this year will be doing 16 years’ worth of inspections; next year the program will revert to the new normal.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties are different because unlike the rest of the state, we have had local inspection boards to help to protect the life, health and safety of our neighbors. If the elected officials of this county decide in their infinite wisdom to lessen the standards of the Building Safety Inspection Program or other determinations that BORA has approved, they had better increase the budgets of their police and fire departments because they may be very busy.
Steve Pizzillo, of North Miami Beach, is a state-certified building official with 24 years of code enforcement experience. He is past president of the Code Officials Educational Association and a two-time recipient of the Broward County Building Official of the Year Award.
