HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommissioner Sarnoff-Legislative PrioritiesGoldberg, Daniel S.
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From: Goldberg,Daniel Si
Sent: Wednesday, ITEM ��7- �� ON
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To: Menendez, Kirk R -- `-
Cc: Nelson, Ron; nnsarnoff@sa|awnniamicum
Subject: Legislative priorities - FEMA elevations + fire safety - notes from 1/16 meeting
Kirk,
Since there is a discussion item related to the City's 2013 legislative priorities tomorrow I decided to type up my notes
from our meeting atArqubectnnicalast Wednesday. | figure at the very least itgives you some good talking points when
you goout tolobby for changes tothese new building requirements.
FEMA flood elevations:
0 Old finished base flood elevation (~8FE)was 11feet, now 14 feet.
0 The uses below the 8FEhave become more restrictive, eliminating the possibility ofunderground parking.
o This will result in a larger parking pedestal as cars cannot be stored underground (where one can build
tothe lot line, thus reducing the size ofthe parking pedestal furtheM.
0 Increased flood elevations eats into the envelope of the building, causing a sort of speculation stagnation as
developers must aggregate more land tnbuild ahigh'rise.
w Creates a disincentive to renovate old buildings because if the value of the renovations exceed 50% of the
building's value.
w Makes the fulfillment of Miami2l's vision of walkable, pedestrian friendly streets impossible because storefronts
will need to be excessively set back and retail studies show that economic activity diminishes greatly even with 4
orSsteps toclimb upinto astore.
o Will cause problems in historic single-family districts aswell. Newly constructed, non-contributing
homes will tower over historic ones. The increased variation in elevations between structures will result
ingreater localized flooding/ pondingissues.
Fire safety:
� This modification to the Fla. Building Code was incorporated as an overreaction toSeptember 1fm. Las Vegas,
Chicago, California, and NYC partially ortotally rejected the changes.
o l.Afireserviceaccesse|evatorthatiohardeneda8ainstaSeptennber11`^'uty|edisasterisnom/requined
for buildings over 120 feet, connecting to a newly required 200 square foot fire lobby and an 8 foot
corridor which must also beconnected tostairs.
� Adisaster like September 1l,hisgoing totake out that beefed-up elevator anyway. Additionally,
should fear of a remote possibility of a terrorist attack dictate how we build our buildings and
live our daily lives?
m The intent was to give firefighters a place to stage, but this size is overkill. A normal corridor is 5
feet, 6 inches. Lastly, fires don't tend to occur in corridors. They tend to occur in the habitable
areas ofabuilding, regardless ofthe use.
� These requirements force architects tocombine the fire lobby with the freight elevator area,
where there may begarbage o,debris stored.
o J. At 420feet, ] stairwells are required (along with that additional fire elevator discussed above). The
stairs must be 30fegt from each other, not by how long it takes to get toeach, but "as the crow f|ies",
completely disregarding the interior of the building when designing for safety.
= The stairs eat into the usable area even more. This was put in place to try and evacuate
everyone quickly (see above regarding overreaction). However, construction is different in
/'�`000.39'
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South Florida. Shear walls used in construction would hurt a plane more than the plane would
hurt building.
� Developers will simply build to 419 feet to avoid these requirements as the marginal benefit in
that extra floor(s) above 419 feet will be less than the marginal cost of providing the 3 rd
stairwell.
o 3. Luminescent stairwell tape iunow required instairwells tohelp guide people incase ofapower
outage.
• There are already required emergency lights on the ceiling that trigger during an outage.
m Only 3companies inthe world make acompliant product, driving upcost.
• Will force every stairwell into looking like it came from Tron.
Why did nobody catch any of this? These were adopted about the same time asthe property market tanked. Developers
and architects were too busy trying to save their own financial position to research and fight these new burdensome
requirements. Noone inthe City or County caught this because of the economic turmoil and thus it passed easily and
without much discussion inTaUahaseee.
Kirk, let me know if I've missed or misstated anything but these are the extent of my notes.
Thanks.
Daniel S. GoNben�Esq.
Legislative Aide
o(y of Miami
Office ofCommissioner Marc s^mvn'mmridz
lc|,,o"nu 305-2e0'5336
**s/mou 305`579-3334
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