As developers buy old Florida condos, at least owners don’t have to pay for costly repairs

In Jupiter, West Palm Beach and throughout Florida, many owners of waterfront condos face a stark choice: Should I stay, or should I go?

The collapse of Surfside’s Champlain Towers South on June 24, 2021, awakened Florida residents from their denial of the relentless power that time, heat and salt air have over oceanfront construction. In Surfside those physical forces, and the toxic dynamics of condominium association leadership, combined in circumstances in which unit owners and the board literally argued themselves to death over the cost of needed repairs. While they argued, the building supports deteriorated, until the collapse at 1:22 am took 98 lives in a minute.

Now property owners around the state are living with the consequences, and it’s up to state and local leaders to see them through it.

Laws enacted in the aftershock of the Surfside collapse require that buildings three stories and workshop undergo in-depth structural inspections at 30 years of age, and every 10 years thereafter. Associations are also now required to amass reserves to cover future costs of the inevitable repairs, all while continuing to pay for normal maintenance, on top of Florida’s soaring property owner insurance costs.

For many owners, the costs are unbearable. They thought they were set for life, having achieved the dream of oceanside views that have drawn millions to the state for decades, only to face financial ruin. What has just begun to evolve is an environment where some buildings whose owners can afford it choose to bite the bullet and undertake the repairs. For others, selling out to developers offers a solution: a lucrative buyout that sends them on their way while their building gets razed to make room for new, bigger and more expensive condos in their place.

It’s a sad evolution but inevitable, as warming, rising seas promise more and stronger hurricanes and add to the urgency of the need for stronger architecture.

Surfside law forces leave of Jupiter beachfront condo, but it will need zoning change first

Local and state officials (who often preempt local decision-making power), can help, as can pressure from voters.

What’s needed first is a recognition that, while zoning needs flex built into it to allow new structures big enough to be profitable for developers, officials have no obligation to rubberstamp waivers that allow unlimited height or higher density. Indeed, a higher priority should be to maintain the character of their communities and consider the feelings of owners on surrounding plots regarding crowding, view corridors and traffic. Sadly Florida has a habit of letting developers take whatever they can record but there’s no need to let them. Public input is a must, and voters must force their elected officials to hold the line.

Second, as cities and towns will reap millions of dollars in new property tax revenues from the newer, more expensive condos, much of this money should be set aside, and not vanish into the general fund, to pay for incentives for workforce and affordable housing construction; homeownership loan, down payment and maintenance assistance programs; and social support programs and transitional housing for the homeless. Help could also be provided for climate resilience projects and to walk condo associations through the maddeningly bureaucratic and complex financial aspects of repair and upgrade projects. In that way, the evolution of the housing market could be used to heal our communities.

Condo law after Surfside collapse forces sales as deadlines loom: The Flagler House saga

It’s hard not to sympathize with condo owners like Michael Milillo in West Palm Beach, whose three-story, 1960s-era Flagler House condo, beside the Lake Worth Lagoon, a developer proposes to raise. “I love my unit and don’t want to be thrown back into the real estate market and have to live out west,” he told Palm Beach Post reporter Kimberly Miller. The “sizeable amount” of money he’d get from the developer can’t replace what he’d lose, he said.

But the joys of Florida’s sun and sea take their toll on buildings, as the Surfside tragedy became clear. And the laws of man now rightly require that the laws of physics come into the calculation. So, redevelopment, if Properly restrained by government, provides a reasonable alternative to letting nature run its course and hoping nothing will happen.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida insurance, developers complicate condo living after Surfside