Permits & Waterfront Rules

Back in 2009, a county inspector showed up at a Pensacola Bay dock where I’d just finished replacing twelve rotted deck boards and three corroded brackets. The citation read $1,200 for unpermitted structural work. Two days of labor, and suddenly I owed more in fines than the repair cost in materials. That experience shaped everything … Read more

Hurricane season along the Gulf Coast has a way of exposing what people don’t understand about their waterfront boundaries. When storm surge and flooding recede, property owners discover that the dock they built, the seawall they reinforced, or the fill they added sits partially on someone else’s water corridor — or on state-owned submerged land … Read more