Permeable pavers and New Smyrna Beach's 60 percent cap

What the lot sheet actually says

The city's residential lot-calculation sheet, revised June 22, 2020 and posted as the 2023 file, requires the math on residential permits that change covered area. Building coverage, including additions, cannot exceed 40 percent of the lot. Total impervious coverage, which adds patios, sidewalks, and driveways to the building, cannot exceed 60 percent. Added building and other impervious area is tied to additional stormwater storage on that sheet. Fill the boxes before you design a wider motor court. We are not saying every zoning overlay uses this sheet unchanged. Ask the building department with your address.

Permeable is a question, not a loophole

Permeable pavers have open joints so water can pass into a stone base instead of running off. Angi prices that driveway type at $15 to $25 per square foot, against $10 to $18 for a standard paver driveway. HomeGuide's installed permeable band is $10 to $30, which is wide enough to be a poor budgeting tool by itself. Use Angi's $15 to $25 when you mean a permeable driveway, and say the source. The open-graded base is not the same dense limerock used under a standard drive. Port Orange's apron detail is about dense base and the water table. Do not mix those specifications.

DeBary's published driveway standard says pervious pavers are not allowed in the road right of way. New Smyrna's lot sheet is about lot coverage, not that DeBary sentence. A product that helps a coverage calculation on a private New Smyrna lot can still be the wrong material in a DeBary apron. Read the city you are in. The permit guide is the index.

Where the cap bites

Venetian Bay and other mainland lots with paver drives plus a pool deck are where the percentage disappears. Beachside lots are smaller, so a new patio is a larger share of the lot. A house that is already near 40 percent building coverage has little room for more roof, and the 60 percent line still has to hold the drive and the walks. Do the arithmetic on the city's form. The New Smyrna page has the local context. Edgewater and Ponce Inlet do not use this sheet.

1. Complete the lot sheet with the existing drive, walks, and the proposed pavers.
2. Stop if the total crosses 60 percent, and ask before you redesign.
3. Ask whether the permeable product you want is counted as impervious.
4. Budget $15 to $25 per square foot from Angi if the city accepts a permeable driveway, and keep the base specification in the quote.
5. Do not export this rule to DeBary, Deltona, or Port Orange. They publish different apron rules.

Do the lot math before you fall for a sample

Sketch the lot on the city's own sheet. Lot area on line A. Building footprint, including the additions you already built, against the 40 percent cap. Then every hard surface you can think of: the existing drive, the walk, the pool deck, the pad under the trash cans, and the new pavers. That sum, divided by the lot, is the 60 percent test. If you are at 58 percent and the new motor court is 400 square feet on a 7,000 square foot lot, you are over. Permeable pavers might be the way back under the line only if New Smyrna Beach agrees to count them that way. Call that a question for the building desk, with the product name written down, not a feature you can assume from a brochure.

The base is the other half of the price. Angi's $15 to $25 permeable driveway band is higher than the $10 to $18 standard band because the stone under the pavers has to stay open so water can leave. A crew that installs permeable pavers on a dense limerock base has built an expensive solid driveway. Port Orange's dense-base detail is for a different city's apron and a different purpose. Do not hand a New Smyrna permeable spec to a Port Orange right-of-way job, and do not hand DeBary a pervious apron. DeBary's published standard bars pervious pavers in the road right of way. The 60 percent sheet is a New Smyrna lot rule. Keep the cities separate when you compare bids.