Impact windows in Bonita Springs
Bonita Springs sits exactly on Lee County's code line, in time as well as geography. The median Bonita home was built around 1998 and roughly 56 percent of units predate 2000 (Census ACS), which means half the city was built just before the 2002 Florida Building Code changed what a window has to survive. Add a coastline, a strip of older beach cottages, and one of the county's largest manufactured-home shares (about 12 percent of units), and Bonita has the widest spread of window situations south of Fort Myers. This page sorts them.
The 1990s house: original openings, modern rules
The signature Bonita project is the 1995-to-2001 home with its original builder windows. Nothing requires replacing them today, but the moment they are replaced, the Wind-Borne Debris Region rules apply (Lee LDC Appendix M; FBC 1609): impact rated to ASTM E1886 and E1996 or shuttered, with a current Florida product approval or Miami-Dade NOA per unit. Design wind speeds run about 160 mph ultimate, rising toward about 170 mph near the barrier islands; check your address on the ASCE Hazard Tool . The replacement page walks the sequence, and the impact windows page covers the whole-home project most 1990s houses end up pricing.
City permits, county pockets
Bonita Springs issues its own permits inside city limits; unincorporated pockets around the city file through Lee County eConnect . The reviewer checks the same two records everywhere: the product approval for each opening and the installation against its instructions. The permits walkthrough covers the split and the owner-side duties, including what to do if a previous owner replaced windows without a permit, a common discovery in older Bonita neighborhoods.
The money math favors documentation first
On a median-1998 house, the insurance gap between documented and undocumented features is usually wide, and the cheap move comes first: a wind mitigation inspection records what exists on form OIR-B1-1802 so the mandatory credits under FS 627.0629 apply to it, and it prices the gap the window project would close. The whole chain, including the up-to-$500 DOR refund on qualifying 2026 to 2029 purchases and the My Safe Florida Home program, is in the Lee County wind mitigation guide and the refund guide .
Nearby areas
North on US 41, Estero is the code-era counterpart where the same project is an upgrade rather than a compliance step. Up the coast, Fort Myers Beach carries the county's heaviest rebuild context.