Staffing increased to achieve faster responses
At the start of a recent Sarasota County Commission workshop on a proposal to allow voluntary demolition and rebuilding of aged condominium complexes on Siesta Key, a member of the board of directors of the nonprofit organization Protect Siesta Key touched on a different topic.
In protesting the plans that the board members were to discuss on Feb. 5, Carlyn Berghoff stressed that the barrier island had “more pressing issues to address,” such as its recovery from extensive damage wrought by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the fall of 2024.
“Permits are taking weeks and working into months now,” she told the commissioners.
“We can’t even fix what we already have,” Berghoff stressed.
This week, The Sarasota News Leader asked county Planning and Development Services staff about the permitting situation.
In a Feb. 18 email, Planning and Development reported, “The County has received 5,182 storm-related (Debby-Helene-Milon) [permit applications]. (“Debby” refers to Tropical Storm Debby, which produced major flooding in parts of the county in early August 2024.) Of those,” the email added, 4,242 involved residential single-family homes and 940 were related to commercial and multi-family properties. Condominium complexes are multi-family structures.
The Planning and Development staff added, “It must be noted that for sheetrock permits, while one permit may be issued, it may cover all first-floor condos …” In other words, staff explained, 10, 20 or 30 units could be the focus of one permit, “so the data may be skewed as far as condos are concerned.”
Staff was not able to break out the number of permits involving just Siesta Key, the email said.
Further, staff acknowledged, “Due to the considerable volume of permits, our flood reviews are currently 12 business days behind schedule.”
When the News Leader asked for clarification of that statement, Planning and Development explained in a follow-up email on Feb. 19 that “storm-related expedited reviews” generally take three business days for residential properties and 15 business days for commercial/multi-family properties.
The first email also noted, “Additional resources will be available by the end of the month to improve this timeframe.”
When the News Leader sought clarification of that statement, the Feb. 19 response explained, “Additional resources mean that we recently hired another full-time floodplain plans examiner who starts next week and, in the interim, have temporarily re-assigned existing staff to assist with flood reviews.”
For unincorporated Sarasota County, not including the municipalities, a Preliminary Residential Damage Assessment as of 3 p.m. on Oct. 16, 2024 cited 4,672 affected properties, with an estimate of $333,747,771, Genevieve Judge, the county’s public information and community outreach manager, told the News Leader at that time.
Two days later, a report released by Sarasota County Emergency Management put the preliminary residential damage estimate for the unincorporated areas of the county at $375,560,905.
As of Oct. 16, 2024, the preliminary damage assessment for what county staff calls commercial residential structures — a term that generally refers to condominiums — the figure for the unincorporated areas was $154,775,425. For commercial properties not involving residential units, the estimate was $9,427,575.
During their regular meeting on Oct. 22, 2024, held in Venice, the county commissioners adopted a resolution that ratified County Administrator Jonathan Lewis’ Oct. 11 direction to county staff to suspend “certain permit fees for work to repair documented damage from Hurricane Milton and extend the suspension through May 22, 2025,” as the agenda item put it.
The suspension was effective as of Oct. 14, 2024.
The fees apply to the following, the formal resolution pointed out:
- Re-roofing or recovering homes.
- Doors (size for size replacement).
- Windows (size for size replacement).
- Interior repair needed because of water intrusion.
- Minor electrical repairs.
- Electrical service changes.
- Miscellaneous/repair.
- Tents.
- Temporary Use Permits.
- Pool cage repair.
- Air conditioning change out
- Mobile home demolition.
- Residential demolition.
- Replacement — new mobile home.
- Replacement ductwork.