Reference · updated September 29, 2026
Substantial damage in Pinellas, city by city
The threshold isn’t the same in every jurisdiction, the deadlines are set by your city rather than the county — the nearest one still ahead that we have found is December 31, 2026 in unincorporated Pinellas, Madeira Beach’s runs to September 2027, and a number of cities have told us they have not set one. Here is what applies where, who to call, and what we could and couldn’t verify.
Changed September 9, 2026 · Madeira Beach
The Madeira Beach deadline moved — which rule covers your property decides what it means
On September 9, 2026 the city adopted Ordinance 2026-09, and the September 25, 2026 permit deadline previously flagged here no longer stands. What replaced it depends on the property.
Repairs to a nonconforming structure damaged less than 50%: a permit must be issued — with a notice of commencement recorded, not merely applied for — by September 25, 2027, and the work completed with the permit closed by September 25, 2028, per the ordinance adopted September 9. Miss both dates and the structure may only be repaired or rebuilt in full conformity with current code.
Substantial damage of 50% or more: that deadline is not yours. There is no application deadline for a rebuild after catastrophic loss, provided the section’s conditions are met — a protection the September 9 ordinance created. The path is reconstruction under current code.
One date can still cost owners their rights: a property whose nonconforming use required a business tax receipt that was not current at the time of the 2024 storms keeps its rebuild rights only by obtaining a Zoning Verification Letter or submitting a complete permit or site-plan application by September 25, 2027.
The city receives copies of all flood insurance claims and states that unpermitted work will be identified. Before acting on any of these dates, confirm your property’s category with the building department: 727-391-9951 x244, buildingdept@madeirabeachfl.gov.
Start here: three things that are commonly wrong
It isn’t always 50%. People call it the 50% Rule, and in most Pinellas beach cities that is the number. But unincorporated Pinellas County, the City of St. Petersburg, the Town of Redington Shores and the City of Safety Harbor all apply 49%. One percentage point decides nothing until your ratio lands between the two — and then it decides everything.
Your deadline is set by your city, not the county — and depends on your situation. St. Pete Beach’s September 24, 2026 deadline has now passed; the table below says what we know. Madeira Beach’s changed on September 9, 2026 — extended into September 2027, and it governs sub-50% repairs to nonconforming structures rather than substantial-damage rebuilds; see the section above. Unincorporated Pinellas’s substantial-damage compliance date is December 31, 2026. A number of cities told us directly that they have not set one — but several of those are preparing letters that will carry a date.
If you want to challenge a determination, the clock is much shorter than the compliance deadline. In unincorporated Pinellas the county requires the application within 60 days of receiving your Substantial Damage Determination Letter — not by December. See below.
Who administers your property, and what they apply
Your jurisdiction is whoever issues your building permit — not your mailing address. Several Pinellas towns contract their building department to SAFEbuilt, so the phone number you need may not be your city hall.
Where a figure says confirmed, we read it directly from that jurisdiction’s own published material. Where it says adopted, we read it directly from an ordinance as adopted by the city commission. Where it says by email, that jurisdiction’s building department told us directly, in writing, on the date shown — we asked and they answered, and unlike the rest of this page, that answer is not something you can go and look up. Where it says ask, that jurisdiction does not publish a figure we could find, or the sources disagree — and we are not going to guess at a number that decides whether your house comes down, or by when.
Deadlines are also not all the same kind: some govern repair permits for damage under the threshold, others govern compliance for substantially damaged property. Each dated entry on this page says which. Sub-50% repair clocks are not tracked here for most jurisdictions — if your damage is under the threshold, ask your building department directly whether a repair-permit deadline applies to you.
“No deadline” is not one situation, either. In some jurisdictions there is no clock by design and none is planned. In others there is none yet, but letters are being prepared and a date is coming — in at least one case, only by mail, to the owners it affects. In one, a date exists only once you have been served with a stop work order or notice of violation. And in at least one, enforcement is already under way. Each entry below says which. If yours is in the middle group, the practical answer is to watch your mail rather than wait for an announcement.
| Jurisdiction | Threshold | Deadline | Building department |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madeira Beach | 50% — confirmed | Sept 25, 2027 — adopted sub-50% repairs; issued, not applied for — see the section above | 727-391-9951 x244 buildingdept@madeirabeachfl.gov |
| Unincorporated Pinellas County | 49% — confirmed | Dec 31, 2026 — confirmed substantial-damage compliance; challenge window: 60 days of receiving your letter | 727-464-3888 (option 2) SDDeterminations@pinellas.gov — reassessment applications sdinspection@pinellas.gov — inspections |
| St. Petersburg | 49% — confirmed | No compliance date set — by email, Sept 21, 2026 code enforcement keeps an open monitoring case on each property until a permit is applied for and closed out | 727-893-7231 StormRecoveryPermits@stpete.org |
| Redington Shores SAFEbuilt | 49% — confirmed | Ask | 727-202-6825 redington@safebuilt.com |
| Belleair Beach | 50% — confirmed | No defined deadline — by email, Sept 15, 2026 city office guidance. The storm damage permit packet goes to the city first, then to Pinellas County Building | 727-595-4646 permits@cityofbelleairbeach.com |
| Belleair Shore SAFEbuilt | 50% — confirmed from the town’s permit packet | Ask | bcooper@safebuilt.com |
| Gulfport | 50% — confirmed | No deadline — by email, Sept 21, 2026 final notices went out by letter in May; properties with no permit, or a permit left to expire without inspections, may be taken to a magistrate hearing, and some already have been | 727-893-1024 (permitting) |
| Indian Shores | 50% — confirmed also publishes a rolling one-year cumulative rule — see note below | No deadline — by email, Sept 15, 2026 none set and none planned; the town’s constraint is keeping the property in compliance with its code, not a date | 727-474-7786 permits@myindianshores.com |
| Largo | 50% — confirmed | Ask | 727-586-7488 permits@largo.com |
| Redington Beach SAFEbuilt | 50% — confirmed | Ask | 727-202-6825 redington@safebuilt.com |
| Seminole | 50% — confirmed | No general deadline — by email, Sept 15, 2026 a date applies only if you have been served a stop work order or notice of violation, and it is stated in that letter | 727-398-3110 permits@myseminole.com |
| St. Pete Beach | 50% — confirmed | Passed — was Sept 24, 2026 — by email, Sept 16 and 29, 2026 hurricane repair permit applications. The city told us this was the final notice and would not be extended. Asked on September 29 what applies now, the city said people can still apply for a hurricane repair permit — it did not say whether anything else follows for properties that missed the date. If you got a notice and did not file, apply, and ask the building department where your property stands. The operative filing is the hurricane repair permit. The city calls the substantial damage permit “just a place holder.” targeted notice, not citywide | 727-363-9241 permits@stpetebeach.org Publishes a formal appeals process |
| Treasure Island | 50% — confirmed | No deadline at this time — by email, Sept 16, 2026 code enforcement is working with remaining owners case by case, including properties not identified in the first pass | 727-547-4575 x230 flood@mytreasureisland.org Publishes reassessment forms and a Planning & Zoning appeal route |
| Clearwater | Ask — sources conflict the city’s storm-rebuilding page says 50%; its own glossary says 49% | Ask | 727-562-4567 epermit@myclearwater.com |
| Safety Harbor | 49% — confirmed | No deadline yet — by email, Sept 16, 2026 the letters already sent carried no date; non-responses are referred to code enforcement | 727-724-1515 ebpermits@cityofsafetyharbor.com City permit under the city’s Chapter 9 floodplain ordinance; Pinellas County reviews for Florida Building Code |
| Indian Rocks Beach | Ask the town publishes a 50% substantial improvement definition but no substantial damage figure — different determinations | No deadline at this time — by email, Sept 16, 2026 the town notes that some damaged properties are for sale awaiting new owners to do the repairs, and encourages owners to apply as soon as they can | 727-595-2517 HurricaneRestorationPreApproval@irbcity.com Pre-approval route for under-threshold work. ⚠ Its after-the-fact permit penalty waiver expired June 30, 2026 — double fees now apply |
| North Redington Beach SAFEbuilt | Ask 50% appears in 2024 storm bulletins but not in current standing guidance | Ask | 727-202-6825 redington@safebuilt.com |
| Belleair | Ask no figure published on the town’s own site | No deadline yet — by email, Sept 15, 2026 once notified, 60 days to return an affidavit enclosed with the letter — not to file a permit. No date set for mailing | 727-588-1477 building@townofbelleair.net |
| Belleair Bluffs SAFEbuilt | Ask no figure published on the city’s own site | No deadline — by email, Sept 17, 2026 | 727-202-6825 belleairbluffs@safebuilt.com |
| South Pasadena | Ask no figure published on the city’s own site | No deadline yet — by email, Sept 14 and 16, 2026 a firm deadline is coming by letter to affected owners, will not be announced publicly, and will not be extended once set — see the note below | 727-343-4192 buildingdepartment@mysouthpasadena.com |
Contact details compiled from Pinellas County’s own city-by-city directory, last updated by the county on August 11, 2026. Dunedin, Oldsmar, Pinellas Park, and Tarpon Springs also administer their own determinations — the county directory carries their details.
A note on Indian Shores. The town publishes a 50% threshold and also describes substantial improvement as work “taking place during a rolling one (1) year period” whose cost reaches 50% of market value. Cumulative aggregation periods are the thing SB 180 addresses, so if you are in Indian Shores and near the line, ask the town directly how it applies that rule now — and ask which ordinance it is relying on, and when it was last amended.
A note on Indian Rocks Beach. The town’s flood hazard page defines substantial improvement as work costing 50% or more of a building’s market value — standard federal language. It does not publish a substantial damage percentage, and the two are separate determinations even when the number is the same. If you have a damage letter rather than a renovation question, ask the town which figure it applies.
A note on South Pasadena. The city told us it has recently submitted its 24-month audit to FEMA and is evaluating next steps. That audit is the mechanism behind the letter it is preparing — a firm deadline, going to owners who have not yet permitted, with no extension once set and a code enforcement hearing before a Special Magistrate if it is missed. If you own a damaged property there and have not permitted it, the useful window is now, before the letter rather than after it.
In several jurisdictions, the only date that binds you arrives in the mail
Pinellas County told us that for a specific property, the deadline to follow is the one provided in that property’s Substantial Damage Determination Letter. Seminole says a date applies only once you have been served a stop work order or notice of violation. Belleair’s clock starts when its letter reaches you. St. Pete Beach’s notice went to a specific list of properties. And South Pasadena told us plainly that its coming deadline will go to individual property owners and will not be announced publicly anywhere.
That has a practical consequence worth being blunt about. For a good number of people reading this, there is no page anywhere — this one included — that can tell you your own date. Open the mail. If you have moved since the storm, make sure your building department has the current address. If you think something should have reached you and nothing has, call and ask.
Never receiving a letter does not mean you are in the clear
Three jurisdictions described the same gap from different directions. Belleair told us it has not been able to obtain a list of homes with insurance claims, and that it knows homes flooded that were not in a mapped flood hazard area. Belleair Beach asks for after-the-fact applications where its own records show water damage but no permit was ever filed. Treasure Island is working with properties that were not identified as substantially damaged in the first pass.
The initial sweeps missed houses. If yours was damaged and nobody ever contacted you, that is not confirmation you are outside the rule — it may only mean you have not been reached yet. It is also cheaper to come forward than to be found. In Indian Rocks Beach the penalty waiver on after-the-fact permits ended June 30, 2026 and double fees now apply. In unincorporated Pinellas the county’s own waiver ended the same day, and the county has told us that permits submitted after it are subject to the applicable requirements, fees and penalties — ask the permitting department what that means for your scope of work.
Filing a permit does not end the matter
Two jurisdictions told us the case stays open past the application. St. Petersburg keeps an open code enforcement monitoring case on each property until a permit is applied for and closed out. In Gulfport, a property whose permit was allowed to expire without inspections is treated like one that never applied, and may be taken to a magistrate hearing. Madeira Beach’s ordinance draws the same line in law — a permit issued by one date, and the work completed with the permit closed by another.
If you pulled a permit and the work stalled, ask your building department where your case stands.
The lookback wrinkle worth knowing about
SB 180 prohibits NFIP-participating local governments from adopting or enforcing an ordinance for substantial improvements that includes a cumulative substantial improvement period. That is the statute, effective June 26, 2025. Pinellas County’s current substantial damage guidance makes no mention of a lookback period at all.
Worth knowing anyway: the Pinellas County Property Appraiser’s storm-damage guidance still tells owners to check their jurisdiction’s “Look Back period,” and not every municipal ordinance written before the statute has been formally cleaned up — Indian Shores still publishes a rolling one-year rule. So if someone tells you a cumulative period applies to your property, that is worth pressing rather than accepting: ask which ordinance they are relying on and when it was last amended.
On the litigation, since it comes up. Twenty-five Florida cities and counties challenged SB 180’s constitutionality in Leon County Circuit Court in late 2025, with a separate suit filed by a growth-management group. Both have largely failed so far: the court declined to issue an injunction in December 2025, found one plaintiff group lacked standing, and in early 2026 dismissed four of the five counts in the main complaint, leaving only an unfunded-mandates claim. The 2026 legislative session ended without amending the law.
It is also worth knowing what that litigation is actually about. The disputed provisions are the ones freezing local land-use and zoning rules — not the substantial-improvement prohibition. Even a successful challenge on the remaining count would not obviously change it.
Dates that matter
60 days of receiving your determination letter — to challenge it, unincorporated Pinellas. This is the deadline most people miss, because it is far shorter than the compliance date. The county requires the completed reassessment application within that window. If your property is inside a city, ask that city what its window is — they set their own.
December 31, 2026 — compliance deadline, unincorporated Pinellas County. If you received a substantial damage letter from Helene or Milton in unincorporated Pinellas, this is the date to bring the property into compliance. The county’s own guidance states that the home must be brought into compliance or vacated by that date. Cities set their own; ask yours directly and get it in writing.
September 25, 2027 — Madeira Beach. Permit issued, with notice of commencement recorded, for sub-50% repairs to nonconforming structures — and the Zoning Verification Letter / complete-application date for properties rebuilding under the business-tax-receipt waiver. Per Ordinance 2026-09, adopted September 9, 2026. See the section at the top of this page.
September 25, 2028 — Madeira Beach. Sub-50% repair work completed and the permit closed.
June 1, 2026 — temporary occupancy expired. Approvals issued after the 2024 storms allowing owners to remain in substantially damaged homes ran out on this date.
June 30, 2026 — after-the-fact penalty waivers expired, unincorporated Pinellas and Indian Rocks Beach. Both had been waiving the penalty on after-the-fact permits. They were two separate waivers that happened to end on the same date — the county’s covering unincorporated Pinellas, the town’s covering Indian Rocks Beach. In Indian Rocks Beach double fees now apply. In unincorporated Pinellas the county has told us that permits submitted after the waiver period are subject to the applicable requirements, fees and penalties. Either way, unpermitted work discovered now is more expensive to resolve than it was.
Five tax years — Save Our Homes permit window, homesteaded property. Effective June 26, 2025, homesteaded owners have five tax years from the January 1 following the catastrophe to pull a permit, and may rebuild to 130% of original living area or 2,000 total square feet, whichever is greater. Non-homestead property gets three years. The older 110% and three-year figures apply to the 2024 tax year and earlier only. Changing homestead status mid-rebuild forfeits the protection entirely.
These two clocks are not the same thing, and the shorter one governs. The tax provision protects your assessed value; it does not protect your right to build. If your compliance deadline passes, the five-year tax window may still be open on paper while the practical ability to permit has become much harder. Work to the compliance date, not the tax date.
Work backwards from any of these and the arithmetic is tight. Design, structural drawings, a permit application, and a Pinellas permitting window that generally runs two to four months all sit ahead of the first day of construction.
If you think your determination is wrong
In unincorporated Pinellas, the county requires the application within 60 days of receiving your Substantial Damage Determination Letter. That is a hard published deadline, it is separate from the December 31 compliance date, and it is the one most people miss — because the compliance date is the number everyone talks about. Cities set their own windows; ask yours directly.
One thing that causes confusion: the county’s own reassessment instructions page still carries a note saying the deadline was extended to May 31, 2025. The county told us directly that May 31, 2025 was the established deadline, and that it continues to accept reassessment applications after it — as part of getting owners resolved and into compliance by December 31, 2026. So that note is not a closed door. What the county did not tell us is whether it treats the 60-day window beside it the same way, so do not assume it does: work to 60 days from receiving your letter, and if yours has already run out, call the county and ask rather than concluding you have no route left.
The county uses two words for the same process — reevaluation and reassessment. Its own application form is titled “Substantial Damage Reassessment Application,” while its FAQ pages say reevaluation. Either will be understood. What will not get you far is asking about a “Special FEMA Appraisal” — that phrase circulates online but the county does not use it.
The mechanism is straightforward: determinations are calculated against the structure’s depreciated value, and county assessments tend to run low on older buildings, which pushes the damage ratio artificially high. Establishing a higher pre-disaster structural value — through the Property Appraiser’s building-value documentation, or an independent appraisal where that isn’t enough — can bring the same damage below the threshold.
If you commission a private appraisal, ask your city what format it requires before the appraiser starts. Some jurisdictions specify the methodology in detail — actual cash value basis, no comparable sales data, quantified square and linear footage, current photographs. An appraisal in the wrong format is money spent for nothing.
One more thing worth knowing: assessments have not always been reliable. Tampa Bay Times reporting found Pinellas homes flagged for substantial damage without an interior inspection, assessed from the street, in some cases for damage that wasn’t there.
For unincorporated Pinellas, reassessment applications go to SDDeterminations@pinellas.gov. The substantial damage inspection contact, 727-464-3888 or sdinspection@pinellas.gov, is a separate mailbox — do not send a reassessment application there. St. Pete Beach publishes a formal appeals process. Treasure Island publishes reassessment forms and allows appeal to its Planning and Zoning Board. Indian Rocks Beach runs a pre-approval route for owners whose work will stay under the threshold and who haven’t received a letter. Other jurisdictions handle it case by case.
On grant money, honestly
Elevate Florida accepted applications from February 7 to April 11, 2025, and received more than 12,000 from 64 Florida counties. The next funding cycle has not been announced. Applicants have reported waiting a year or more without resolution.
Pinellas County’s People First programs run separately, funded through an $813.8 million federal CDBG-DR grant. HUD requires that 70% of that money benefit low- and moderate-income residents — but the figure that decides whether you qualify depends on which program you apply to, and they differ.
Homeowner Rehabilitation/Reconstruction, the program covering repair and rebuilding, reserves 80% of its funding for households at or below 80% AMI; the remaining 20% goes to middle-income households up to 120% AMI on a first-come basis. Homeowner Reimbursement, for work already completed, goes up to 120% AMI. Disaster Relief Reimbursement caps at 80% AMI.
So a beach owner above 80% AMI is not automatically excluded — but for the rebuild program specifically, they are competing for a fifth of the money. The programs also exclude the City of St. Petersburg, which runs its own recovery programs separately.
Individual People First programs have begun closing. Homebuyer Assistance and the renter reimbursement program closed to new applicants on July 31, 2026; others remain open. Check the current status of the specific program you need rather than assuming the whole thing is still accepting applications.
None of that means abandon a pending application. It does mean a plan whose only path forward is grant money, against a deadline as soon as December, is a plan worth having a second version of.
How this page was put together
Thresholds and deadlines marked confirmed were read directly from that jurisdiction’s own published material — a city web page, an ordinance, or in a few cases the permit packet a building department hands out. Where a figure came from a document rather than a web page, the table says so.
Those marked ask fall into three groups: jurisdictions that publish no figure we could find on their own site, jurisdictions whose own sources disagree, and jurisdictions that publish a related figure which is not the one you need. Clearwater is the second kind; Indian Rocks Beach and North Redington Beach are the third. All are noted in the table. Madeira Beach’s deadline is marked adopted: read directly from Ordinance 2026-09 as adopted September 9, 2026.
Entries marked by email came from a different route. In September 2026 we wrote to Pinellas building departments whose deadlines we could not find published anywhere, and asked three questions: is there a deadline, is there any plan to extend it, and is it published online. The answers on this page that exist nowhere public came back that way, from the permit desk, floodplain manager or building official of the jurisdiction itself. We give the office and the date rather than the person. Jurisdictions still marked ask have either not replied yet or not been asked. Answers marked by email cannot be re-checked automatically, because there is nothing published to check — we re-ask instead, and the date beside each one tells you how old the answer is.
Statutory content was verified against the Florida Senate (SB 180, 2025, Chapter 2025-190), Pinellas County, the Pinellas County Property Appraiser, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and the Florida Statutes. Contact details come from Pinellas County’s own city directory, last updated August 11, 2026. This page is re-checked against those sources on a nightly schedule; the date at the top reflects the most recent change.
Rules change, and municipalities amend ordinances without announcing it widely. Confirm anything here against your own building department before acting on it. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or appraisal advice.
Found something out of date, or know a threshold or deadline we’ve marked “ask”? Tell us and we’ll verify and update it.
Received a letter and not sure what it means?
Send it along with roughly where you are. Sasa will tell you what your specific situation requires — including if the answer is challenging the determination rather than rebuilding.