This place is pretty terrible when dealing with permitting. The plan reviewers are not consistent with comments and 4/6 of the permit techs are the most unfriendly individuals.
The Sarasota County Building Dept has made many customer service enhancements over the last several years that have totally changed the permitting experience for our company. Online permitting, Phone Apps, Wait times, Web Site upgrades, Attitudes of the inspectors, Helpfulness of the office staff, Access to the staff and Permit turn-around time... just to name a few. I am honestly shocked there aren't more positive reviews. We have pulled permits in several other municipalities, and the County's bldg dept. is by far the best. Keep up the good work!!!
I know they're just doing the best they can with the permitting process, to control the quality of work people perform, but pulling a permit for a small repair and making it go through the plans examiner when there are no plans is just unnecessary. There is a line between the law that is meant to protect citizens, the law that is now oppressing citizens... That has been crossed
People there are very hard to work with, often unreasonable. The website is very hard to use. For instance it would be much easier to have a selection at the top of the menu for permitting inspections or for permitting and to have a root tree that directs you to the right spot easily, to the right form and give you instructions on how to fill out the form. This website is very difficult to use. As for the people accepting permits they don't care whether you have an easy job or a hard job they treat you all the same. An easy job should have a streamlined way to get your project approved my simple project which was about $1,000 took over 10 days to approve, and required three inspections. I have worked with other counties and other cities on permits before and this county is extremely difficult and slow.