A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Broward County High Velocity Hurricane Zone

Barndominium Builders in Miramar, FL

Miramar is the one HVHZ Broward city on our list with genuine rural zoning on the books, not borrowed from the county and not routed to a neighboring town. Its own Land Development Code carries RL (Rural, 2.5-acre minimum) and E (Suburban Estate, 2-acre minimum) districts in Chapter 4, covering 2,768 acres of Rural and 1,501 acres of Estate future land use in the city's own Comprehensive Plan, concentrated in the undeveloped western third of the city where the boundary itself runs into the Everglades Water Conservation Area 3A. That is a materially different picture from Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, and Hollywood, which route acreage-seekers out to Davie and Southwest Ranches; in Miramar the acreage sits inside the city limits. It comes with a real cost: much of that western land sits on organic, subsidence-prone soils that have to be removed and replaced before a slab or footing can go in.

Miramar at a glance

County
Broward County
Population
143,242
Also serving in Broward County
Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, Hollywood, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach, Davie
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Building conditions in Miramar

What actually changes from one Florida city to the next: who issues the permit, what wind speed the structure has to be engineered to, and what the ground is like. These are the numbers your drawings have to satisfy.

Build conditions for Miramar, Broward County: design wind speed 170 mph, outside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone. BUILD CONDITIONS MIRAMAR, FL Broward CountyOUTSIDE THE HVHZWIND-BORNE DEBRIS ZONE DESIGN WIND SPEED 170 mphFlat HVHZ county figure, Everglades edge or city core alikeZONING · RL RURAL2.5-acre minimum lotSuburban Estate (E) at a 2-acre minimumPERMIT REVIEW CLOCK30 business daysF.S. 553.792 · fee drops 10% per day lateCITY IMPACT FEES$736 police · $574 fireRecreation $475 to $2,480 by bedrooms, plus 3% surchargeWHO ISSUES THE PERMITCity of Miramar Building Division1700 Civic Center Place
Build conditions for Miramar, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
Rural and Estate zoning, written into Miramar's own code
Miramar's Land Development Code carries three Rural Residential districts of its own: RL (Rural) at a 2.5-acre minimum lot, E (Suburban Estate) at 2 acres, and RS1 at 1 acre, each allowing a 40 ft building height and permitting agricultural and animal-related uses by right alongside the house. This is not annexed or borrowed from county code, it sits directly in the city's own Chapter 4.

City of Miramar Land Development Code, Chapter 4, Articles I-II, §§401-402, Tables 402-1 and 402-2 (Municode Library); independently corroborated by a secondary mirror, miramar-fl.elaws.us.

Where the acreage actually sits
The Rural and Estate future land use designations cover 2,768.17 acres and 1,500.80 acres respectively in Miramar's own Comprehensive Plan, concentrated in the least-developed western third of a city that runs 14 miles east to west. Miramar's boundary itself extends half a mile west of US 27 into the Everglades Water Conservation Area 3A, which is why that land stayed undeveloped this long.

City of Miramar Comprehensive Plan, Evaluation and Appraisal Report Based Amendments, Table 1-5, pp.3, 12, 19-20.

Western Miramar's soil is a real site-prep cost, not a footnote
Most of the vacant land in western Miramar sits on organic soils subject to subsidence, and the city's own Comprehensive Plan is direct about it: that soil must be removed and replaced with stable fill before development can occur. We treat that as a real line item in the budget, not a caveat to skip past, on any western Miramar acreage parcel.

City of Miramar Comprehensive Plan, Evaluation and Appraisal Report Based Amendments, p.12.

Design wind speed
170 mph for a house, prescribed flat by county under the HVHZ rules rather than read off a contour map, so it applies the same whether the lot sits against the Everglades edge or closer to the coast.

170 mph is the Broward figure per FBC 8th Edition (2023) § 1620, confirmed in our Fort Lauderdale / Broward HVHZ research. 175 mph is the Miami-Dade figure and is frequently and wrongly applied to Broward cities including Miramar in vendor marketing copy.

Who issues your permit
City of Miramar Building Division, part of the Building, Planning & Zoning Department at 1700 Civic Center Place. General customer service runs 954-602-HELP Monday through Thursday, and the Building Division line for inspection requests is 954-602-3200, with inspectors reachable 7:30-8:00 a.m. for same-day scheduling.

miramarfl.gov Building-Planning-Zoning and Building-Permits-Inspections pages, current as of August 2026.

Impact fees
Police runs $736 and fire protection $574 per dwelling unit, recreation ranges $475 for a one-bedroom up to $2,480 for six bedrooms, and a 3% administrative surcharge applies on top of all of them under city code.

FY2026 Schedule of User Fees, Planning & Zoning Division, adopted via Resolution R25-212 (17 September 2025). Code of Ordinances Ch. 21 Art. V (water and sewer impact fees). We confirm water and sewer and school impact fees, and current county-level road and recreational fee status, directly with the City and County before finalizing a project budget.

Also worth knowing before you build in Miramar

Inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone
Broward and Miami-Dade are the entire HVHZ, no partial-county lines and no distance-to-coast test, so every Miramar address is in it.

Florida Building Code 8th Edition (2023), Section 202 definition.

Exposure Category C is mandatory
There is no Exposure B anywhere in the HVHZ, however sheltered the parcel. A suburban Miramar lot that would qualify as Exposure B elsewhere in Florida still has to be engineered to C, which adds load to the structure.

FBC § 1620.3.

What the HVHZ demands of a metal building
Roof and wall sheets need to be 24 gauge minimum against the 26 and 29 gauge the national kit market runs on, and a Florida engineer has to seal the site-specific adaptation, foundation, and anchorage as one system. That is a real barrier to a stock out-of-state building package.

FBC § 2223.8.4, § 2223.8.5, § 2222.4.3, § 2223.5.

Building permit fee schedule
Base building permit fee is 1.75% of estimated construction cost with a $75 minimum, plan examination runs 0.75% and covers two designer revision cycles, and an 8% administrative surcharge applies on top, separate from the 3% surcharge on impact fees.

FY2026 Schedule of User Fees, Building Division, miramarfl.gov. We confirm the current fee schedule with the Building Division before finalizing a quote.

Flood insurance discount
Miramar carries a Community Rating System Class 8, worth a 10% discount on National Flood Insurance Program premiums.

City of Miramar Floodplain Management Plan, draft dated 2 March 2026, §1.2. We confirm the current class against FEMA's own CRS community list before finalizing insurance estimates. Fort Lauderdale's Class 7 does not transfer to Miramar.

Population, and it's growing fast
143,242 people as of the 2024 Census estimate, up 6.3% from 134,721 in the 2020 Census, consistent with Miramar's reputation as one of Broward's fastest-growing cities.

US Census Vintage 2024 subcounty estimates, corroborated via Census QuickFacts.

Product approval: both are accepted
A Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance is not a legal requirement here. A statewide Florida Product Approval carrying HVHZ approval is equally valid, because state law bars a local jurisdiction from demanding further evidence once a product has that approval.

F.S. 553.842, read in full: no HVHZ carve-out exists.

Permit review deadlines apply normally
Being in the HVHZ does not buy Miramar's Building Division extra time. The 30 business day clock and the 10% per-day fee reduction for a missed deadline apply here exactly as they do anywhere else in Florida, and the private provider route is available too.

F.S. 553.792 and F.S. 553.791, both read in full: no Miramar-specific carve-out found.

New in 2026: offsite construction as of right
An offsite-constructed dwelling now has to be permitted as of right in any zoning district that allows dwellings, which removes a zoning argument that used to stall kit and prefabricated barndominium projects.

F.S. 553.385, created by HB 803 (Ch. 2026-63), effective 1 July 2026.

Acreage is a live market here, not just a zoning category
Country Club Ranches, an established Miramar neighborhood, lists homes on lots of an acre or more, including a currently listed 6.9-acre property with canal frontage, and Everglades Sugar Land is an older large-lot enclave with active listings from the high $500,000s to over $1.7 million. We treat these as confirmation the market exists, not as zoning authority.

Homes.com and Echo Fine Properties listings, real-estate marketing sources rather than primary documents; the LDC and Comprehensive Plan above are the actual zoning authority.

The agricultural use permitted alongside the house is not a permit exemption for the house
RL and E zoning permits animal boarding, breeding, and farmer's markets alongside a home on a 2 to 2.5 acre lot, but that does not make the dwelling itself agriculturally exempt. Florida's farm-building exemption covers a barn or storage building, never a residence, even on a qualifying rural-zoned lot.

F.S. 604.50, statewide farm-building exemption; Miramar LDC § 402.2 use description.

Metal exterior restrictions and covenants
Broward County's own unincorporated code carries no prohibition on metal exterior materials, and Miramar follows the same pattern as the rest of the county: a recorded HOA covenant, not public zoning, is the more likely real constraint on exterior material choice.

Broward County Code Ch. 39 Art. XVI. We confirm any HOA-specific exterior material restrictions against the recorded covenant for a given parcel.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Below the slab

The expensive surprises are in the ground, not the building

Most of Broward County rates poorly for dwellings in the soil survey, and the reason is water sitting close to the surface rather than weak ground. That makes the pad elevation and the drainage plan the two line items most likely to move your budget. We price the dirt before we price the building.

What we build in Miramar

Every service we offer is available across Broward County, from a shell kit you erect yourself to a finished home we hand you the keys to. What a build costs depends far more on the parcel than on square footage, so we price against your land rather than publishing a rate card.

See all nine services

What a build looks like

Three stages every Miramar project passes through, from a raw parcel to a finished home. Site work first, because that is where the budget is decided.

Aerial view of an undeveloped rural Florida lot with cleared grass, pine scrub and a sandy access track.
Stage one

The parcel

Zoning, setbacks, flood zone and utility access get checked before anything is drawn.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Stage two

Pad and permit

Clearing, grading and a compacted pad, while the submittal works through Broward County.

A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Stage three

Frame to finish

Shell erected and dried in, then systems, insulation and interior finish through to CO.

Those are the rules for Broward County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Miramar

Broward County and the rural land around it. The buildable acreage for a project this size usually sits outside the city limits, which is frequently what changes who issues your permit.

Our Miramar service area, covering Broward County and the surrounding rural acreage. We build across this area from our office in Lake Mary, FL — this map marks the territory we serve, not a branch location.

Keep reading

The questions that usually come next once you know what Miramar allows.

Is It Legal in Florida?

Classification, zoning, and what the High Velocity Hurricane Zone actually requires in Broward County.

Read it

Barndominium Cost Guide

Sourced ranges by tier, plus the Florida adders that land on top of a national average.

Read it

How Long Does It Take?

Census build-duration data, and the Florida statute capping permit review at 30 business days.

Read it

Sources for this page

The primary documents behind the Miramar figures above. We would rather you checked them than took our word for it.

Nearby areas we build in

Close to Miramar, though the permitting authority and wind requirements can differ once you cross a county line.

Pembroke Pines

Broward County

HVHZ
Hollywood

Broward County

HVHZ
Miami Gardens

Miami-Dade County

HVHZ

Building in Miramar: common questions

10 questions we get asked most often about building in Miramar. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Is there really acreage available in Miramar?
Yes, and it is a real, on-the-books zoning category, not a workaround. Miramar's own Land Development Code carries RL (Rural) and E (Suburban Estate) districts at 2.5-acre and 2-acre minimum lots respectively, written directly into the city's Chapter 4, not borrowed from county code the way some neighboring cities' acreage claims are. That land sits mostly in the undeveloped western third of the city, where Miramar's own boundary runs into the Everglades Water Conservation Area, plus an established acreage enclave, Country Club Ranches, elsewhere in the city with lots currently listed at nearly seven acres. It is the strongest acreage story among the HVHZ cities in Broward we build in; Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, and Hollywood send acreage buyers out to Davie and Southwest Ranches, but in Miramar you do not have to leave the city limits.
What's the soil like on western Miramar acreage, and does it matter for a barndominium?
It matters more than the zoning map suggests. Miramar's own Comprehensive Plan says plainly that most of the vacant land in the western part of the city sits on organic soils subject to subsidence, and that soil has to be removed and replaced with stable fill before anything can be built on it. That is a real site-prep cost, not a formality, and we budget for a geotechnical investigation and soil remediation as a line item on any western Miramar acreage parcel rather than assume standard footings will do. It does not rule out building there, but it changes the cost, and we would rather tell you that up front than have it surface as a surprise change order.
What does being inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone mean for a metal building in Miramar?
It means the whole structural approach is different from the rest of Florida. Broward and Miami-Dade are the entire HVHZ, no partial lines, and Miramar is fully inside it. Roof and wall sheets need to be 24 gauge minimum against the 26 and 29 gauge the national kit market typically runs, the whole county is treated as Exposure Category C regardless of how sheltered a lot looks, design wind speed is 170 mph, and a Florida-licensed engineer has to seal the site-specific adaptation covering the foundation and anchorage as one system. Most stock out-of-state metal building packages cannot legally be erected here without real re-engineering.
Is Miramar's design wind speed really 170 mph, not 175?
Yes, 170 mph is correct for Miramar as a Risk Category II structure, which covers a house. 175 mph belongs to Miami-Dade, and we see that number applied to Miramar and other Broward cities in vendor marketing copy often enough that it is worth correcting directly: the two counties have different prescribed figures under the HVHZ rules, and the code sets Broward's flat, without reading it off a contour map, so it is the same 170 mph whether the lot sits on the Everglades edge or closer to the coast.
Who do I actually deal with to get a permit in Miramar?
The City of Miramar Building Division, part of the Building, Planning & Zoning Department. General customer service is 954-602-HELP, Monday through Thursday, and the Building Division's inspection line is 954-602-3200, with inspectors available 7:30 to 8:00 a.m. for same-day requests. Applications go through the city's own online Permits & Self Services portal. Miramar is not part of unincorporated Broward, so the county's building department is not who you deal with here.
What do the impact fees add up to?
A $736 police impact fee and a $574 fire protection impact fee per dwelling unit, a recreation impact fee that runs $475 for a one-bedroom home up to $2,480 for six bedrooms, and a 3% administrative surcharge on top of all of it. Water and sewer and school impact fees, along with current county-level road and recreational fee status, we confirm directly with the City and County before finalizing a budget.
Can I use the agricultural zoning to build a barn without a permit, or to get the house classified as a farm building?
No, and this is a common misunderstanding worth clearing up directly. RL and E zoning permits animal boarding and breeding, farmer's markets, and similar agricultural activities on a 2 to 2.5 acre lot alongside a home, but that does not extend Florida's farm-building exemption to the dwelling itself. F.S. 604.50 exempts a genuine barn, greenhouse, or storage building from the building code and permit fees, never a structure intended as a residence, no matter how large the lot or how agricultural the surrounding use. The house still goes through full residential permitting.
What's Miramar's flood insurance situation?
Miramar's own floodplain management plan cites a Community Rating System Class 8, worth a 10% discount on National Flood Insurance Program premiums. We confirm the current class against FEMA's own CRS community list before relying on it for a specific project. It is also a different number from Fort Lauderdale's Class 7, and Broward flood classes do not transfer between cities.
How does Miramar's building permit fee work?
The base permit fee is 1.75% of estimated construction cost with a $75 minimum, plan examination adds 0.75% and covers two rounds of designer revisions, and an 8% administrative surcharge applies on top, which is separate from the 3% surcharge that rides on impact fees specifically. We confirm the current fee schedule with the Building Division before quoting an exact number on a specific project.
Is Miramar actually growing, or is this a sleepy Broward suburb?
It is growing quickly. The city's population reached 143,242 in the 2024 Census estimate, up 6.3% from 134,721 in the 2020 Census, one of the faster growth rates among Broward's municipalities. Broward as a whole authorized only 730 single-family homes in all of 2025 against 2,809 total residential units, so the county overall has become a multifamily and redevelopment market with a small, high-value custom-build niche. Miramar's own growth and its unusual on-the-books rural acreage make it one of the more interesting single-family opportunities inside that otherwise land-constrained county.

Building in Miramar?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Broward County will actually let you put on the parcel and what wind load it has to meet. That conversation costs nothing.

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