Lithia has no mayor, no city council, and no municipal building department, because Lithia is not a city. The only incorporated cities in Hillsborough County are Tampa, Temple Terrace, and Plant City. At a 33547 address, the Board of County Commissioners is the only general-purpose local government there is.
Permission, Before Anything Else
Is a permit involved at all?
What about a masonry wall, or a concrete or electric fence?
Does my association have to approve a removal?
Will the county take the material?
Do you work the south end, off CR-39?
The County, the District and the Association, and Only Two of Those Are Government
All of it is readable, and most of it is public
Your declaration of covenants is a recorded instrument by definition, so it sits in Hillsborough County's Official Records and anyone can pull it. Florida law would allow an association of 100 or more parcels to maintain its design standards in an owner-only area. FishHawk does not: the application, the standards, the articles, the bylaws, and the declaration are all posted openly on fishhawkconnect.com. Nothing stands between you and the actual rule.
Whose Fence Is It, and What Is It Holding Back
The county puts this on you, in writing
The code sentence that frees you from the permit carries one that does not: the owner is responsible for the location of the fence wholly on their own property. No permit means no plan review, so nobody at the county ever looked at where it sits.
In a district community, the back of the lot is often not the lot
The district owns and maintains stormwater ponds and wetlands, entry monuments, collector road landscaping, parks, and trails. The association separately holds common property conveyed to it by the developer, and every phase was platted in the public records. A rear fence line is therefore not automatically the property line, and the plat is what answers that. Where a lot backs onto a district pond, there is a second question: no fence may impede or divert flow through a drainage way without written approval from Public Works.
The one that catches people: your pool barrier
Florida's residential pool barrier law lets a yard fence do double duty, on a condition. The statute says the barrier must be separate from any fence or wall surrounding the yard, unless that fence is on the perimeter of the pool, is used as part of the barrier, and meets the barrier requirements of the section. If your fence meets that, removing it takes the barrier with it. So on any lot with a pool, Donny asks before he quotes, and where the fence is carrying the barrier, he will not book the removal until the replacement barrier, cover, or alarm is arranged.
The Machine, the Material and the Number
What the number is built from
Linear feet, material, how the posts are set, and what has to survive within arm's reach of the line. A hundred and fifty feet of residential wood privacy is a Kubota SCL1000 job; a pasture line off CR-39 running a quarter mile is a full-size Caterpillar job. Fence lumber is construction and demolition debris under the state definition, and it is almost always pressure treated, which the county's yard-waste stream excludes by name. It prices as a haul, from a $300 minimum for the first four cubic yards.
The Polk Services Standard, on every fence run
Donny walks the job with you before he leaves, rakes the work area clean before he drives off, texts you 30 minutes before arrival, and gives you both a verbal and a written quote up front. No sub-crews, no surprise pricing, and the site left ready for whatever comes next.
Paying for it
Cash, check, card, and electronic payment accepted. No processing fee on cash or check; Donny states the card fee when he quotes. Donny books Lithia as a block with a confirmed window, never as a stop squeezed between two others.
The Application Needs Our Quote, Which Means We Come First
Almost everybody has this backwards. The assumption is: get the association's blessing, then find a contractor. The FishHawk Ranch alteration application asks the opposite. It has to arrive with your lot survey, which is unconditional, carrying a sketch of the location, size and type of construction. And where a contractor is doing the work, it wants that contractor's estimate. You cannot attach an estimate you do not have. The free quote is not the second step; it is what lets you start the first one.
Fences get their own exhibit, and it wants four numbers
FishHawk publishes a separate fence exhibit that accompanies every fence request, and it asks for four measurements taken from the lot survey: the length of the house on the left side, how far forward of the rear corner the fence extends there, and the same two on the right. The ACC divides one by the other, because the standard is a percentage forward of the rear corner and not a distance in feet. A tape measure will not satisfy it. The survey will.
Two things that stop an application before anyone reads it
The application states that the association will not review it if the property is in violation of the declaration or the rules, or if the owner is delinquent on any monetary obligation. An unpaid assessment is therefore a fence problem. And if your street falls under a sub-association, the form requires that approval to be attached too.
What the current form actually promises
Two numbers, and only two. A decision is mailed or emailed within thirty days of receipt. Approved work must be completed within six months, or you will have to resubmit. Do not begin before the approval letter is in your hand. And read the paragraph at the bottom: approval is not to be construed to cover any county or city code requirement, and the ACC tells you to contact Hillsborough County about permits yourself. Neither body checks the other.
Older versions carried a meeting calendar and a submission deadline, and those dates still circulate online. The current form does not print them, so get the schedule from FishHawk Ranch itself, this one included. Note, too, that the form is written around alterations and does not say whether removing a fence and putting nothing back requires one. Short phone call.
