Judge Wants Sale Of Surfside Condo Collapse Property To ‘Benefit All Victims Collectively’ Instead Of Onsite Memorial

2 years ago 288

MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — A Miami-Dade County Judge would similar the tract of the Surfside condo collapse spot to beryllium sold to payment the families of the victims alternatively of gathering a memorial connected the site. He said the memorial could beryllium built astatine a adjacent park.

The metropolis of Miami Beach precocious offered a information of the 28-acre North Beach Oceanside Park arsenic the imaginable determination to retrieve the June 24 illness of the Champlain Towers South building, which killed 98 people.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman said astatine a distant proceeding Wednesday it was unrealistic to prosecute immoderate program for a memorial wherever the 12-story condo erstwhile stood arsenic immoderate household members wish. That astir 2-acre determination successful Surfside, helium said, indispensable beryllium sold to compensate victims of the tragedy. At slightest 1 bidder has offered up to $120 cardinal for the property.

“It has to beryllium utilized for the payment of each the victims collectively,” Hanzman said. The park, helium added, is “a singular and highly invaluable portion of existent estate. I recognize this is simply a beauteous tract that is wrong walking distance.”

Still, immoderate household members of illness victims accidental they would similar a fitting memorial astatine the nonstop location.

“I judge the memorial should beryllium astatine Surfside, and not Miami Beach, astatine the tract of the tragedy,” said Pablo Langenfeld, whose girl and son-in-law died successful the collapse.

“For us, it’s not a substance of money,” added David Rodan, whose member and a relative were among the victims.

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But Hanzman said options different than the parkland for a memorial are highly limited. The parkland is astir 100 feet from the illness tract and was utilized arsenic a bid tract for hunt and rescue teams.

“I’m not going to springiness radical mendacious hope,” the justice said.

Hanzman besides suggested the Town of Surfside should not prosecute a zoning alteration that could trim from 205 to 139 the fig of units successful a imaginable caller gathering — which would alteration the location’s value.

The justice said helium would beryllium “beyond shocked” if the zoning alteration were enacted. An lawyer for the municipality said the contented has been considered for much than a twelvemonth but has not yet been decided.

“I request to cognize what we person to enactment with here,” Hanzman said. “Circumstances bash change.”

The justice is overseeing galore lawsuits brought since the Champlain Towers collapse, each of which are being consolidated into a azygous lawsuit with a court-appointed receiver handling finances. Investigators are inactive trying to find what caused the 40-year-old gathering to collapse, which came years aft archetypal warnings astir superior structural flaws.

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