On the up side, there’s a building boom going on in Pasco County.
On the downside, there’s a logjam in processing building permits.
County Administrator Dan Biles addressed the issue during the Pasco County Commission meeting on Jan. 12.
During the last quarter 2020, Pasco County issued 1,794 single-family residential permits — outpacing Hillsborough county, which issued 1,632 single-family new permits during the same period, Biles said.
Keeping up with the increased volume has posed a challenge, the county administrator acknowledged.
Biles added: “We are working several things to try to address level of service issues.”
One strategy involves off-loading some of the work to private providers.
To encourage that, the county is waiving its normal $600 administrative fee charged to private plan reviewers and inspectors. That waiver will be in effect through July 9.
“We are encouraging single-family homebuilders to use private providers during this time of high-volume building permit activity in Pasco County,” Esther Oluyemi, a Pasco County building official, said in a news release. “Over the past several months, our team has been reviewing as many as 100 more applications per month than usual, and private providers can help us maintain the level of service our customers expect.”
Here’s a look at the demand that Pasco County has been experiencing.
- Pasco County is now reviewing 721 new single-family residential permit applications.
- The county’s building and construction services department processed 5,741 new single-family residential permits in 2020, an increase of 32% from 2019.
- The number of monthly single-family residential permit applications in Pasco has been higher in each of the past six months than in any month during the past eight years.
Florida law allows for plan review and inspection code compliance services through a process that is referred to as the Private Provider program governed by Florida Statute Sec. 553.791. The program offers an alternative to traditional review and inspection services provided by local enforcement agencies.
Builders with additional questions, can contact Pasco County Central Permitting at 727-847-8126.
Published January 20, 2021
