Perspective: Rising seasFlorida’s Building Code Doesn’t Take Sea Rise into Account. That Could Change This Year.

Published 18 November 2019

The last time the Florida building code changed, in 2016, it required any new construction along the coast to elevate buildings by one foot. Three years later, this does not look to be enough. Experts call for going up yet another foot. Alex Harris notes that elevating the base of homes is a clear sign that political debates over climate change notwithstanding, “the people who plan and build in coastal Florida consider the threat of sea rise very real.”

“We cannot keep building the way we always have and expect a different outcome in future disasters,” says Craig Fugate, Florida’s former director of emergency management and FEMA head under Barack Obama.

Alex Harris writes in the Tampa Bay Times that the last time the Florida building code changed, in 2016, it required any new construction along the coast to elevate buildings by one foot. Three years later, this does not look to be enough. Experts call for going up yet another foot.

Harris notes that elevating the base of homes is a clear sign that the political questioning of climate change notwithstanding, “the people who plan and build in coastal Florida consider the threat of sea rise very real.”

Harris writes:

Florida’s long and winding coastline is packed with people, with more arriving by the day. That makes the state more vulnerable to sea level rise and increasingly powerful hurricanes than any other.

But as of 2019, Florida’s massive, nationally renowned statewide building code still doesn’t have much to say about how to build with climate change in mind. That could change this year, as a new Florida International University study commissioned by the Florida Building Commission makes its way through the building code bureaucracy.

One of its first recommendations: bring all new construction along the flood-prone coast up another foot.

“The building code doesn’t currently take sea level rise into account,” said Tiffany Troxler, associate director of science for the FIU Sea Rise Solutions Center and co-author of the report. “One recommendation was simply to try to account for that uncertainty that we cannot currently account for, including sea level rise, to add one foot to the elevations that are already recommended.”