Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Builders and homeowners with renovation plans rush to get permits before tougher rules take effect.
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 28, 2002
Pasco County homebuilder Doug Tripp prepared for Friday as if a hurricane was approaching. But it wasn't bottled water or flashlight batteries he was hoarding.
It was building permits.
Tripp and homebuilders all over the Suncoast are rushing to obtain building permits before Florida's new, tougher statewide building code goes into effect Friday. If they get permits before then, the builders can operate under the old rules.
That will allow builders some time to figure out the new rules, and probably save some money, too. For example, the impact-resistant windows they may have to use could triple the cost to some $350 per window. Other requirements could add thousands more to the cost of new homes or even the refurbishing of existing ones.
"I went out ahead and got, like, 30 more building permits," said Tripp, president of Tripp Trademark Homes of Wesley Chapel, who builds at the Meadow Pointe and Oakstead subdivisions.
As for sorting out the complicated new codes, "We need the CliffsNotes on this," Tripp quipped, echoing a concern of many builders on the eve of enforcement that they're still not clear on everything the new code requires or how it will be interpreted by inspectors and building officials.
Tuesday morning someone from U.S. Home showed up at the permit office in New Port Richey with a box of 150 applications "and said there'd be more coming later in the day," reported Pasco development director Cindy Jolly. The three Pasco permitting offices received 198 applications that day. Typically they get 20 or 25.
The story was the same at the permit office in St. Petersburg. This month, the city expects to get as many as 3,000 permits -- about 500 more than normal. The city's plan review office expects to handle 140 applications, about 100 more than last month.
In Tampa, permit-seekers were waiting two or three hours to get up to the counter, Theresa Meyer, manager of residential development, said Wednesday. "It's tremendous. We're stacking them up around on the floor." She estimated her office will have a seven-week backlog of applications.
Along with many other provisions, the code is designed to make homes more hurricane-worthy and more energy-efficient.
In high-wind zones near the coast, it requires that windows be made of impact-resistant glass or that they be protected with shutters or panels. Stronger roof shingles are required. Upgraded insulation and air-conditioning units are required. There are also provisions about pool safety and termite treatment.
The new statewide building code was created after Hurricane Andrew ripped South Florida apart in August 1992. The Florida Building Commission developed one code to replace a patchwork of confusing regulations that had been developed, amended and enforced differently in more than 400 jurisdictions.
Originally scheduled to go into effect last July, then delayed until Jan. 1, the code was postponed yet again until March 1 by the Legislature while builders associations educated their members and while manufacturers of approved materials scrambled to assure adequate supplies of such items as impact-resistant windows and tougher shingles.
Builders have been crowding into question-and-answer sessions conducted by city and county building officials to walk them through the new code.
"We've had a dozen workshops for builders and designers," said Dave Ford, the building official in Hillsborough County. "I was surprised they were not familiar" with provisions of the code. "We've had a lot of repeat attendees."
All week, there were more questions than answers.
"The uniform part will be a positive, in that the small towns will be enforcing the same codes that Clearwater and St. Petersburg and the county live by also," said Peter Krauser, president of Mark Maconi Homes, which builds around the Tampa Bay area. Krauser is also president of the Pinellas Contractors & Builders Association. "But there's fear of the unknown: We're not sure what the engineers are going to require, we're not sure how to comply. It's taken such a long time for all the building departments to get close to the same page."
Rob Nagin, the Pinellas building official, acknowledged that the way the new code's provisions are written, "quite a few, including myself, are sometimes struggling to understand how and why it got into the code and what its intent was. . . . It creates some head-scratching." The Florida Building Officials Association is working to clarify portions of the code. Other sections are being revised; and some cities, such as St. Petersburg, have written their own variations.
"Any time you have a new code, especially changes of this magnitude, you're going to have a period of trying to figure out what you have on your hands," Nagin said. "A lot of questions and raised eyebrows are going to occur on March 1. I can assure you, by March 2, no one is going to have all the answers."
At an information session Tuesday in St. Petersburg, many builders were apprehensive about a section of the code that affects refurbishing current homes.
The provision says that if an addition increases a home's square footage by 25 percent or more, the entire home must be brought up to current code. Many builders thought that meant upgrading electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems and windows for an older home, at prohibitive cost. There was a sigh of relief in the room when Milton Massanet, the city building official, said the requirement simply means adding smoke detectors, ground-fault circuit interrupters for electrical safety, and a window large enough to escape from the house in case of fire.
A big concern, for builders and homeowners alike, is the cost of new code requirements. Carole Reams, a spokeswoman for glass manufacturer PGT Industries in Nokomis, said an impact-resistant window -- one that will shatter when struck but will not break -- "will cost three to three-and-a-half times the cost of just a window. So a window that costs $100 is now $350."
There is concern about whether there will be enough impact-resistant glass available to meet demand, since its production process takes longer than that of regular glass. "It'll take about eight weeks for delivery, and we usually say four to six on a regular project," said Jerry Betz of Window Classics in Tampa.
Builders have the option of offering shutters or panels to cover window openings rather than impact-resistant glass, but those shutters are not cheap either. Nonetheless, "we certainly hope that means we're going to see a lot more business from contractors," said Moshe Gershuny, owner of Roll-a-Way Storm & Security Shutters in St. Petersburg, manufacturer of motorized shutters. "We've been getting a lot of calls from contractors; they're kind of scrambling. We've been getting inquiries from architects about ways to build shutters in."
Builders have a third option: They can engineer homes to handle changes in pressure caused when high winds enter a home and exert force on the roof. That means more and better hurricane straps and clips. That re-engineering was the option selected by Ryland Homes, said division president William Wright. Their models have changed from large gables to hip roofs, and they have replaced vaulted ceilings with high, flat ceilings, he said.
At Morrison Homes, which builds throughout the Suncoast, spokeswoman Tammy Lynch Palka estimated that the cost of improved strapping, better windows and improved energy-efficiency equipment will add $2,500 to $3,000 to the price of a typical home.
Meantime, the long lines at the permit desks continued.
"I'm trying to get some permits myself to put some windows in," said Mike Nadeau, building official in Indian Shores who is also president of the Beach Building Officials Association of Florida, which covers the barrier islands in Sarasota, Manatee and Pinellas counties. City employees asked that the fixed-glass windows at Indian Shores City Hall be replaced with operable windows so they could enjoy the sea breezes. Nadeau met Monday with a window salesman and was off to get his own last-minute permit. "I'm as guilty as everyone else."