Before you buy the lot: what to verify on a Southwest Florida homesite

A lot listing gives you acreage, a price and a postal city. None of the three decide whether you can build, how high the finished floor has to sit, what is owed the day the permit is issued, or whether a burrow off the build pad stops clearing. Almost all of that is public record, and checkable before you close.

This is the list PrimeBid Construction works through on a Lee, Collier or Charlotte County parcel.

The parcel decides who issues the permit

Lee County Community Development serves unincorporated Lee County only, and directs applicants to Bonita Springs, Cape Coral, Estero, Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach or Sanibel. Collier County's residential impact fee schedule effective May 1, 2026 makes the same point: for the City of Naples and the City of Marco Island, the county Community Parks, Law Enforcement, Fire, Water and Sewer fees "are not assessed," and the applicant is told to "Check with the City for their impact fees." In Charlotte County, Punta Gorda runs its own Building Division.

The postal city on a deed is a USPS delivery designation, not a jurisdiction. Permitting follows the parcel's taxing and jurisdiction field on the property appraiser record, which is why Lee County land records carry codes such as ULC for Unincorporated Lee County. Read that field, not the listing sheet, before you assume which building department you are dealing with.

Flood: the number that sets your finished floor

The elevation requirement is statewide code, not a county preference. Florida Building Code, Residential section R322.2.1 requires lowest floors in flood hazard areas outside Coastal A to be "elevated to or above the base flood elevation plus 1 foot (305 mm), or the design flood elevation, whichever is higher." Section R322.3.2 applies the same plus-one-foot in coastal high-hazard areas and Coastal A Zones, measured to "the bottom of the lowest horizontal structural members supporting the lowest floor," excluding pilings, pile caps, columns, grade beams and bracing. In AO shallow-flooding zones it is the FIRM depth number plus one foot above the highest adjacent grade, and not less than three feet where no depth number is given. Those are the 8th Edition provisions as summarized by the Florida Division of Emergency Management in November 2023. On the Building side, section 1612.4 routes flood design to ASCE 7 Chapter 5 and ASCE 24.

A local floodplain ordinance can require more than that floor. Lee County's flood ordinance 15-09, as amended, raises the bar for Category III and IV critical facilities. Read the current floodplain ordinance of the jurisdiction that will issue your permit.

Documentation differs by county. Lee County points residents to a Find My Flood Zone GIS application and a Forerunner portal, and requires a FEMA Elevation Certificate to prove a structure in a Special Flood Hazard Area meets the base flood elevation, plus a second at final construction. The NFIP form is FEMA Form FF-206-FY-22-152. Collier County requires new machinery elevated to base flood elevation plus one foot, and has participated in the NFIP Community Rating System since October 1992, at a Class 5 rating in the county's March 2026 flood protection newsletter. Charlotte County's Building Construction Division retains Elevation Certificates for the life of the structure in unincorporated Charlotte.

• The flood zone and base flood elevation, from the FEMA Flood Map Service Center and the county flood viewer, and whether the parcel is in a coastal high-hazard area or a Coastal A Zone.
• Any Elevation Certificate already on file for the parcel or its neighbors.

Water and sewer, or a well and a septic permit

Florida's onsite sewage program moved from the Department of Health to the Department of Environmental Protection effective July 1, 2021, initiated by SB 712, chapter 2020-150, Laws of Florida. Permitting did not move with it. Only the 16 Panhandle counties from Escambia east to Jefferson, plus Marion, transitioned, and DEP states that onsite sewage staff remain at the county health departments elsewhere. In Lee, Collier and Charlotte, DEP sets the rules and the county health department takes the application, as the Florida Department of Health in Lee County does for a Lee parcel.

The rule chapter is now Chapter 62-6, Florida Administrative Code, "Standards for Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems," formerly 64E-6. Florida Statutes section 381.0065(4) makes it unlawful to "construct, repair, modify, abandon, or operate" such a system without first obtaining a permit, sets a setback of 75 feet from the mean annual flood line of a permanent nontidal surface water body, and requires seasonal high-water table and soil suitability evaluations by department personnel, licensed engineers or other qualified experts.

Lee County adds more. Its health department requires every new onsite sewage application in unincorporated Lee to be designed by a Florida licensed professional engineer, sealed and signed, with a site survey showing any surface water bodies and stormwater systems within 75 feet. Nitrogen-reducing systems are required in certain Basin Management Action Plan areas when a new septic permit is needed and sewer is not available.

The utility provider is a declared field on the permit application, not something the county works out for you. Collier County's application makes the applicant pick a water source from Collier County, Well, City of Everglades, City of Naples, Ave Maria, Immokalee or Port of the Islands, and a sewage type of Sewer, Septic or City of Everglades. If you cannot fill those two boxes from documents, you do not yet know what the site costs to service.

Impact fees come due at the permit, not at closing

Florida Statutes section 163.31801, the Florida Impact Fee Act, subsection (4)(e), requires local governments to ensure that collection of an impact fee "may not be required to occur earlier than the date of issuance of the building permit." Buying the lot does not trigger them. Pulling the permit does, so the schedule that applies is the one in force on your permit date, not the one you read while shopping.

Subsection (6) governs how fast a schedule can move. An increase of 25 percent or less phases in over two equal annual increments; above 25 and up to 50 percent, over four installments. "An impact fee increase may not exceed 50 percent of the current impact fee rate," and "An impact fee may not be increased more than once every 4 years." Going past those limits requires a demonstrated-need study, at least two publicly noticed workshops and a two-thirds vote.

One statute, three postures across three adjacent counties, which is why a regional average is useless. Collier County's residential schedule is effective May 1, 2026 and labeled Phase 2, so further phases are scheduled. Charlotte County's adopted schedule still dates to Board approval on July 14, 2022, effective October 12, 2022, and the county says it studies fees annually and adjusts them by a Construction Cost Index and a vacant-land just-value formula. Lee County adopted Fire and EMS amendments on February 3, 2026, first increase May 4, 2026, incrementing annually through May 4, 2029, and its impact fee schedule page, read on September 22, 2026, adds a 3 percent administrative fee to every impact fee assessment and requires an Impact Letter with the permit application. Read the adopted schedule for your parcel's jurisdiction, dated to the day you expect to pull the permit.

Zoning and deed restrictions are two separate systems

Dimensional limits, meaning what you can build and where it sits on the lot, come from the land development code: Lee County Land Development Code Chapter 34, section 34-695, the property development regulations table; Collier County Land Development Code section 4.02.01, Dimensional Standards for Principal Uses in Base Zoning Districts; Charlotte County Code Part III, Chapter 3-5. Those are the county codes. If the parcel sits inside a municipality, read that city's land development code instead, for the same reason it issues your permit. Look up the zoning district on the parcel record and read that district's row. Values differ by district and by jurisdiction.

Deed restrictions and recorded HOA covenants are a separate system, and a building department does not enforce them. Florida's homeowners' association statute, section 720.305, puts enforcement of the governing documents with the association and its members through civil action. A county can approve a plan that a covenant prohibits, and county approval is not a waiver. Order the recorded restrictions with the title work and read them against the plan: minimum conditioned square footage, garage orientation, exterior materials, architectural review.

Wind, and what the 2023 code actually changed here

The Florida Building Code 8th Edition (2023) took effect December 31, 2023 and is the code in force as of September 2026. It references ASCE 7-22. Buyer-facing writing often says that edition raised wind speeds in Southwest Florida. The state's own ASCE 7-22 fact sheet says otherwise.

Wind speeds for the peninsula are unchanged and effectively have not changed since the 2010 FBC.

Only the western panhandle increased, and there only for Risk Categories I, II and III. Lee, Collier and Charlotte are on the peninsula. What did change is a note added to Figure 1609.3(1) permitting site-specific wind speeds from the ASCE Wind Design Geodatabase, the ASCE Hazard Tool, which takes an address or a latitude and longitude. That value belongs to the parcel, and your engineer designs to it.

The ones that surprise people

A 30-year erosion projection you cannot see on a plat

Florida Statutes section 161.053 establishes the Coastal Construction Control Line, which defines the part of the beach-dune system "subject to severe fluctuations based on a 100-year storm surge." FDEP permits construction seaward of it, and a permit is barred for a structure projected to be seaward of the seasonal high-water line within 30 years based on the department's erosion projections. A single-family dwelling can qualify for an exception under section 161.053(5), but it is conditional rather than automatic: the siting conditions, including a location landward of the frontal dune structure, have to be met together. The disqualifier is a projection, not a feature on your survey: a parcel well landward of the water today can still fail the 30-year test.

A burrow does not have to be on your build pad

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission requires a relocation permit under Rule 68A-27.003, Florida Administrative Code, before a potentially occupied gopher tortoise burrow is disturbed, and disturbance includes work within 25 feet of a burrow. That radius is the part people miss: a burrow outside the house footprint can still stop a driveway, a swale or a staging area. Survey first. Clearing before the survey is complete can push the site into a Disturbed Site Permit under the FWC gopher tortoise permitting guidelines.

Charlotte County and the scrub-jay

Charlotte County holds an Incidental Take Permit issued in December 2014 with a 30-year term, alongside a countywide Habitat Conservation Plan for the Florida scrub-jay. An owner whose parcel is in the plan area either pays the HCP Development Fee, tiered by the parcel's originally platted acreage, or requests individual review from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The local regulation is Charlotte County Code Part III, Chapter 3-5, Article XI. On a platted Charlotte County lot, establish which side of the plan area boundary it sits on.

Stormwater and wetlands

South Florida Water Management District jurisdiction covers all or part of 16 counties, including Charlotte, Collier and Lee. District boundaries follow watersheds rather than county lines, so confirm which district reviews your parcel rather than assuming it from the county. An Environmental Resource Permit covers dredging and filling in wetlands or surface waters, flood protection facilities, stormwater containment and treatment, site grading and other activities affecting state waters. Wetland impacts must be offset by preserving, restoring, enhancing or creating wetlands, on site or through a mitigation bank, with monitoring. A wetland line is not automatically a dead deal, but it is a separate permitting track with its own sequence and cost drivers, and it belongs in the diligence period, not in design.

What to pull before you sign

None of this needs a consultant to start. The property appraiser record, the county flood viewer and the FEMA Flood Map Service Center, the land development code, the county health department, the adopted impact fee schedule and the title work are all public. Read the source for your own parcel, published by its own jurisdiction, dated to when it applies.

PrimeBid Construction LLC, Florida CGC1533249, builds in Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties, with design, permitting and construction all within one company. We work this list on a parcel before a build contract is written, not after.