Permeable Resin-Bound Surfacing in Fort Myers, FL

SFWMD permits, the Caloosahatchee plan and the city's stormwater fee

Environmental Resource Permits here come from the South Florida Water Management District through its Fort Myers Service Center, under a Volume II handbook effective June 28, 2024, the same day the statewide nutrient rule took effect. That rule applies to applications deemed complete after December 28, 2025. Where an adopted restoration plan includes basin-specific design criteria for stormwater systems, those criteria can set the treatment level, but the 2025 Caloosahatchee River and Estuary Basin Management Action Plan, which took effect November 25, 2025, doesn't add its own stormwater design criteria. Sites that drain to the impaired river and estuary generally have to meet the rule's impaired-waters treatment standard instead. SFWMD's handbook also flags the Six Mile Cypress Strand and the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve as sensitive receiving waters that get closer review.

The City of Fort Myers adopted its stormwater utility on March 16, 2009. The user fee follows impervious area, rounded down to the nearest 500 square feet and billed per Standard Impervious Unit. The city offers reductions for SFWMD-permitted retention or detention designed for at least the 25-year, 24-hour storm (not available in the Six Mile Cypress watershed, which already gets a special credit), for stormwater recycling, and for low impact development used throughout the entire property; the Stormwater Resource Manager decides within 60 days of a complete application, and permitted systems are recertified every five years. The city's low impact development examples are man-made wetlands and lowered landscape islands. Permeable paving isn't named, so whether a permeable section counts is the Stormwater Resource Manager's call.

Flatwoods soils, a tidal river and Hurricane Ian

Where a site maps to a flatwoods series such as Immokalee, which USDA describes as poorly drained with a water table 6 to 18 inches down for one to four months of most years, there's little vertical room for a stone reservoir. Set the base from the wet-season water table, consider wide and shallow sections, and use underdrains where separation runs out.

The Caloosahatchee is tidal through downtown, where NOAA keeps a tide gauge. During Hurricane Ian in September 2022, the National Hurricane Center found 5 to 8 feet of inundation up the river in Fort Myers, where surge reversed the river's flow and flooded city streets. The city also names Billy's Creek among the waters exposed to flooding and ecological damage. Near the river and creeks, design for backwater, detail edges with wash-over in mind, and plan cleaning after floods.

Fort Myers projects suited to permeable resin-bound

• River District courtyards and plazas on private property, where downtown lots have little room for ponds.
• McGregor Boulevard homes rebuilding driveways and walks after storm damage.
• Medical and office campuses pursuing a site-wide low impact design and a fee reduction.
• Multifamily communities with walkways and pool decks that drain toward creeks feeding the river.

Approvals in Fort Myers and how Resin Rock helps

Permits run through the City of Fort Myers, with stormwater questions handled by the Engineering Division's stormwater management staff, and SFWMD reviews the ERP. Bring the base design, wet-season groundwater data, infiltration tests and a maintenance plan to pre-application meetings, and if you want a fee reduction, prepare the photos and 11 by 17 site map the city's application asks for.

Resin Rock ships the binder, stone blends, trims and Rock Crete base, provides technical data sheets, and matches owners with an approved installer. We train installers but don't install.