Cage permitting delays to ease, but soaring costs stay

Marco Island homeowner frustrations over delays in pool cage replacement — a lingering legacy of Hurricane Wilma — are set to be eased slightly by the hiring of a plans examiner in the city's permitting department.

But at the same time, City Chief Building Official Bob Mahar has warned that for permits to be issued, the paperwork must be 100 percent in order.

Photo by QUENTIN ROUX, Marco Eagle

Pool cage replacement costs are up 30 percent due to new codes, but permitting delays are set to ease on Marco Island.

If not, he said, more delays can be expected.

At the moment, Mahar said, the permitting department is dealing with about a week's delay in permits for pool cages, a direct result of post-Wilma demand.

Normally in a given month, he said, the department will issue about 370 pool cage permits, but that 636 had been applied for in January alone.

Mahar said the other problem was that around the time Wilma hit, new codes for cages had just been brought into effect.

"We didn't have the engineering in hand that we historically had, so we got delayed," he said. "We have to follow the protocol set down by the sate government to meet the 2004 Florida building code that became effective on Oct. 1, 2005."

After Wilma, Mahar himself doubled as a plans examiner, but said the recent hire should streamline the permitting process. Three permitting clerks have been handling the load until now.

The other issue facing homeowners is cost, and it's inescapable, local contractor Bud Dorigan said.

Dorigan, who owns Z-Man Screen & Aluminum, said the new codes effectively added about 30 percent to the cost of screen and cage replacement.

"Everybody had to increase their prices," he said. "One example is that when beams had been seven feet apart, they might now have to be six feet and sometimes even five feet apart, but span the same distance. That adds to the cost of materials."

Dorigan said his company is booked out for screen replacements and repairs until spring 2007.

Both Dorigan and Mahar warned homeowners about fly-by-nights, who have indeed perpetrated post-Wilma scams by taking deposits and disappearing.

"We acted as a magnet to bring everybody who could even claim to be a screener into Southwest Florida," Dorigan said.

Mahar said the simplest way to check out bona fide contractors is to call the city and make sure they're registered.

"They may be licensed in another area, but they must register with Collier County and Marco Island," Mahar said.

Fly-by-nights are reported to the county, which in turn refers cases to their areas of origin, he said.

Ultimately, the culprits are scrutinized by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, described by Mahar as having a "little more teeth" to punish offenders.

Dorigan said he pulls permits through Marco as well as Naples and the county, and that the latter two departments were nowhere near as swamped as Marco's in the months following the hurricane.

In terms of cages, he said, Marco was by far the hardest hit.

"I'd say about 75 percent of the work is here," he said.