Almost every Broward lot is inside a city
Broward has 31 cities and towns, and on the Census Bureau's 2024 estimates fewer than 1% of its people live outside one of them. So the rules for your lot are almost always your city's: zoning, setbacks, permits and code enforcement.
The county still sets the floor on some things. The seawall height standard below started as a county ordinance, and Broward's comprehensive plan requires every tidally influenced city to adopt a matching rule of its own.
The parcel number and the tax bill
The Broward County Property Appraiser gives every parcel an ID number, still often called the folio number. It starts with the township, range and section, so it places a lot within about a square mile: a number beginning 504212 is Section 12, Township 50 South, Range 42 East, the square mile that takes in Las Olas By the Sea. Search by address on the Property Appraiser's site to find yours, with the lot size and owner of record.
The Broward County Tax Collector mails the annual bills on 1 November. Paying in November saves 4%, then 3%, 2% and 1% in the months after, and the full amount is due by 31 March. Tax certificates on unpaid bills are sold from 1 June. A lot you do not live on gets no homestead exemption.
Deed stamps: a flat 70 cents
Broward charges the standard Florida rate of 70 cents per $100 of the price on a deed, with no county surtax. On a $1,000,000 lot that is $7,000. The same lot across the line in Miami-Dade would pay $10,500, because Miami-Dade adds a surtax on anything that is not a single-family home. Your written offer from us says who pays it.
Seawalls: the 5-foot rule and its deadlines
Broward County's code sets a minimum height of 5.0 feet NAVD88 for any new seawall, or one being substantially repaired. Substantial means work along more than half the length of your shoreline, or a dock, lift or similar addition costing more than half the price of a seawall along it. Permit applications made before 1 January 2035 may build to 4.0 feet if the wall is designed to be raised to 5.0 feet by 1 January 2050.
A cited owner must show progress within 60 days and finish within 365 days, and if the repair crosses the substantial threshold, the new wall must be designed, permitted, built and passed at full height inside those 365 days. Fort Lauderdale has adopted the same standard in section 47-19.13 of its land development code, which also counts a repair costing more than half the wall's replacement cost as substantial.
Each city writes its own version, so confirm anything that matters to you with the city or the county before you act on it.
The New River, the Intracoastal and two inlets
Broward boats reach the ocean through Port Everglades, the county's deep-water port, or Hillsboro Inlet in the north, where the A1A drawbridge has 13 feet of clearance when closed, above mean high water. Between them, twelve Intracoastal drawbridges, from Hillsboro Boulevard at Deerfield Beach to Hallandale Beach Boulevard, open on federal schedules set in 33 CFR 117.261. Las Olas, for example, opens on the quarter-hour and three-quarter hour, and has about 24 feet of clearance when closed.
A lot further up the New River can pass under more drawbridges on the way out: SE Third Avenue, Andrews Avenue and the Florida East Coast railway bridge, which has 4 feet of clearance when down. Federal rules keep the railway bridge open except when trains pass and bar it from staying closed for more than 60 minutes at a time. On a drawbridge route the question is waiting time, not height.
Where the waterfront lots are
Much of the county's canal frontage is in Fort Lauderdale, but far from all of it. These are the areas we look at, grouped by city.
- Fort Lauderdale: Las Olas Isles, Seven Isles, Nurmi Isles, Hendricks Isle, Rio Vista, Idlewyld, Harbor Beach, Sunrise Key, Lauderdale Harbours, Coral Ridge, Bay Colony, Dolphin Isles, The Landings
- Hollywood: Hollywood Lakes, Harbor Islands
- North Broward: Lighthouse Point, Hillsboro Beach, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea
- South Broward: Dania Beach, Hallandale Beach
Flood zones
Broward's current FEMA flood maps took effect on 31 July 2024, and changed the zone or the base flood elevation for many parcels. Two zones are common on the waterfront: AE, where flooding is expected without significant waves, and VE, where waves are expected and building to code costs more.
Check your lot on FEMA's Map Service Center by address. For us the zone is a cost line in the rebuild, not a reason to walk away.