Fort Lauderdale seawall requirements and local evidence

Fort Lauderdale raised its minimum seawall and tidal barrier height to 5 feet NAVD, up from 3.9 feet NAVD.

• The minimum height of seawalls and tidal barriers was raised to 5 feet NAVD, up from 3.9 feet NAVD, to comply with Broward County standards.
• Three conditions require a property owner to raise a seawall: building a new seawall; a seawall in significant disrepair, defined as damage to more than 50% of the structure; or the owner being cited for tidal flow breaching the seawall and impacting a neighbouring property or right of way.
• The City mailed more than 8,000 postcards to waterfront property owners about the change.

Broward County sets a countywide minimum tidal flood barrier elevation of 5.0 feet NAVD88, with a transition provision that runs to 2050.

• Tidal flood barriers shall have a minimum elevation of five (5) feet NAVD88.
• Applications for new or substantially repaired or substantially rehabilitated tidal flood barriers submitted prior to January 1, 2035 may be permitted a minimum elevation of four (4) feet NAVD88, if designed and constructed to accommodate a minimum elevation of five (5) feet NAVD88 by January 1, 2050.
• Adopted by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners on March 31, 2020, as Article XXV of Chapter 39 of the Broward County Code of Ordinances.
• The standard is written to address flood patterns and sea level rise projections through 2070.
• The standard does not apply to oceanfront beaches or shorelines seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line.

Read carefully: The 4-foot figure is a conditional transition allowance, not an alternative standard. It is only available where the barrier is designed and built to be raised to 5 feet by 2050.

Broward County defines when a repair is large enough to trigger the elevation standard.

• A "substantial" repair or rehabilitation has occurred when more than 50% of a property's shoreline structure is modified.
• It is also triggered when an attachment — a mooring, for example — valued at more than 50% of the cost of installing a tidal flood barrier on the property is installed.

Read carefully: The second trigger is the one owners miss. Adding a valuable attachment can pull an otherwise routine project into the elevation standard.

In Broward County, letting tidal water cross onto a neighbouring property or the public right of way is a citable offence, not merely a maintenance problem.

• Causing, suffering, or allowing the trespass of tidal waters onto adjacent property or public right-of-way is declared a public nuisance and a citable offence requiring abatement.
• Barriers below the 5 feet NAVD88 minimum are still required to be improved, designed and constructed so as to prevent tidal waters from impacting adjacent property or public right of way.

Widely republished summaries state that the Broward County standard "is 4.0 feet NAVD88". The adopted ordinance does not say that.

• Secondary write-ups frequently present 4.0 feet NAVD88 as the county standard and 5.0 feet as a stricter Fort Lauderdale choice.
• The adopted text sets 5.0 feet NAVD88 as the minimum, and permits 4.0 feet only for applications filed before January 1, 2035 and only where the barrier is designed and constructed to reach 5.0 feet by January 1, 2050.
• Both halves of the rule are real. Sources quoting one half without the other produce an apparent conflict that does not exist in the ordinance.

Read carefully: This entry exists to record a documented misreading in circulation, not to settle a genuine disagreement between authorities.