Condos Abounding

Surfside condominium collapse, July 24, 2021—photo from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, Public Domain

Some folks read about the latest fad/celebrity gossip/film in Hollywood. Me, I want to read about building failures. It’s instinctive for any in the building industry. If you recall the sad story about the precast overpass being installed dropping on the six lane arterial below, and yes, that was Florida again, you probably follow this stuff, too.

Take the bubbas who’d shot impact anchors (oversized screws) into rock to hang a precast tunnel covering as part of the Big Dig in Boston, and a woman was crushed in her car. You don’t, simply don’t, hang heavy concrete from impact screws that can pull out. Go sit in the corner and read the instructions.

Harry Weese told us to make sure vaults had landings, gravity being a simple rule we soft-bodied creatures need to obey.

The Miami Herald story, Florida legislators won’t require condo inspections. Here are the consequences, by Andres Viglucci and Mary Ellen Klas caught my attention. When living in the land of sunny south Florida, I kept a subscription to the Miami Herald to keep a grip on sanity.

This news article continues the fallout from the collapse of the thirteen-story Champlain Towers condominium in Surfside, a minor town just north of Miami Beach planted on the same back-filled barrier island. It made the media press for enough days to grab some video, then the media and its viewership moved on. If it’s not raining, it’s sleeting, and we’re stuck thinking about volcanoes.

A previous long-form article in the New York Times magazine dug deep into the causes that the Herald’s article also covers—mainly the dysfunctionality of condominium boards reluctant to raise dues from condo owners who fervently follow the ‘if it ain’t broke’ principal of maintaining their real estate.

The Towers and the Ticking Clock by Matthew Shaer published in the NY Times has a very cool opening video sequence. It’s a long piece, but worth reading if considering becoming the latest out-of-state suckers to retire to a Florida barrier island.

The NY Times article, written in January, pointed to previous attempts by Florida legislators to reign in what was described in the article as a rampant disregard by the condo boards, their attorneys, and Florida real estate lobbyists generally, to insure the safety of buildings facing the ocean. Think about concrete structures with steel reinforcing now with decades of salt corrosion in their history. No reason to panic. No, let’s not go that far.

So here’s my takeaway: Buying into a condominium, particularly of that size and height, has consequences beyond paying one’s dues, sometimes fatal ones at nearly two in the morning.

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I hold my architectural license in Florida, and took the requisite continuing education classes to maintain it until I was ‘retired.’ In 1992 after Hurricane Andrew rearranged the real estate market in south Florida, bills flew through the Florida legislation like hurricanes through the royal palms on Biscayne Boulevard.

Praise the lord, we can see clearly now!

In 1992, pre-DeSantis, pre-crazy shit, the legislators thought it their duty to stiffen the building codes. The building code’s design wind speed for south Florida on the coast is now 180 mile per hour.

But the difference in Florida politics between then and now is disturbing. Legislation seems the last court of wisdom and when it fails, you’re up a creek. Florida, after all, has been the land of suckers and sales since 1920, and a media who loves that shit. Follow it on down.

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D and I made an offer last year on a complex in Duck, our favorite haunt on the Outer Banks, a five-week time share for a very nice, free-standing house owned in common. Five weeks at rotating times each year. About the same amount of time we’ve been spending yearly. The house in question was both within reach of our income and sat on the beach facing the Atlantic. The latter part coming with worry and delight for the views. The only immediate problem we saw was a prohibition against pets.

Now I can understand the preference for not wanting to follow a family with pets who don’t, ah, shall we say, believe in the social graces of housekeeping, but then following a family without pets who still lack those same graces would be a challenge. So it was a gamble, if still tempting enough to make an offer. Through the sales agent, we offered to pay a yearly premium above and beyond the annual maintenance fees. We at least expected to hear of a counter-offer in return. The word coming back from the agent was ‘no thanks.’

One technique folks on the Outer Banks have used over many years, facing steady beach erosion, has been to move houses back from the water—admittedly those with sufficient lot depths. It’s a long standing practice. The Cape Hatteras lighthouse, a massive brick masonry affair, was moved about 10 years back. But moving an entire structure isn’t so cheap. The several houses in Kitty Hawk, after one hurricane in the 90s, were left high and not so dry, with their front pilings left dangling feet above the surf. Already pressed hard against Route 12, those had nowhere to go but to a landfill.

In retrospect, I made the comment to D that we may have dodged a big one with the time share. If the other nine owners wouldn’t discuss some flexibility on that one point, what would they do on a larger question—like moving their house out of the ocean?