TALLAHASSEE -- Florida's home building industry is pushing to delay tougher building codes, claiming hurricane protections sought by Gov. Charlie Crist and passed by the Legislature in January come too fast.

"While your efforts will bring forth reductions in property insurance rates, the very law that provides the relief has spawned an immediate, and minimum, $72 million negative impact on Florida's second largest economic engine the construction industry," wrote John Wiseman, president of the Florida Home Builders Association, in a letter asking Crist to issue an emergency order delaying the new building requirements.

The builders? group is taking its case back to the Legislature, lobbying for a six-month reprieve since it's been unable yet to persuade either the governor or the Florida Building Commission.

At the heart of its complaint is the Legislature?s decision last month to remove a Panhandle exemption to impact resistant windows or hurricane shutters in high-wind areas, and to kill a statewide exemption allowing internal engineering as an alternative.

The latter was so popular with west Florida builders one official estimates 85 percent of new homes there are built without exterior storm protection.

?Homeowners in hurricane-prone states need all the protection they can get from high winds, hurricanes and even tornadoes,? said Leslie Chapman-Henderson, president of the Federal Alliance of Safe Homes, a disaster safety advocacy group with backing from insurers as well as manufacturers.

The code changes went into effect the day Crist signed the bill, Jan. 25, and a majority of coastal Florida counties began applying the requirements to all new permits.
?We knew the law was going to be changed, that was a given. What we weren?t prepared for was that it would happen immediately,? said David Peaden, executive director of the Home Builders Association of West Florida, where Escambia and Santa Rosa counties have begun to enforce the new codes.

?Right now people are coming up to speed as best they can.?

But some counties? building officials, including in Lee County, are not enforcing the new law, giving the construction industry a reprieve until July.

?I think this is a very reasonable approach,? said Michael Reitman, president of the Lee Building Industry Association. ?We?re suffering enough with an economic downturn right now.?

The Florida Home Builders Association estimates some 6,000 homes are in the process of being permitted in Florida, and adding window and door protection to them will cost $72 million.

?From the builders? standpoint, the primary concern is impairment of existing contracts,? said state association spokeswoman Edie Ousley.

?There were permit applications already in the pipeline and the bill is signed into law, which puts all of those contracts in jeopardy because it changes everything,? Ousley said.

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