Deferred Maintenance

How did the Florida condo crumble?

Gradually. Then suddenly.

"The observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial inspection. . . .concrete deterioration is accelerating.”

Letter from Champlain Towers South Condominium Board to residents, April, 2020


The Surfside, Florida condominium collapse is a warning light flashing red. The metaphor is so obvious surely Americans will see it. Won't they? The Surfside condo is America, and the condominium collapsed after years of deferred maintenance. 

Condominium boards are self-government. They have a serious job to do--provide for the general welfare of the building and its occupants--and they serve at the pleasure of their fellow homeowners. People disagree on what needs to be done. People have different capacities to pay. People disagree on whose responsibly it is to fix things. People wonder if there isn't somebody to sue who should be paying for repairs instead of them. There was contention, leading to turnover on the Board of Directors. 

Delays and deterioration raised the proposed costs from $9 million to $15 million, to be spread among the condominium's residents. The allocation of assessments was contentious. One-bedroom apartments were to pay $80,000; the four-bedroom penthouse apartment was to pay $336,000.
The building was sagging 2 millimeters a year--over two inches a decade. The building was approaching 40 years in age. Waterproofing to protect the concrete and the steel re-bar inside it had failed. Steel, not concrete, holds up a tall building. The extent of the rust problem was hidden inside the cracked concrete. 

Five different lawsuits have already been filed against the condo Board of Directors, saying they were negligent. They should have ignored the griping and second-guessing and made us fix the building. The condo board has already hired a crisis legal team to defend it against these lawsuits, plus a public relations firm to manage the politics and their reputations.

Everyone is pointing fingers. Maybe the construction company 40 years ago should have built it differently. Maybe the building architects should have designed more slant into horizontal slabs so salty water drained off faster so the re-bar would not have corroded. The city inspectors gave warnings, but should have been more alarmed and urgent. The 40-year re-certification schedule isn't adequate.

Meanwhile, Congress debates an infrastructure bill. How much is really, really necessary? One does not need to be an engineer to see that America's public infrastructure is under-maintained. Travel to China and compare. We are living off the investments made by our grandparents. The busiest bridge in America, the George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York was finished 90 years ago. The Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River leaks.

Raising the gasoline tax to pay for infrastructure is a non-starter; officeholders made a no-tax pledge. Condominium boards and members of Congress serve with the consent of the governed. Paying for things is contentious.

Projects themselves are contentious as well. In Oregon another bridge across the Columbia River is near-universally understood to be far overdue. Oregon officeholders want any new bridge to accommodate a commuter rail system that would link Vancouver, Washington to the Portland system. Voters and legislators in the Vancouver area oppose mass transit and insist a new bridge be vehicle traffic only. Result: Do nothing. 

Whether on a condo board or in Congress, the problems and incentives are the same. One can complain about the cost or some aspect of a project, do little or nothing, and hope one can get away with it. Then, if a major failure happens, blame someone. Hire a lawyer and a P.R. firm or their equivalent.
The parallel to the infrastructure debate is so direct I suspect the American public will see it. The Florida disaster may move the public opinion needle enough that Biden's shrunk-down infrastructure proposal will get through, even if it gives Biden a political "win."

The problem for America is that the broader metaphor of the Champlain Tower South collapse is our failure to address all the big deferred-maintenance problems facing America: CO2 emissions, Income Distribution that provides a pathway out of poverty for working people, Immigration reform, Racial justice. We have problems our current political system is unable to address. Problems fester. Sometimes we see cracks in the wall in the form of George Floyd's murder, the frustrations of working class Americans, or the insurrection at the Capitol. They signal rot within the system. We can ignore those cracks.

The steel corrodes.