BRADENTON BEACH – At the request of the Planning and Zoning Board, Building Official Bill Palmer updated the board on building department activities and outlined multiple items to be prioritized and addressed at a Nov. 5 meeting.
“There are important items that need to be addressed and there are a lot of them,” Palmer said.
Palmer said the city’s floodplain ordinance needs to be updated to the minimum required for compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
“Right now, we’re not even at the minimum compliance that we need to be with the NFIP. We had to do minimum updates that should have been done a year ago or two years ago,” he said. “The issue that we’re having now, and this comes into play when we talk about looking into our pools and impervious surfaces and stormwater mitigation and making changes, is that our governor pushed to have SB 180 and it prohibits governments from putting any more restrictions on regulations during the time period until October 2027. Anything we do, quite honestly, would be more restrictive and we’re not allowed to do that. Our hands are tied with a lot of things.”
SB 180 prohibits local governments from enacting restrictive regulations through comprehensive plans and land development regulations.
Palmer said the reason that is problematic for the city is because there is a major FEMA audit coming up in April 2026.
“That ordinance needed to be done in order for us to meet the minimum requirements,” Palmer said. “FEMA understands that the state’s throwing a wrench in this because we can’t make anything more restrictive, so we’re at a standstill with the floodplain ordinance.”
He said the city’s FEMA consultant is waiting to hear from the agency for guidance.
“Until Tallahassee makes changes or until the time runs out in 2027, then we’re allowed to do some of the things that have piled up, but we just can’t do them right now,” Mayor John Chappie said.
Another item that Palmer said needs to be addressed is that the city’s comprehensive plan needs to be updated by a June 16, 2026 deadline.
“The city’s comp plan needs to comply with certain regulations which we’re not doing right now,” Palmer said.
“A review of stormwater mitigation and practices – we have that on our list, but again we cannot make any changes,” he said.
Palmer said general amendments to the city’s Land Development Code (LDC) are also needed.
“Since I got here and have gotten up to speed, we’re finding that it really needs to be cleaned up a lot,” he said. “Definitions are missing, definitions need to be modified or tightened up. We’re finding that when somebody wants to develop something, we may have an idea what the intent of it is, but the verbiage isn’t there for us to enforce it.”
“For us to take on all these other projects that need to be done it’s going to be a lot of work, so they need to be prioritized,” Palmer said.
Since the beginning of 2025, the building department has issued 778 permits, an increase of 69% over the previous year, and has conducted approximately 1,800 inspections, according to Palmer.
“Right now, we’re dealing with approximately 10 major development projects all at different phases of submittal and that’s taking up a lot of time,” he said.
Palmer said some of those applications are incomplete at this time. He said it may be months before the Planning and Zoning Board would consider a major development project.
According to Palmer, those potential projects, which are at various phases from design to submittal, are:
- 2000 Gulf Drive N. – new hotel;
- 107 Eighth St. S. – pool and density;
- 104 First St. N. – mixed use café/duplex;
- 900 Gulf Drive N. – parking lot;
- 306 Gulf Drive S. – variance setbacks;
- 135 Bridge St. – tiki hut;
- 100 Fourth St. S. – motel;
- 206 Church Ave. – bed and breakfast;
- 201 Second St. N. – new fire station; and
- 103 Church Ave. – mixed use development.
