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You may want to rebuild your home after Hurricane Ian, but if you live in Cape Coral, just getting a permit has turned into a major headache; the city consolidated its locations for permit applications, leading to long lines hours before they open. One contractor told WINK News his clients are losing their houses because the permitting process isn’t happening fast enough. Last week, neighbors said people filing for permits at Cape Coral City Hall were already being put on a waitlist by 9 a.m. One man showed an application he made in September. Online, his application says that staff won’t look at it until Dec. 23, a date he says he’s sure will be pushed back. Cape Coral contractors say they used to get permits and build houses in three to four months. It’s begun to take as long as a year and a half. People are trying to rebuild after Ian, but they said the permitting backlog makes it extremely difficult. A home in Cape Coral needs repair, with a blue tarp in place of a roof. Credit: WINK News “I’ve been here and been 10 people back and waited for like four hours, maybe more,” said Levi Long, who needs a roofing permit. “They just… they’ve been changing from this paperwork needed to different paperwork. And it’s just like they haven’t got the same system yet going, so it’s been a pain. I mean, the lines have been the worst.” Several others have been waiting in line for hours and still haven’t been able to file for a permit at all. Neighbors like Jason Willis told WINK News they’ve been put on waitlists and waited for hours to submit applications that may take months to process. They said it was bad before Ian, but now it’s even worse. “There’s just a lot of people that don’t know the process and, you know, the city is still trying to figure out the process,” Willis said. “They had to change their process and train their people and fill everybody in on what they want people to do. Even with FEMA, they… it’s a learning process from the storm, and the damage… it’s just added a lot more work on the load that was already here.” WINK contacted the city to see how many permits have been approved and how many are still being processed. Cape Coral has yet to respond.