Seawall, dock and boat lift work in Broward County

What Broward requires

Broward County treats seawalls as flood defenses, not just property features. Since 2020, the county code has set a minimum height for seawalls and other "tidal flood barriers", and a duty to keep them in good repair.

• 5 ft NAVD88 is the minimum height for new seawalls and for walls that are substantially repaired. Walls permitted before January 1, 2035 can be built at 4 ft if they're designed to be raised to 5 ft by 2050.
• Substantial means work on more than half of the length of your shoreline.
• Water coming through or over a wall means it's presumed to be in disrepair. After a citation, owners have 60 days to show progress and 365 days to finish the repair.
• Any work in the water needs a Broward County environmental licence, as well as a building permit from your city.

The full rule, the deadlines and how each city applies it are in our guide to Broward's 5 ft seawall rule.

What we can help with

Cities we cover

We pass on requests from anywhere in Broward County with tidal waterfront. These cities have their own pages because their seawall rules differ in the details:

• Fort Lauderdale
• Pompano Beach
• Hollywood
• Lighthouse Point

We also cover Deerfield Beach, Dania Beach, Hallandale Beach, Wilton Manors, Oakland Park, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and unincorporated Broward. Each city issues its own building permits, so the contractor we introduce will check your city's version of the seawall rule.

The contractors we work with

Before we pass a request to a contractor, we check three things:

• A current licence for marine work, either a Florida state licence (we look it up on the state's DBPR register) or a Broward County certificate.
• Insurance, with a certificate on file.
• A track record in public reviews, and no unresolved pattern of complaints.

We send each request to one contractor, not a crowd. Contractors pay us a fee for each request. Homeowners pay nothing. More about how it works.