BRADENTON BEACH – City commissioners unanimously approved an extension of the waiver of permit fees for storm-damage related repairs until July 17.
City Building Official Bill Palmer gave an update on permits, removal of substantially damaged properties and an ongoing FEMA review at the April 17 city commission meeting.
“You brought up the timeframe was running out for permits due to the storms, we wanted to know whether we were going to continue extending that,” Mayor John Chappie said. “Are most of the applications coming in today for storm damage?”
“They look to me like they’re legitimate storm damage and people sign affidavits saying they are,” Palmer said. “It has slowed down quite a bit.”
“I think we need to extend it,” Commissioner Deborah Scaccianoce. “I’m not the only person having insurance issues and I know for everyone here in the city it would help to get it extended.”
Palmer said code enforcement will also be concentrating on houses that were substantially damaged in the hurricanes.
“We need to eventually clean them up,” Palmer said. “I understand it takes time, but we need to follow up with the owners and see where they’re at.”
Palmer also updated commissioners about an ongoing city FEMA post-hurricane review.
“They’ve been coming here and holding meetings with us. We had two since I’ve been here.”
Palmer started as city Building Official on March 5.
He said the last meeting with three FEMA representatives was attended by Chappie, City Attorney Ricinda Perry, Floodplain Administrator Sandy Tudor and himself.
“It was a productive meeting. They asked us questions and I think they were satisfied with the answers we gave them,” Palmer said. “One of the gentlemen made a comment to us-I think you’re moving in the right direction. I think we’ll have more meetings. We’re doing everything right and everything we can to the best of our ability.”
Palmer said he is working on Standard Operating Procedures for damage assessment.
“I think that will move us ahead with them,” he said.
Scaccianoce asked Palmer about reviews of prior permits.
“Bill, I know we had some issues before you got here with work that was done, and I’ll just use the AC’s on the ground as an example, that we had to go back to work on permits that were approved that maybe shouldn’t have been, and the work was done. Are we still working on those kinds of things?”
“Yes Sandy’s been working on reviewing all the permits that possibly were issued incorrectly,” Palmer said.
