hello my name is shelly freeland addie and the city commissioner for district three and welcome to another edition of commissioners corner today where you're going to talk about something that is near and dear to the hearts of all of our residents and that's planning and development i know that when you think of planning and development that you think of condos in the downtown but development goes on in the entire city of sarasota and we have a planning and development department that will assist individuals that wish to build whether you are a commercial developer or they you are a residential developer or whether you're just a homeowner so today we're going to speak with individuals in the planning department and talk about what the process is and in our city so today we have two individuals from the planning department and i will let you guys introduce yoursel i'm gretchen schneider and i'm general manager my name is joyce williams all mail job permits and licenses when people think about development here in the city i don't know whether folks that don't do it every day really understand that there is an entire department within our city that he is here ready and willing to assist individuals who go through this permeating process so one of the things that i get questions about all the time is when do you need a permit and when do you not need a permit because you talk to our viewers about that certainly we do have a department our department is called development services and it's made up of individuals that do the actual promoting that are building plan reviewers zoning reviewers as well as planners who review a lot of our larger projects and with them when you need an actual building permit is when you're all turning structures when you're obviously building a new building but also when you're doing renovations and primarily improvements that exceed one thousand dollars in value or as i mentioned are making structure alterations you do need permits for fences which is unusual here or some sort of county does not require a fence permit but the city of sarasota does  questions and what are some of the other things that you do this a manager for permits and licensing well we also have company takes at the front we are taking permit as it could be renovations for homes of new building new homes they have to make sure they give those the required number of sets residential most permits are two sets and if it's a new home is going to be three sets and the commercial is jewelry for so it's a play and we take it and we process it we send it to two different departments as only apartment and we also send it to our players department that with their being reviewed at the same time and to cut down the time this needed in order to get the permit to the customer gretchen talked to me a little bit more about this permeating process you mentioned that within the city limits you do have to have a permit to erect a fence or you know do something like that you know thinking about you know the difference between a demolition versus a renovation versus a  complete development are those different types of permits or how does that work all of the comments are considered building permits utilize the same application form but what's required to be submitted as part of the application depends on the complexity of the process so if you're just simply submitting for a fence problem that will allow for even something that's hand drawn that shows the location of the fans where the gate is how the good side if you will is going to be facing now but once you start move being up into actually doing say a new building then you need more complex sets of plans you need a contractor it gets a little bit more complicated as the project gets complicated i hear this in the community a lot in choice maybe you can help me with this sometimes people don't know is this something that i should hire somebody to do or can i do this myself and i know that there's probably some things that maybe they come as mistakes or warnings that you give to customers that come in about you probably should get a license person to do this tell us about that one of the homeowner does have that option if they live in their home and is not real to property they can pull a permit as the homeowner a lot of times they will hire a slopes to come in on the need for their permit to a system with the but if they live an element is not rental property they are allowed to pull the permit ok let's talk about timing for something that let's just say someone wants to remodel their kitchen and they need to pull a permit to do that improvement on the hall for a standard remodel what's the timeframe between one a person actually request a permit and when they get the ability to start the renovation ok are there waiting lists for individuals that are waiting through that process or how does that work well no we used to have probably right now we have about thirty permits they need processing and we just do them as they come down  there ever a situation where a request for a permit is denied certainly and it can be denied for several reasons are primarily lack of information or what they're showing doesn't comply with one of our code standards there are times where somebody wants to build something but it's in a soft back or the proposing or use that's not allowed and that's what they would like to do so we have to deny the permit other times we just give the comments of what can be changed on the plane and so that because at the end of the day we want to be able to issue the permit so the they can do what they need they may just need guidance that the if they change their setback or some other element of the project they'll be able to be successful in getting the permit issued another for larger developments i've heard this particularly on the commission side that there is a pre planning type discussion that happens between the applicant and maybe staff or those types of things available in the per meeting process yes we meet with people on a regular basis and i believe the zoning staff the building plans reviewers meet with architects and designers prior to this mission of building permits because we want to make sure they have all the information they need so they can navigate through that process quickly logistically the planning department is not in city in the city chambers and people call it ministry to offices all the time to try to find where you guys are tell the community where you're located hall but in the an exploding on the second floor and where the hours we are open from eight o'clock until five o'clock we will do permitting activities such as taking in and issuing permits up until four o'clock and if they're doing enough to call plumbing ac is seventy five dollars for each especially that is required which is determined by the plains as the review of the plans and i did go to the website and pull up the work sheet that you were talking about and it's the building and zoning division fee demolitions certificates of occupancy gretchen there's a difference between getting a permit to start the work and getting the certificate of occupancy for a new development to actually open the doors talk to us about that so the certificate of occupancy is issue at the end of the renovation process and that's where it's determined that the permit has been completed all aspects of the project are done all life safety issues have been addressed and they receive a certificate of occupancy that those documents if they have questions then they'll reach out to the the applicant and ask for follow up information another question that i have it is we talked about there are examples for when a permit could be denied for an individual that's part of their permit is denied what's the next step that they can take some of it depends on why it was denied again if it was safe human documents were are they exceeded the fifty percent  allowance for renovations to flood zone properties they may need to modify or reduce the scope of work in order to get it down below that percentage or there may be an appeal if it was  issue they didn't agree with our interpretation they could appeal the denial of the building permit to the board of adjustment so there are several avenues of relief we've even had times where  applicants have the zoning codes changed in order to get the use that they were hoping for included in the use table so that change of course would come to the commission for final approval another question is and you mentioned fema and it's a segue into one of the concerns that i was thinking about in preparing for the show we have been fortunate that we have not had a hurricane that affected us this year like arma did last year when there are renovations that need to occur in the wake of an emergency are the rules relaxed in terms of timing what's that process like if you know i am i've got property damage i need to get my roof fixed immediately it's in the wake of a hurricane how do you all navigate that emergency after an emergency such as that and there is roof damage the expectation is that the homeowner would get their roof fixed immediately and then come in for what's called an after the fact permit that and then that way we can document and someone can go out and inspect later that it was done but we want to make sure that their property damage is taken care of right away so the endos would be given top priority yes and what about feed in the wake of emergencies we have in the past waived fees for certain applications that are damage related to due to a storm and miss williams from your perspective being on the front lines of individuals that come in the doors what information or what advice would you give to a homeowner that is contemplating can i do this myself should i get a subcontractor walk them through what they should be thinking before they come to you where they will need to come in with the application  if they don't have it they can come in we have a checklist that we give to homeowners they can tell them what's required depending on the school work that they're going to be done if it gets to detail all if i leave the engineer and if i need to argue to this will we will call one of the as to see if they can speak to the homeowner to see they can give him some gatos on what they should do next if he had to think about one oversight or emergency or something mistake that happens on a regular advised the type of contract that they may need in order to do to school work that they're going to be doing because a lot of times they would like to try and her hand to me and was not licensed and they can get into a lot of different areas that we don't want him to get into such as well harrison when there's not like them because they don't have insurance you know the homeowners going to be liable for anything that happens to this individual this on their property and this is why they need to i will suggest that they can hire a licensed contract does what they should i should speak to one of our planes exams and they can advise them and i've had to do this myself trying to find out more than not an individual has a license question of what website can our residents go to to find out if the person that they are contemplating hiring for the job is actually a license to do the thing that you want them to do the department of professional of regulations d p b r is a state licensing organization and they actually have a website that you can put in the name of the business or of the individual and be able to determine whether or not they're licens we do have some information in our office that folks can look through to their file licensing but that's the quickest and best way to make sure that it's they have a valid license and we'll make sure that that's a part of the program for individuals as to what the website addresses where they can go or we're going to have another segment and have some other individuals from the planning department join us but thank you bot for your expertise and your service to our city and we'll be right back welcome back we're continuing our discussion of the fishes in the city of sarasota is planning department talking about planning and permeating within the city limits not only for commercial developers but for residential developers and homeowners and with me now for our second segment florida building code and providing supervision over the plans examiners and the building department division and so how does that relate with regard to your interaction with folks that might be wanting to get a permit me ok and that is basically a venue for them to have a holistic group of certain staff gather and comment on their particular projects and on the small residential side and maybe reap renovations of commercial spaces you know they basically can call and set up appointments and we can discuss those smaller projects outside of that type of process and so when the visuals take advantage of this absolutely i think that's probably one of the things that helps everyone's job smoother is to have that interaction you know prior so many permits so it streamlines the process so they know what the requirements are does it happen on site or is that by phone or how do that occur it could happen both ways i've had it ha both ways mostly with some of the if there's any peak contractors and engineers that live outside the area they'll do it either by phone conference or by e mail you know typically the most productive way is in the office face to face  the just because the magnitude smaller we still treat them with the you know the same things that we offer to even the larger clients with it's are so that they simply call us will set them up with either if it's a residential project so i'm up with  residential or plains example or a commercial planes examiner and walk them through the process of application ok i mean a lot of times as a commissioner i'll get questions from residents in our community wondering how to find applications rules and the like on our website particularly as it relates to planning can you walk the neighbor at the rear they are looking at our website for the first time and are trying to get to the planning department where they go sure so very proud of our new website there's four and there's a couple ways you can go from there you can use a search bar and you can type in building and permitting ok and that will take you where you show me so one to the search point and put in building and the fourth first second third fourth fifth result is where we want to go and that title is building and permitting building permits and then what happens from there the just go back very quickly if you if you don't do the search bar then you can just come down here and one of our rings click that's how most people are going to go to if you scroll down then it's permits and licenses ok gotcha now you can also get to it by our hamburger many and you can expand the hamburger menu go to services and you can see that it's broken down into some very specific sections the first items that you're going to see that come up are the current building code the it is in effect ok so that gives you no design professionals and homeowners  an idea of you know what codes they need to be hearing to in their application process we also have you know a link to the florida building commission website which really is an asset for them because that allows them to go directly to the florida building commission and have a read only access to the florida building code for the building codes right now cost about five hundred dollars so it was them to go and look at  status look up those that particular section is what the the clients can go into and look for current active permitting or prior permitting for say they're curious about a project that's going on in our downtown area they they've got a couple of different ways they can look that up one is by either the permit number or by the site address so if i'm a neighbor and i want to know what's happening at that house at the end of the story and i know their address i can put the address in there and what does it tell me well that's going to tell you that that one if they have applied for a permit if they have applied a preferred permit it's also going to tell you a brief description of the  activity you know as far as the inspection statuses it's going to give you the contractor record for that permit it's going to give you the general description of the renovation that's taking place timeline it will tell you the timeline of when it was issued it will tell you the inspections as far as you know where they're out in that process as well what about expected completion date no and you'll never find that through any of the softwares because the the building department doesn't drive the completion dates although we do monitor because under the florida building code the permits are extended with a passing inspection for one hundred eighty days so it would tell you certainly whether or not it was either in the active or or expired status and the reason i asked that question is sometimes when there is construction there may be a street closing and the tour or something else that impacts and sell they'll call the commission to say hey once this project going to be finished once a streak going to be opened and for some of the larger their affairs we had that information prefer sound that maybe even in the neighborhoods we're not going to know that off the top so where can they do they call section of the city's website because that's done by the engineering department the ones with booking approval and if they want to find out where to get to the fees portion and the planning web site can you  it's a little further down you go through applying for a building permit the building permits and forms the commercial building and then as soon as you get past the demolition portion of that website you'll see the fees the very top bullet item is fee schedule that's our entire fee schedule for the building division and you know it also has in that within that section our link to our current impact fees the link to the current water and sewer impact fees linked to our current multi modal impact fees they're all there available for clients to estimate the cost of the project we also have a part of our website that has been a new addition and hermia you maybe have to speak to that and that is the g i s part of the side i know that some of this information is available on the g i s side are you familiar with where they should be looking at the g i want to reporter concerned what do they do they would simply call the the building to vision we have a fast track of system that monitors and receives those types of complaints and where do they get to contact numbers on the website i believe what you'll find on the web site here believe the actual contact information is on the top of the top left hand side of the building permit web page and if you simply can't click on that contact it's going to give you those contacts it's going to staff directory page and and is that phone number as an e mail service phone numbers or what's there for them and as a resident of that building this and you do inspections we we're responsible for inspections of all the mechanical trickle plumbing life safety systems issuing of these certificates fuck up and see  disasters that we've had with hurricane army and more recently what impacts from red tide are those things that could impact the status of development in the community well certainly it could  not sure that the red tide had a large impact on on our current construction projects but certainly did have some impacts in the building to the asian is is you know constantly monitoring for those types of things and when we get the ration of disaster from the governor's office they often relax certain requirements such as roofing they allow general building contractors to pull those types of permits that they would otherwise not be able to unless there was a declared state of emergency and of course you know we would probably have staff that would would come in those types of emergency in an issue emergency permitting and things of that nature and that's important because if there is an emergency the last thing you want to you know administratively issues to prevent you from making your home safe again that there are there are plans in place to streamline that process both for being here today and we certainly have a better roadmap as to how to find information and to ask those questions first as opposed to assuming that we have the right answers it could impact the timing of the project it could i'm sure say with expenses if a homeowner is out of compliance with the current code and i think at this creates a better quality of life for our neighbors they can go to the website see what's going on and give that information to all of us in a way that makes sense and is readily accessible so we appreciate what you're doing and the billing department and for making this information accessible to our residents through this new website it's going to go a long way if i may want to go we're also fully comply with mobile devices so when you go to the website it will render automatically and you can still search or you can go to the ring on any mobile device regardless of the screen size that's also good and i think it makes sense for maybe a developer that is on site project and doesn't have their laptop handy you know that's that's a that's a good thing and oh well thanks for that bit of information and thank you so much for joining us here today we hope you got some tidbits and check our website there are going to be phone numbers at the end of the program that direct your work and the city of sarasota is ready willing and able to answer your questions and nature of building