Imagine you play a round of golf at a private course instead of a city-owned golf facility.
But when you’re done, the city still sends you a greens-fee bill … and then makes you swing by their municipal course clubhouse to fill out some paperwork before you can go home.
That’s what Gulf County is doing to local businesses who choose to use private providers for inspection services, rather than the County.
Gulf County is charging businesses $500 to do nothing. It’s a violation of state law and common sense.
And Gulf County doesn’t appear to care.
A few weeks ago, Red Tape Florida flagged Gulf County’s $500 add-on that appears when applicants use a private provider for plan review. Now, RTF has obtained internal Gulf County emails that reveal what the County is telling businesses: If you use a private provider instead of our bureaucrats, you will either pay an extra $500 or go through a slower permitting process … or both.
The County gives builders two lanes:
Option 1: Use County staff for plan review and inspections, and you skip the toll and the detour.
Option 2: Use a private provider for plan review — the state’s fast lane — and the County slaps a $500 charge on your permit and forces an extra stop at the Planning Department before the Building Department will touch your file or give you a permit.
Gulf County is so comfortable with this clear flouting of state law that they wrote it into county code: “Private provider service being used for the propose (sic) of plan review will be assessed a Gulf County Planning Department review fee of $500.00.” Same plans, same counter, same door — extra fee and detour only if you use the private provider fast lane. That’s unequal treatment by design.
What the law requires vs. what Gulf County is doing
In 2002, lawmakers effectively “privatized” parts of permitting by authorizing licensed private providers to handle plan review and building inspections in lieu of local staff — so projects could move faster and departments couldn’t bottleneck the process.
The elements of Florida Statute 553.791, in plain English:
- If a private provider does plan review, the county must reduce the permit fee to reflect the work it didn’t do. If a private provider does inspections, the county may not charge inspection fees—only a reasonable administrative fee tied to actual clerical/supervisory time.
- Local governments can’t add stricter procedures that discourage private provider use.
What Gulf County is doing instead.
- If you use a private provider for plan review, you must stop at Planning, pay $500, then carry the file to Building.
- If you use a private provider for inspections only, you go to Building with no $500
- If you use the county for everything, you go to Building, no $500, no extra stop.
That’s two tracks at the same counter. Extra money and extra steps only when you choose the state’s fast lane. If $500 truly covers Planning’s work, it should apply no matter who reviews the plans and it should be based on time and cost, not a checkbox.
This email, obtained by Red Tape Florida, lays it out for all to see:
Read it again.
The permit itself is just $154.00. But because a private inspector is used, an amount more than triple the cost of the fee is assessed.
Gulf County’s flouting of state law is clearly premeditated – how else would you explain how the naming of this $500 fee has, how shall we say … evolved?
As you can see from this permitting plan review document below (business names redacted for fear of retribution) the words “Private Provider” are recorded on the document 3 separate times (circled in red by Red Tape Florida). One of those times it is handwritten at the top of the form: “$500 private provider fee to Planning Department.”
The $1,816 (for a larger building project) is brazenly referred to as “the actual permit itself.”
Later, when Gulf County realized this was the equivalent of confession, it changed the $500 fee to a LDR or “local development review” fee (a term only a true bureaucrat could create).
Gulf County can call it whatever it wants, but it’s a $500 fee to NOT use government inspectors.
Why this matters to homeowners and small contractors
Every extra step slows a roof, a pool, an addition. After storms, days turn into weeks. Costs go up. Families wait. The Legislature created private providers to speed things along and mandated a fee reduction when private providers are used. Gulf County’s rule does the opposite and tells people they will be punished for using the tool the state gave them.
How does it work in other localities?
Nothing like Gulf.
In nearby Panama City Beach, RTF has obtained a permit for a new pool which costs a total of $208.63. There is no punitive fee for using private providers.
In Bay County, a $250 “planning compliance review fee” is added to ALL permits (another RTF story for another time) and the pool permit itself is $106 for a total of $356, still contrary to the state mandate, but lower than nearby – and much smaller – Gulf County.
But in Gulf County it’s $500 for just the “you didn’t use us” surcharge, then another $154 for the permit itself, for a grant total of $654. Gulf County then has the gall to include a $60 “private provider discount” to the order, making the grand total a $595, which is about triple Panama City Beach and more than 60 percent higher than Bay County.
What Gulf County should do now
- Suspend the $500 charge that appears only when private provider plan review is used.
- Publish the ordinance and the time-and-cost basis for any true administrative fee.
- Reduce fees by the amount of the cost savings realized by the County any time private providers do plan review or inspections, as the law requires.
- Remove extra handoffs that apply only to private-provider routes.
- Refund improper charges.
A call for the state CFO to intervene
Since Gulf County will surely ignore our call to change its process, it’s surely time for Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia to intervene. The CFO’s state DOGE efforts have understandably focused on the “macro” of total budget expenditures by cities and counties. But, on behalf of local businesses under siege from defiant bureaucrats, we call on CFO Ingoglia to enter the fray on issues such as what Gulf County is doing to thwart business and protect its bureaucracy.
How readers can help
If you’ve been charged the $500, send a redacted receipt or invoice with the date, permit type, and whether a private provider handled plan review or inspections. If you were routed through extra steps only because you used a private provider, send that, too. If a neighboring county has a similar fee and a cost study, share it so we can compare apples to apples.
Closing
This isn’t complicated. Same plans, same counter, same door should mean the same treatment. The state built a fast lane to help people rebuild faster. Gulf County put up a toll and a speed bump. Take them down. If the County won’t do it, the state should.