LEE COUNTY, Fla. — It has been a little over 10 months since Hurricane Ian, and as Lee County rebuilds, we are still seeing a backlog in the permitting office. While there has been some improvement after the county hired 11 new positions this past February, the County Commission will be voting on approving 23 additional positions on Tuesday to deal with the current and expected future demand.
Since October 1, 2022, Lee County tells Fox 4 that their staff has accepted over 72,000 permit applications, with 45,000 plus of those related to Hurricane Ian. That is 62%. And now with the continued rebuild and growth of Lee County, the wait time for a permit is still around 80 days. But, Phillip Ford, the executive director of the Lee Building Industry Association, sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
“We had a hot housing market, it was hot at the time, and then on top of that, the damage from Hurricane Ian, and it just added up to the perfect storm,” said Ford.
And while Ford hasn’t seen a huge improvement in permit wait times yet, he says that things should start to turn around soon as the County is slowly catching up from the existing backlog. And with a potentially larger staff, Ford believes it will set Lee County well for the future.
“We do have a great staff at the County, and I think that is going to allow us to get through this storm,” said Ford. “Get past the Ian situation and hopefully down the road continue to have robust growth and we will be able to get our permits quicker.”
And that growth that we have seen in Southwest Florida is something Ford expects to continue, despite slowdowns in other parts of the country.
“Every market has its ups and downs at some point the market will slow down, but I don’t think we will see any drastic reductions as we have seen in the past,” said Ford.
But with the continued growth and hurricane rebuild, Ford says it’s important to remain patient, despite the current slowdowns.
“There are delays and just the sheer volume. And you would think, some people might think oh we are 9,10 months past the hurricane, things should be back to normal. Well, the amount of destruction that we encountered during Ian…I think people seem to have short memories about the hurricane and what kind of destruction it left and how long it is going to take to get through everything,”
Ford again says the current wait time for a permit is around 80 days, while before the story it was closer to 30 days. He believes if the Lee County Commission approves these new positions, we could get back closer to that 30-day number by this time next year.
“I think we are going to see some stabilization as we go through the next few months,” said Ford. “Are we going to be back getting permits within 30 days by August, September, October? I don’t think so. But I think we will be seeing some, but we will start trending in that direction.”
