Fire Safety Plan- March 8, 2. The residents of the Galt Mile community are currently tolerating an exasperating and expensive ordeal that accompanies the massive renovation efforts required to bring their 2. Replacing the roof, waterproofing the building and the grounds, renovating the balconies, modernizing the elevators, resurfacing the driveway, rehabilitating the garage, performing an exhaustive list of structural repairs, painting the building, renovating the lobby, installing water towers, HVAC repairs, smoke and sensor upgrades, and hundreds of other expensive projects along with the necessary code upgrades that accompany each project has ravished the patience and the wallets of thousands of condo dwellers along the Galt Ocean Mile.

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The specter of another million- dollar project unceremoniously dumped on the top of this construction quagmire would have to be, at the very least, a clear and uncontested necessity. The Florida legislature. The necessity and the price tag.

The cost of statutory compliance in Broward County is on two levels. Within 1. 80 days of your building.

The second level is the actual cost (neighborhood of $8. Viber Download For Blackberry Classic Phone. Ouch! This is where some of the confusion starts. At a 7/1. 0/2. 00. Marshal Kastner was peppered by questions about the necessity and the efficacy of a plan prepared today for implementation in eleven years from now.

If a Fire Safety Engineer drew up a plan for your building in 1. Any responsible Board would recognize the 1. He responded that the plan should be an .

The notion that the Fire Marshal was demanding a plan that would be obsolete before it was implemented triggered widespread confusion among the audience. Why would the Fire Marshal require the expenditure of a substantial amount of money toward a plan that would have to be redrawn as the technology evolved? His response was that the Fire Marshal. Hmmm.. The NFPA 1 Fire Safety Code for high- rise buildings (7.

The authority having jurisdiction shall review and respond to the intent to comply submittal within 6. Demanding the premature submittal of an . If an Association ignored the Fire Marshal. In exchange for being the first building on the block with an approved system, they would have the most antiquated and obsolete system by the statutory deadline! If they accept the Fire Marshal. No one can put a price on life.

No responsible Condo or Co- op Association would resist installing an effective Life Safety system. The NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) has compiled a one- size- fits- all set of Fire and Life Safety standards that our legislature, in its wisdom, transformed into law without our input. The same standards apply whether you live in Miami or the Everglades, big city or small town, eight- story building or an eighty- story skyscraper, next door to a fire station or in the middle of the swamp. These regulatory codes, NFPA 1.

Life Safety Code) and NFPA 1 (Fire Safety Code), have been accepted in all fifty states because they are comprehensive and flexible. One minor detail that the proponents of this statute repeatedly omit is the fact that this code was developed primarily for use in NEW BUILDINGS!

Every single state that adopted the NFPA codes also included a grandfather clause to accommodate all their existing structures with one glaring exception, the State of Florida. In fact, all of our sister states hold that something as important as this demands a customized combination of Fire and Life Safety systems that should be developed from the ground up. Intrinsic components should be based upon the structures age, configuration, demographics, size, structural composition, location, and a variety of other factors that a competent Fire Safety Engineer might consider. The NFPA codes were not designed for use in retrofitting older pre- existing high- rise structures. Every state in the union recognized this except the State of Florida! Are We Getting Hosed?

Basically we face two dilemmas. Firstly, we are being forced to spend $1. Engineered Life Safety plan that we will have to spend again at the time we implement it. To prove that we take the statute seriously? Secondly, we are being forced to accomplish a million dollar statutory retrofit according to a set of codes that were clearly not designed for pre- existing structures.

Florida is the only state in the union that is forcing existing structures to retrofit a system designed for new buildings. Every other state respected eminent domain and allowed existing buildings to design a sound Fire and Life Safety plan based upon the actual needs of the individual structures as determined by an authorized Fire Safety Engineer. The Galt Mile Community Association has been wrestling with these dilemmas for the past year. Every member Association has scrupulously adhered to every statutory fire and life safety code. According to GMCA President Robert Rozema, . Rozema points out that . Every one of our Associations is willing to have a Fire Safety Engineer create and implement a comprehensive plan that works.

However, the plan needs to be customized to fit the different needs of each structure. The necessity and placement of sprinklers, fire walls, and alarm systems should be left to the Fire Safety Engineer and approved by the Fire Marshal, not determined by a set of codes that were clearly never intended to be retroactively implemented. Florida is currently the only state that is making this irrational demand. While we agree with the intent of the legislation, we feel that it. Hopefully, our legislators will fix the statute so that we can get on with installing and upgrading effective Life and Fire Safety systems. They face one nagging obstacle. Because of the recent highly publicized fire related disasters, the legislature is concerned about being painted as .

The attempts to correct the inequities in the legislation have been portrayed in the media with buzzword bylines like . In a recent article by Nicole White in the 3/6/2. Miami Herald, she quotes Miami Beach Fire Chief Floyd Jordan as stating that . Our situation is hardly analogous. The Alternative Engineered Life Safety system postulated by Fire Marshal Kastner calls for only one sprinkler head at the entry foyer of a residence. If the club in Rhode Island installed the system recommended for our high- rise buildings, not one life would have been saved!

This kind of misrepresentation in the press creates a politically untenable environment for any representative trying to correct the flaws in the legislation. The legislative session in Tallahassee convened on March 4, 2.

It is a 6. 0- day session and there are currently two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, which are being considered to address high- rise buildings. One bill attempts to exempt all buildings constructed on or before January 1, 2. The other bill would allow a vote of 2/3 of the total voting interests in the community to opt out of the retrofitting requirements. Connie Mack, R- Fort Lauderdale, is a sponsor of the house bill. He has stated that the bill is about giving condo owners the right to choose. On 3/5/2. 00. 3 it was presented to the members of the House Judiciary Committee.

As a result of the media pressure mentioned earlier, it received tepid support. Grass roots support for this type of legislation would have a substantial impact on its fruition. Contacting your representative to convey support will help the effort immeasurably. Please take a moment and send a letter or an e- mail to Connie Mack to encourage him to pursue his efforts.

Click Here to send Representative Mack an E- mail of support! Click Here to access comprehensive contact information (including Capitol and District addresses and telephone numbers) for Representative Connie Mack. Thank you for caring. We can. Since our legislators are not going to get the facts or our input surrounding this problematic legislation from the media, we have to turn to another vehicle to alert them to our concerns.

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