Florida legislators have enacted structural inspection requirements for most of the state’s multi-family residential buildings, reversing an earlier, unsuccessful legislative effort aimed at preventing a repeat of last summer’s deadly partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside.

The new requirement, which establishes a statewide two-phase building recertification process similar to those already in place in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, comes two months after the state House and Senatewere unable to agree on legislative proposalscontaining similar language.

佛罗里达工程协会（FES）和佛罗里达州美国工程公司委员会执行主任艾伦·道格拉斯（Allen Douglas）说，该法案的有争议的方面与全州检查的任务无关，最终注定了这些措施。

“With so many other things going on during that session, legislators weren’t ready to make major changes to condominium safety requirements without fully understanding them,” Douglas adds.

An unexpected second opportunity to enact condominium safety requirements arose when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called the legislature back in late May for a weeklong special session to address instability in the state’s property insurance market, which has experienced rapid cost increases and insurer insolvency.

Douglas speculates that increasing reluctance among mortgage insurers to back aging condominiums, coupled with media blowback following legislators’ failure to act during the regular session, plus the fast approaching one-year anniversary of the Surfside collapse, spurred renewed interest in a statewide inspection mandate.

道格拉斯说：“从政治上讲，他们觉得自己必须做某事。”

Mirroring recommendations developed by a coalition of Florida building industry professional groups, the new inspection requirement applies to all condominium buildings three stories or taller. Those located within three miles of the coast must undergo safety inspections when the building reaches 25 years old, and again every 10 years afterward. Buildings located more than three miles inland will have the initial and follow-up inspection schedule beginning at age 30.

Florida’s counties must complete initial structural inspections on all eligible buildings by the end of 2024, an effort that Douglas says potentially may be complicated by uncertainty regarding the number of qualified structural engineers, which the state does not license by specialty.

根据FES/ACEC的数据，佛罗里达州150万个公寓单位中有近三分之二的年龄超过30岁。超过105,000个公寓单位已有50多年的历史。尚普兰塔（Champlain Towers）于1981年建于1981年，在部分崩溃时已有40年的历史，并且正在按照迈阿密戴德县（Miami-Dade County）的要求进行重新认证检查。