Lee County has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to extend its 30-day deadline to provide additional information before the agency eliminates its 25% discount on flood insurance policies.

On April 16, Lee County Manager Dave Harner told the county commission that staff requested the extension so it could have additional time to respond to FEMA’s retrograde of the county’s Community Rating System rating, which resulted in FEMA giving notice that it would yank the National Flood Insurance Program discount for most of the county, including Captiva as part of unincorporated Lee.

He said the county is requesting additional time to provide more documents to FEMA to show its rating should not be downgraded. The request included the four affected municipalities — Bonita Springs, Cape Coral, Fort Myers Beach and Estero.

The cities of Sanibel and Fort Myers were not affected.

“We did ask for an additional time frame and that was collectively, the county and the municipalities, asked for additional time frame beyond the 30 days, that is still in the process of being discussed,” Harner said. “Regardless, I do feel confident that we will be able to provide the documentation based on the conversations we had to ensure we meet compliance and keep our rating.”

He said the county also received a 90-day extension on its annual CRS recertification from FEMA since the county is concerned with staff taking the time to provide “voluminous” amounts of material for the current appeals process and would not have enough time to meet the recertification deadline without an extension.

Harner said staff have met directly with FEMA administrators, including the district administrator who made the initial decision on the retrograde from a 5 to a 10 — the lowest ranking, which carries no discount on policies.

“Through these conversations, we got to the point where they guaranteed they would have staff in the county (to meet with directly),” he said.

Harner said the county has worked with the municipalities to have a unified message to FEMA.

“We continue to provide feedback collectively,” he said.

Harner said staff has been meeting weekly with U.S. Sen. Rick Scott to discuss the situation.

“The folks we have are committed to what they are doing. They live and breathe this stuff. They take every comment to heart,” he said.

“I am very confident that we will have the documentation,” Harner added.

One of the main reasons cited by FEMA for its downgrading of the ranking is that work was done without permits after Hurricane Ian.

Lee County Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass said the county should not be penalized if some residents did work on their homes without permits. He added that there are still thousands of people waiting for permits.

Pendergrass said the county does not have the authority to go into every home and see if somebody is replacing a wall or carpet without a permit.

“People run red lights,” he said. “There are some people making the choices to ‘build back as fast as I can and I won’t get caught’ and they will get caught sooner or later.”

Harner said there are not enough staff to inspect all of the properties in the county.

“I think there was confusion early on when it came to how we evaluate substantial damage,” he said.

“When you are devastated like Lee County was, and I’m not talking the entity, I’m talking all the municipalities, that is a large number of people you need in order to go out and look at all those homes,” Harner added.

He said it was “impossible” to have enough staff to handle all of the inspections.

“Cape Coral, for example, needed 300 (inspectors,) we needed double that,” Harner said.

There were more than 60,000 permits issued by the county in the 2022-23 fiscal year. More than 5,000 demolition permits were issued in the special flood hazard area. More than 2,000 violations were issued since Ian for work without a permit.