4.13 Codes & Standards Committee May 2025 Committee Activity Report
Following an active month of April during which the chair and AIBD's Staff Director participated in the ICC Group B CAH#1 committee meetings to support AIBD's proposed model code modifications, May found another continuing activity to be the focus of the committee's work. That activity is the ongoing complaint against impermissible local code amendments adopted by the Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals (BORA). Those amendments preclude many of our members from being able to provide the design services they can perform in all other Florida counties. The chair had filed a challenge to the process used to adopt the local amendments that was to be heard at the May 8 meeting of BORA. (Available in BaseCamp.) Such a challenge is authorized by Florida Statutes when an affected person alleges that the proper adoption process prescribed by law was not followed. (As a Florida certified building contractor, the chair meets the requirement to be an affected person.) However, just before the agenda was published, BORA's legal counsel issued a memorandum calling for the challenge to be remove from the agenda and not considered. The BORA administrative director then issued an order denying the challenge.
Upon notification of this agency decision, which was completely unsupported by both the facts of the case and the applicable laws, the chair filed an appeal with the Florida Building Commission, as authorized by s. 553.73(4)(g), Florida Statutes. We have not yet received a decision from the Commission as to whether they will accept the appeal and request an administrative hearing be conducted by an officer of the Division of Administrative Hearings. At issue is whether BORA's staff-level action constituted a decision on the challenge that would trigger the appeal authorization.
We are prepared to conduct the hearing, if a favorable decision is received, or to file a new action with BORA for which agency discretion is not an option: propose an amendment to the code using the established process that would repeal the offending language added to the building code by BORA's local amendments. Rejecting the amendment will conclude the administrative remedies available to address the issue and allow the chair to refile his complaint in the 17th Circuit Court. Hopefully, the Florida Building Commission will authorize the administrative hearing and the problem can be resolved in that venue.
Upon notification of this agency decision, which was completely unsupported by both the facts of the case and the applicable laws, the chair filed an appeal with the Florida Building Commission, as authorized by s. 553.73(4)(g), Florida Statutes. We have not yet received a decision from the Commission as to whether they will accept the appeal and request an administrative hearing be conducted by an officer of the Division of Administrative Hearings. At issue is whether BORA's staff-level action constituted a decision on the challenge that would trigger the appeal authorization.
We are prepared to conduct the hearing, if a favorable decision is received, or to file a new action with BORA for which agency discretion is not an option: propose an amendment to the code using the established process that would repeal the offending language added to the building code by BORA's local amendments. Rejecting the amendment will conclude the administrative remedies available to address the issue and allow the chair to refile his complaint in the 17th Circuit Court. Hopefully, the Florida Building Commission will authorize the administrative hearing and the problem can be resolved in that venue.