Living in paradise comes with a price, a good price when your house is in a flood zone.
That is the case for many houses in Zuid -Florida that fall within the flood cards that have been designated by Fema.
In these areas, insurance premiums are higher and it costs more for flood homes. However, the temptation of a great image is strong and developers will not reject themselves despite the climate vulnerabilities.
MV Group USA flows into millions of dollars on a home in a flood zone near Bayshore Drive in Coconut Grove. The backyard of the building is Biscayne Bay, who is often flooded and vulnerable to storm flood. It is one of the many development projects in NBC6s What is being built here series.
The developers spend $ 25 million to transfer the property. And the only way to do that is to explode completely again by the original historic house and building.
MV Group USA said it was trying to keep the house as much as possible, but the property was not in the current code. It was 7 feet above the flood height when it had to be placed on 13 feet. The house is in a flood zone with depth of more than 3 feet.
Manny Angelo Varas, the founder of MV Group USA, who coins himself as the ‘billionaire builder’, had to make the decision to tear and rebuild the house on the building.
“We analyze the lifting of the Homes Foundation and can create a system whereby we can lift the basis of the house itself and redo the foundation at a higher height,” said Varas. “The costs are approximately $ 150 per square foot, so it becomes a bit priceless when you have to analyze whether it is worth the historical preservation of the property and retain that historical integrity thereof, build something new.”
The developers build a three -storey house on the 27,000 square -foot plot. The most important change in the lot is to raise the current ground floor to what is currently the second floor.
Varas explains that it is largely to help with insurance.
“A house like this under the flood will pay around $ 150,000 to $ 200,000 a year in insurance. But our new structure that costs the increased structure around $ 5,000, compensates the premiums they would have paid,” explained Varas.
The developers use galvanized steel with zinc coating to protect the steel throughout the house. For the driveway and the ground level, they use permeofel surfaces such as gravel, paving stones and permeoule concrete to help during floods. They also build what ‘broken walls’ is called to prevent the house from being swept away during the storm flood.
Experts from the Institute of Environment at Florida International University say they are concerned about development. Researchers say these houses were built to withstand 100 years of floods. But they say that big floods happen more often.
“Once in a 100-year flood in future circumstances, more may look like a flood of a 20-year-old or one of the 50 years because you will have more frequent floods,” says Professor Jayantha Obeysekera, director of the Sea Level Solutions Center. Another worrying element is that nature continues to evolve and adapt, especially in areas that are sensitive to storm flood.
“Building higher seems like a great solution, but one of the problems is that the groundwater rises to meet the country. When it rains, it comes down and washes everything there is,” said Prof.Michael Sukop. “But the higher you go, you just push it higher because there is a resistance against that, and it will just keep pushing higher because it still has to be, there is a resistance to it that flows out so that it rises a bit.”
While researchers from the Institute think that building raised houses is a solution in the right direction, they believe that the surrounding community and neighbors must also be part of the conversation.
“The costs go back to the municipality when they have to do the roads and the sewers again, and all legal aspects will have to come into play,” says Prof. dr. Out.
“It must be a regional solution to be able to offer access roads and utility services at the highest level. So, these individuals that come in the future can cause more problems to serve them in the future,” shared Prof. Obeysekera.
Although it is known that these areas are at high risk and in most cases expensive, people still want to live there. That is why Varas hopes that this house and its other projects for a million dollars can be a blueprint for other houses in these suburbs on coastal areas about how to be flooding.
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