“How long does it take to get a permit?” is a question we hear often You could say that is the million dollar question for sure and it doesn’t have a simple answer. It all depends on a number of factors…
1. What county you are in.
2. What city you are in.
3 Is it a commercial permit or a Residential?
4 Do you need an H.O.A (home owners association) approval?
5 Depending on the amount of the job price, you may also need a Notice of commencement which needs to be notarized and recorded at the Clerk of the Court in the Records dept.
There are a lot of variables to this answer, the above are just I would say the top five.
Obtaining a building permit for any project such as a pool cage, sunroom, lanai, pool enclosure, or carport is not a straight forward task. Unfortunately there is very little uniformity between each building department we operate in. Each department (City Of North Port, Lee County, Collier County, City of Naples, etc, etc) does things differently and the requirements, procedures and governing ordinances are are always changing. For example lets consider getting a permit (today — these are subject to change in the future) for a screened in lanai under an elite panel roof — a fairly common project we do here at Gulf Coast Aluminum.
To permit this project in the following departments, you would need:
| Collier County | City Of North Port | City Of Venice | |
| Tangible Engineering |  |
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| Digital Engineering | |
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| Notice Of Commencement | After Permit | |
After Permit |
| Certified Siteplan | |
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| Drainaige Plan | |
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| Electrical Plan | |
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| Final Spot Survey | |
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These can be made even more complex as some departments or even individual plans examiners require specific engineering details that are generally left to the contractor.
Here’s how things generally work once we receive deposit on a project.
1. Project is drafted, and sent to engineering, depending on revisions
This could take up to three weeks.
2. Application for permit is filled out for your county or city. Appropriate paper work, forms, site plan, and survey, Notice of commencement, etc. are also handed in with the permit application and engineering. Usually 3 copies are required.
3. Once at the building Department your 3 application copies goes to BUILDING – ZONING REVIEW , BUILDING – PLAN REVIEW , PUBLIC WORKS-PLAN REVIEW . Departments may vary in name from county and city and may include addition reviews such as environmental. Each department must review to either approve or request additional information. In some cases the application goes to one department at a time, in others it goes to all three at the same time.
Unfortunately most of the departments are in different offices or across the building and have no centralized tracking system which is why phone calls to the building department often do not expedite the process.
4. Once approved your contractor pays for your permit, brings your permit to the project location until all inspections and finals are done by the city or county.
Now that you may understand the process better and depending on your particular job and where it is located (county or city) we can give you a ball park answer as to when we expect your permit to be ready. Permit turn around time is very seasonal. For example Lee County permits had a 1 week turn around time in July 2013. As of now, December 2013, Lee County is currently experiencing 4-6 week turn around. This is without revisions or changes made by customers during the process.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to give us a call.
