Bonita Springs sits in Lee County, but Lee County does not issue its plumbing permits. The city runs its own community development office and its own permit system, and any contractor working inside the city limits has to register with the city first, whether they hold a state license or a Lee County competency card. The other thing that surprises people who move here from almost anywhere else is the water company. It is a cooperative, and if you pay the bill, you are a member of it.
Bonita Springs reincorporated on the last day of 1999, having given up its original charter back in the twenties. Since then it has run its own community development department, with inspectors working out of Bonita Beach Road and permit applications going through the city's own online portal rather than the county's.
Registering with the city is a separate step from holding a license, and we keep ours current. It is worth knowing about because it is a common reason a homeowner's first choice of contractor turns out not to be able to pull the permit once the job is sold.
Bonita Springs Utilities is a not for profit cooperative. Residents started it in 1970 and the members own it. It covers roughly sixty square miles, taking in the city, the southern part of Estero and a slice of unincorporated south Lee County. There is no shareholder and no city utility department behind it.
That changes who you call and what you can ask for. Meter questions, service line responsibility and backflow requirements all run through the co-op. We work to their standards on anything that touches the service side of the meter.
Bonita began as a surveyors' camp in the 1870s and was called Survey before it was called anything else. The growth that produced most of today's housing came much later, with air conditioning, the interstate and the bypass through the eighties and nineties.
That timing puts a meaningful share of the housing stock inside the 1978 to 1995 polybutylene era, and it is one of the most common reasons we get called out here. Gray plastic supply line, soft to the touch, failing at the fittings.
A large share of Bonita housing sits behind a gate. Bonita Bay, Pelican Landing, Spanish Wells and the communities off Coconut Road all run guardhouse check in, and several of them have their own rules about contractor hours, vehicle parking and where a truck can stage.
Some associations also want the permit and the certificate of insurance on file before work starts, which is a reasonable request and one we can satisfy the same day. The delay is never the paperwork itself. It is finding out about the requirement after the technician is already sitting at the gate.
Tell us the community when you book and we will ask the right questions up front.
Bonita Beach Road is exit 116 on I-75, and US 41 runs the length of the city as the coastal alternative to the interstate. Most of our Bonita work sits between those two roads, from the single family streets east of the interstate out to the gated communities toward the water.
Commercial calls along 41 are routine for us. Restaurant kitchens get scheduled around their service hours rather than ours, because a shutoff at six in the evening helps nobody.
A-1 Plumbing & Gas helped with our bathroom renovation. They were so helpful answering all of our questions and making sure that we were clear on the fixtures we selected. We were so happy that we hired them to install a whole home water filtration system, new water heater, and had them add a water line where an exterior bib was disconnected previously. They're the only plumbing company we trust!
Kristin Van Heukelom, Naples, FL