Sea Pines stormwater resiliency project

2:23:36This is a goodly way into our last project that we wanted to talk to you about. Uh a stormwater project, Sea Pines. Uh don't we have a uh our public works director come up and and talk about that and then we'll Do a little follow up with you all.

2:23:52Good morning everybody. Uh Jason Mickel, public works director. Um like Keith did We have uh Commissioner Mariano. Um if you would like to say a few words about this, um absolutely you I would turn it over to you. Um but if you'd like I could just open up with a minute or so.

2:24:07Let me jump in a little bit 'cause uh before you were here we had a lot of things going on. I mean literally in my whole terms from twenty years back when working on this project. Representative Mariano and Simpson first work on this project trying to get all the homes out of the flood zone. And that's what they've done. So it talks about like 32 homes, but there's actually 800 homes involved. We've gone through we've bought waters uh that actually go into the Gulf that can now directly take it out. We've got right-of-way's going through that we've bought, going through the process, work with the HOA over the past like three years

2:24:37to go through the whole process to line up this major project that's gonna take all those homes and they start out like a five foot elevation of at one point, it goes down to three foot before it gets out to the Gulf. It's very slow moving, but everything we've got in here, we've already bought the right-of-way. We've already made contracts with the HOAs. This twenty two million dollar project. is sitting with the Army Corps right now to get the final part through. So we're kinda like the four oh four per permits all those up. But literally for five million dollars more

2:25:08We can take a major project and get this thing all the way done and save Let's say it's eight hundred homes there, but there's even another two or three hundred uh homes around it that are all gonna benefit from it. So that overview, guys.

2:25:19Oh no, thank you, Commissioner. Um so we talk a lot about resiliency. Um you hear that word, the kind of kind of a buzzword. Um but this truly is a resiliency project. We have we have an opportunity to help a community, a Pasco County community, um become more resilient. Uh and the way we would do that is This is a pre-permitting community. So they don't have a ton of infrastructure there. It's not a looks like we're putting up some recent are those all recent pictures from Storm. Yeah, so this this doesn't take this type of storm or the storm

2:25:50season that we had to make this community flood. They do flood in in much smaller events, cumulative uh stormwater events like our uh typical um thunderstorms throughout the summer. Um but I would what I would say just for a couple of numbers, we do have about 32 homes. And about 2,000 feet of road that we will take out of the floodplain by doing these projects. The reason why it's it seems like such a large project is because it is

2:26:20three projects in one. Each one of them has its own phasing. So you have the Sea Pines main project on kind of the south and the west side. You have the Lafitte Drive project and the north side. Then you have kind of the local. project for a lot more of the smaller homes on the um east side. All those together is about a $22 million project. I would say we have about $3.5 million in in Swift Mud district dollars that they've committed to us as long as we have a local mass Um just for a couple of numbers we

2:26:50got about thirteen point five million in our money in Pasco County money, about three point five in Swift Bud money, and the rest is what we're asking for the five million dollar shortfall. We have communicated with Swift Bud as long as we have a match. Their match is good. They're not gonna take any of that from us by getting a state allocation. So just in summary, we had about 32 homes we could take out of the floodplain. We have about two 2,000 feet of local roads that we would also take out. But

2:27:20we're requesting uh five million dollars and we really consider this to be a um a resiliency project for the for the county. Chase

2:27:30supposed to be eminent domain or are they all willing participants?

2:27:32E everyone we've got through was all willing. We didn't do any of them, we just kinda went to them, we h met with the civic association, had a le forum right here with everybody. Uh the HOAs are kinda were battling with us at first because they have like a key piece of property that they were gonna end up giving to us or we end up buying it from 'em but that whole connection but the whole community came out supported it, wanna see it through and literally it says thirty two, that's just the floodplain, it affects the eight hundred homes as the water flows out. So the HOE's done and literally we bought we bought probably I wanna

2:28:03say six different large parcels that we had to buy. The last one that was hang that hung us up, why this wasn't done in one project from the get go, was we had a doctor that had a piece of property that connected old Dixie. A developer was coming down below. The doctor finally sold to us. So now we can take the property from the Lafitte, as he mentioned, or just backs up all these homes and take it right onto Old Dixie. Right down Gulfway, uh right down to Gulfway and then connecting right over. to a c to a canal that's right there that is really just two lots we we bought as

2:28:33well. Instead of running down this narrow little walkway, um the narrow little uh culvert that then it has to go out to another canal down to the south. Now we can go there, treat the water so it's a clean project, treats your water well so the water goes into the Gulf. Cleaner and better all the way down.

2:28:49Can I just add as well, um Colleen just reminded me, um two of these phases, the two big phases, are already designed. So we're close to shovel ready. The the hurdle is what you have already talked about is the 404 permitting. Um on sea pines, we still have a 404 permit process that we're in and on the lafite phase we're hopeful that we can either move forward without it or get through that crap. So we'll see how the permit process goes. We have a pre-app meeting with the Army Corps that we are working on to try to move this along as quickly

2:29:19as possible. Did slow us down a little, but we are working for it. Literally we were ready to go

2:29:24until they they stopped us down. But I think as you say with what's gonna happen January twentieth. I expect to have the permit right January twenty-seventh. You'll

2:29:32be able to be

2:29:32shovel right in

2:29:33the year.

2:29:36Yeah, if we could get

2:29:37the

2:29:37permit.

2:29:38Yeah, uh a year or less. Year or less.

2:29:41I would assume the senator or one of them may know, but let me know on your four oh

2:29:45four coming on. Okay. Absolutely.

2:29:49No. I'll take any help I can get. But for be from a s from a from a state perspective, this is the type of project I'm hearing. Don't know that for a fact. And I think the chairman looks at it. This is a project for five million dollars to solve eight hundred homes.

2:30:08I can't think what else could be better for our fourteen billion that we have that we need to use. Yeah. Five for eight hundred. I think we can go pitch that over and above, you know, my priorities num number four, right? This is a project I think the state's gonna be looking at coming into this going forward. I can see that we I I can get vetoed killed just as easy as anything else. But I can see this as a you have so many people involved This to me is a

2:30:38practical project.

2:30:46Environmental we'll have three times more projects of that silo than any other silo.