Building Construction Services

The Building Construction Services Department provides a multitude of services to our citizens, builders, and contractors enabling the County to maintain high standards of building integrity by assisting the construction industry to ensure building projects are constructed safely and in compliance with State, local, Federal codes, and regulations helping create a vibrant, and safely built community. The Department is also responsible for administering the County’s Flood Prevention Ordinances and supports efforts to ensure contractors are properly licensed and to discourage the use of unlicensed contractors through prosecution and education of our citizens.

Core Services

Central Permitting

Process and issue all Commercial, Residential, Multifamily, and Industrial permits. Review Residential Site Plans for compliance with the LDC. Calculate, process, and collect all building fees. Provide customers with flood information.

Building Inspections

Perform building inspections on residential and nonresidential properties, per the Florida Building Code and local Pasco County Ordinances. Direct customers to the appropriate divisions within Development Services. Schedule inspections, then issue certificates of Occupancy when Residential or Commercial structures are completed and deemed safe for dwelling. Provide assistance on damage assessment to the Emergency Operations Center.

Building Plan Review

Review and provide building construction documents for compliance with Florida building, plumbing, mechanical, accessibility, energy efficiency, National Electric, and fire codes. Maintain FEMA flood standards, and other State and local ordinances.

Minimum Standards

Customer Service assigns complaints to minimum standards and unlicensed contractor inspectors, who respond to all structure complaints, whether it is minimum housing or new construction, both residential and nonresidential. Provide all documentation to County Attorneys regarding minimum standards cases, including documentation such as pictures, citations, and owner information. Impose fines on failure to meet minimum housing ordinances and blight ordinances.

Unlicensed Contractor

Respond to complaints on work done by unlicensed contractors. Prepare the proper paperwork for court hearings and citations and work with the Sheriff’s office on making arrests.

High Return Enforcement (HRE)

High Return Enforcement (HRE) is a subprogram of Building Construction Services that focuses on the securing of and demolition of structures determined to be unsafe or unhealthy to the point that they are blighted, slum, unsafe, uninhabitable, damaged, or destroyed.

Public Safety

Ensure safe buildings and protect neighborhoods by inspecting buildings, docks, and seawalls and investigating complaints of construction without permits and/or by unlicensed actors.

By adopting the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1981, Pasco County pledged to protect the lives and property of its residents and mitigate the level of risk associated with natural hazards. Participation in the NFIP and the Community Rating System (CRS) contribute directly to Goal 1.1 by incentivizing the county to promote mitigation practices, disseminate lifesaving information and educate the public on how to protect themselves. Another crucial feature of the program is that it saves money for our citizens through discounted insurance rates. Our CRS score determines the discount rate.

Business Friendly Operations

Simplify and streamline processes throughout the permit lifecycle. Permit intake, management, review, issuance, and inspection will be digitally transformed, and paper processes eliminated with the full implementation of our upgraded and improved permitting software system. This implementation will include best practices in the permitting workflow, electronic plan submittal and review, and robust training of team members and customers on all relevant business processes, procedures, software systems, and the underlying local, state, and federal requirements.

Customer Service

Ensure that citizens in most need of specific services can receive them effectively and efficiently. To make the largest impact, we provide the best service to the citizens in greatest need. While all citizens will say their need is important, determining what tasks will have the most impact is, in part, the role of the Building Construction Services department because of their daily direct contact with citizens including face-to-face and online interactions.

Department Performance Measures

• KPI 1: Complete new single-family residential building permits initial reviews within 10 business days
• KPI 2: Complete new commercial and multi-family building permit initial reviews within 15 business days
• KPI 3: Certify eight permit technicians a year
• KPI 4: Maintain 98% or greater accuracy in FEMA elevation certificates
• KPI 5: Maintain FEMA score of 6 or lower (1 is the best score, 10 is the lowest)
• KPI 6: Number of Inspections - Maintain an acceptable number of inspections per day per inspector to allow for thorough inspections without resorting to overtime, rollovers, or third-party providers
• KPI 7: Maintain no more than 1.00% rollovers
• KPI 8: Increase the use of remote video inspections by 10%
• KPI 9: Investigate complaints of unpermitted work within 3 business days of submittal
• KPI 10: Increase Insurance Standards Organization (ISO) training score to 10 or greater through documented, credible training of at least 80 hours for all employees with a building code enforcement function and 40 hours annually for all other employees
• Increase the number of online submittals & reviews for Building Construction Services by 50% year over year.