Boat storage site plans

What a boat storage site plan carries

Boat storage takes three site forms, and the plan has to say which one it draws, because each answers to a different rulebook:

• Dry stack. Boats racked in or beside a tall storage building and moved by forklift or gantry across an apron to the water. In Lee County, Florida, a facility that offers dry boat storage "with a service to place boats in the water" is a marina under the county's own definition ^[6].
• Open boat yard. Trailered boats parked on a surfaced lot behind a screen, with no launch service; Lee County's code treats that as commercial outdoor storage behind a continuous visual screen ^[3].
• Covered and enclosed stalls. Canopy rows and enclosed units, usually shared with RVs. Their stall, aisle and canopy benchmarks are on the RV and boat storage page and are not repeated here.

A preliminary site plan for a boat program carries rows a general storage sheet does not:

• The rack count and the largest boat the racks and forklift lane are drawn for. A North Fort Myers marina was reported by WINK News as able to "store up to 239 boats up to 50 feet in length" ^[7], and a Fort Myers Beach rebuild went from 441 to 434 boats in 68,000 sq ft to take larger boats and a wider center lane for forklifts, as the Fort Myers Beach Observer reported ^[8].
• A slip tabulation that counts racks, wet slips and boat ramp parking spaces together wherever a manatee protection plan applies ^[1].
• Parking against the dry storage ratio, 1 space per 5 unit stalls in Lee County ^[2].
• The building height the planned development will be asked to set, and the airport review a tall building triggers ^{[4, 5]}.
• The flood elevation of the dry stack slab, the apron and the store, set at base flood elevation plus 1 ft of freeboard in Lee County ^[9].
• The screen height on every edge of an open yard ^[3].

When boat storage becomes a marina

The launch decides the rulebook. Lee County defines a marina as a facility "which provides a boat ramp with parking for vehicles and trailers, boat slips, dockage, or dry boat storage with a service to place boats in the water" ^[6]. A dry stack that launches boats is therefore a marina, and so is a yard with a ramp; a yard with neither a ramp nor a launch service sits outside that definition ^[6].

Once the site is a marina, every rack is counted. LDC 26-41 defines a slip as a space for mooring or storing one watercraft of any size, and its list takes in wet and dry slips, hoists, boats parked on trailers, open or covered racks and the parking spaces for boat ramps ^[1]. Slip counts must comply with the Manatee Protection Plan under LDC 26-71(a)(4), and a permit that changes a facility's configuration in a way the plan does not allow is prohibited under LDC 26-45(i) ^[1]. The county's plan is dated June 17, 2004, was approved June 29, 2004 and was incorporated into the Lee Plan on May 16, 2007 through CPA 2005-41 ^[10]. Where slips move between sites, Administrative Code 13-21 rounds the maximum number built on site up to the nearest whole number and the maximum transferred down ^[11]. Lee County Natural Resources makes the slip determination, through a GIS evaluation, before zoning ^[12].

For a boat storage developer, that turns the rack count into a regulated number ^{[1, 12]}.

The open yard answers to the screen instead. Lee County requires commercial or industrial outdoor storage to sit behind a continuous visual screen at least 8 ft high where it is visible from a residential use or residential zoning district, and 6 ft high where it is visible from a street right-of-way or street easement (LDC 34-3005) ^[3].

Inland lake markets add the lake owner. On Lake Conroe in Texas, the San Jacinto River Authority licenses "commercial operations (marinas, boat/personal watercraft rentals, construction, and any other businesses on the reservoir)" ^[13]. The land side of that market is set out on the Texas RV and boat storage page and in the Montgomery County model project, and the Houston metro page covers the region.

Dry stack standards (Lee County model)

These are Lee County rules, not Florida-wide law. The full marina program, wet slips included, is on the marina site plans page and in the Lee County dry stack model project.

The parking rows and the screen row were read through a secondary code host, so the plan carries them as the county's numbers to confirm against the adopted code at pre-application ^{[2, 3]}. The depth rule reaches the water side of a dry stack marina, because it applies within mooring areas, turning basins and the ingress and egress pathways ^[1].

Approval path, and where the concept plan goes

Large projects in Lee County need planned development zoning as "Developments of County Impact" ^[17]. The steps for a dry stack marina, and what the plan does at each:

The county reports that "The average time to complete a planned development rezoning is 9 months, depending on completeness of the application when submitted" ^[17]. Florida's statutory clocks then govern development permits and orders: under F.S. 166.033 for cities and 125.022 for counties, completeness review takes 30 days, a decision follows 120 days after a complete application without a hearing or 180 days with one, and missed deadlines refund 10% to 100% of the fee ^[20]. Planned development phasing carries a clock of its own, because Lee County deems the unbuilt balance vacated if a phase "was not commenced within one year of its programmed date" ^[21].

Size triggers add work to the schedule. Lee County requires a protected species survey for all planned development rezonings and for developments over 10 acres or with more than 2 acres of impervious area, and a stormwater pollution prevention plan at 1 acre or more of disturbance (LDC 14-477) ^[5]. The guide to where unsealed site plans are accepted sets the Lee County concept stage beside other jurisdictions, and preliminary versus final site plans walks the handoff.

What the record shows

The dry stack records that can be cited are local news reports, a county property page and state filings:

• Port Phoenix Waterway Marina, Inlet Drive, North Fort Myers. WINK News reported on Nov. 1, 2022 that the marina "can store up to 239 boats up to 50 feet in length" ^[7]; the Cape Coral Breeze reported on Nov. 8, 2021 that the original county proposal was "dry storage for 200 boats" ^[22]. The county's Waterway Estates Marina page states that "approximately $9,000,000 in Capital Improvements are planned and funded by the lessee" ^[23], and the North Fort Myers Neighbor reported on July 19, 2022 a 30-year lease term with two 10-year extension options ^[24].
• Loggerhead Fish-Tale Marina, Fort Myers Beach. The Fort Myers Beach Observer reported that the Town Council approved the rebuild on August 18, 2025, reconfiguring dry storage for larger boats from 441 to 434 boats in 68,000 sq ft, with a wider center lane for forklifts, and with temporary fueling stations running during the dock buildout ^[8].
• Montgomery County, Texas. State accessibility registrations in the Lake Conroe county name boat storage: Milstead Storage Buildings 1 and 2 at 700 McCaleb Rd, Montgomery, a lease office and warehouse plus boat and RV storage of 54,000 sf at an owner-reported estimate of $3.4M, registered May 25, 2022 ^[25]; and Pine Lane Boat and RV Storage at 9019 Pine Lane, Magnolia, with paving, storm drainage, detention and fire protection over 51,575 sf at an owner-reported estimate of $750,000, registered Feb 5, 2020 ^[26]. These are TDLR accessibility registrations, not land use approvals ^{[25, 26]}.
• Rents. A secondary Miami source puts dry stack storage for a 30 ft boat at $950 to $1,350 per month in 2026 ^[27].

The Florida statewide layer for waterfront projects is on marina site plans in Florida and the Florida state page, with the Miami metro page for the local layer in the southeast of the state.

What the engineer of record adds

The preliminary plan fixes the rack count, the slip tabulation, the building envelope, the apron, launch, parking and screen, and the site data table that a pre-application meeting and a planned development hearing are run on. The Development Order set is the engineer's and the surveyor's. Lee County's guide lists what it holds: a legal description and sealed sketch, title and a boundary survey; the site plan with buildings, travel ways, parking and cross sections; a traffic impact statement; a FLUCCS map and the protected species survey and plan; utility and drainage plans; a landscape plan; an exterior lighting and photometric plan; the Tall Structures Permit; a fire protection plan; the Emergency Preparedness Plan required for marinas and multi-slip docks; commercial architectural elevations; the stormwater pollution prevention plan; and the state and federal permit applications, from the USACE and the Environmental Resource Permit to FDEP fuel tanks, FDOT and FDOH ^[5]. Dock work drawings carry a professional engineer's or registered architect's seal, and the as-built survey a surveyor's ^[1]. Aboveground fuel tanks over 550 gallons fall under Rule 62-762, and their design is the engineer's ^[16]. Where a jurisdiction requires a sealed site plan, the preliminary plan is the base the engineer of record builds that set on.

Related storage and waterfront pages: self storage site plans, industrial outdoor storage site plans for trailer and equipment yards, and the blog pieces on marina permitting and site planning for RV and boat storage in Texas.