Nonconforming property owners in Holmes Beach can take a deep breath.
City commissioners unanimously voted April 22 to adopt an ordinance extending the municipality’s 180-day timeline for rebuilding nonconforming structures to 365 days.
The ordinance also streamlines the process to request one 180-day extension, which will now be handled at the administrative level instead of requiring city commission approval.
Director of development services Chad Minor said many property owners are still rebuilding homes and businesses damaged in last year’s hurricanes, with delays often due to insurance, engineering and surveying issues.
Some of those properties are nonconforming structures, which means they were built under former zoning laws and do not conform with current code.
Minor has said the city’s 180-day timeline was unfair to the owners of nonconforming structures, especially in the face of the multiple disasters that occurred last year.
Under that timeline, the municipality had an April 9 deadline to rebuild nonconforming structures damaged by either Hurricane Helene or Milton last year.
The ordinance’s adoption pushes that deadline back to October.
Minor said no nonconforming properties would be prohibited from being rebuilt due to the gap between the April 9 initial deadline and the April 22 adoption date.
“Everyone’s covered,” he said. “No one is in a Catch-22.”