Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council presentation

1:23:39We we talked to Sean. Sean's gonna Sean Sullivan, come on up. Um from Regional Planning Council. He's gonna he's gonna give a shorter version just because it's it's been a longer morning. So

1:23:49Mariano will be here soon.

1:23:51Morning, Mr. Chairman Members of the Chairman Mariano. Thank you for having me here today. Yes, sir. Gonna click a I'll run through this pretty quick, but I do represent the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. We're one of ten regional planning councils throughout the state of Florida. We're also the first. We're beginning our fifty-ninth year of service this year.

1:24:12So Mr. Chairman, we represent six counties, uh, comprised of five thousand square miles in geographic area, home to three point eight million people, the seventeenth largest metropolitan economy in the United States, and if we were our own country, we would have the 55th largest economy in the in the world. We look through a lens, Mr. Chairman, of uh five priorities, climate resiliency, regional economic competitiveness, emergency management, environmental stewardship and transportation. My

1:24:44mission statement.

1:24:47Chairman M Commissioner Mariano this year. We're grateful for your leadership. In terms of economic development, Mr. Chairman, we're a designated economic development district by the U.S. Department of Commerce. We are responsible to drafting and update annually a comprehensive economic development strategy. We also have an economic analysis program. We have three economists who work in our office. We recently completed a hurricane awareness project, I'll get to in a minute, and of course, CARES Act. We still have CARES Act funding.

1:25:18So, Mr. Chairman, uh, about a year and a half ago, we received some supplemental Irma, Hurricane Irma funding, and we developed a uh uh video, it's about 20 minutes in length, talking about uh what if a category five hurricane um we simulated hitting Indian Rocks Beach. Uh, we use specifically video from from the aftermath of Hurricane Michael to help tell the story. I would encourage if you could check it out on our website. We did win a national award from the National Association of Development Organizations for that project.

1:25:50Just go through these some uh GIS work. I really don't want to get into it too detailed uh recently we completed an economic impact analysis for uh Pasco County and specifically uh to take a look at the industry cluster and Zephyrhills. We we presented that to the city council recently and again we've got detail on our website.

1:26:08Uh uh also recently we worked at the Rivergate Palm District in the city of Newport Ritchie. We did a a resilient, rapid urban design project for the city of Newport Ritchie. um some of the details and we'll go into it in detail, but uh that's my favorite slide of all 'cause it kind of shows the entrance into the the district. Very nice. Um thank you. Uh we also did talk about the industry cluster we did for Zephyrhills. Uh we're working right now with county staff on the uh revitalization strategy for US 19 in the West Market

1:26:38District here in Pasco County. We also do emergency preparedness. We prepare hurricane disaster planning guides for a number of counties in the region. Specifically, Mr. Chairman, we're also designated by the Department of Environmental Management, Emergency Management scratch that to work with the local emergency planning committee. We chair that for and coordinate that effort for the sixth county region. Um

1:27:09As I mentioned, our disaster planning guides. Also the environment, I mentioned that. That's one of our certainly one of our priorities. Um specifically right now, we know there is a red tide event that's ongoing. Uh we coordinate a call every two weeks with the six counties in the region. We share information where uh red tide has been prevalent, what the some of the concentrations are in various parts of the of the region. But we know that there is red tide right now. Yeah. uh in the region. We also work with the Florida Department of Transportation with Stormwater

1:27:39Management. Basically, this is the public education element. We're awarded approximately $100,000 each year from the state DOT to work with counties with the region. And I must say Pasco County is always at the table when it comes to that particular element of what we do. We also are have a successful GIS program that we offer our counties and cities. Uh we do we're uh partnering right now with the nine other RPCs in the state of Florida uh with the Department of

1:28:10Environmental Management for a 2020 uh statewide regional evacuation study that was approved by the state legislature uh last session.

1:28:20Transportation and land use. Uh, Mr. Chairman, we're very this picture might look somewhat familiar. Granted, it is a simulation of flooding on US 19. It's a resilient Tampa Bay project. Uh, Pasco County MPO was one of the three MPOs that we worked with, along with Ford Penales and Hillsborough MPO, sponsored by the uh F D O T and US D OT. This project we're particularly proud of. It was one of 11 uh transportation. resiliency projects funded in the nation. We were asked to go to Washington, D.C. a couple of the years ago and

1:28:50present this to the US DOT Transportation Resource Research Board. And we simulated two specific sites in Pasco County with inland flooding and how to deal with that, how to make your infrastructure become more resilient.

1:29:04We uh recently formed a couple of years ago the Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Coalition, the 16th type of its type in the country. Uh where uh we worked with the state legislature last year. We testified before two committees in the House, uh, subsequently invited to the governor's signing resiliency legislation uh in Toppern Springs back in uh May.

1:29:25As of today, we have uh uh with that this slide should be updated. We have 31 local government partners and over 90 private sector partners. Uh recently, Mr. Chairman, we were awarded a grant from F FDEP, uh FY21 Holdover Monies. We were the only RPC in the state awarded this $50,000 grant through Chairman Mariano's leadership. He specifically asked us to look at living shorelines and protecting private property. uh from storm surge. And we're working, uh we

1:29:55just wrapped up this project, it's in legal view review right now, and I'll be happy to present more detail through the chair uh in the near future. We recently uh completed a project funded by the United States Department of Energy, again one of nine in the nation that we were funded to participate in. We're very proud of this project, talk about solar innovation throughout the Tampa Bay region. We're in the process right now, Mr. Chairman, of developing the Regional Resiliency Action Plan. That's one of about a dozen objectives in a memorandum of agreement that was approved by

1:30:26this board back in 2018, as well as 21 other governments in the region. And we'll have more detail on that, but we're ready to roll that out at our summit scheduled right now for the end of January. We also activated within the last two years at 501. We were fortunate to partner with JP Morgan Chase. They gave us a half million, scratch at $500,000, half million dollar grant to look at uh housing and resiliency housing, particularly as it relates to low and moderate income structures, folks who live in those structures.

1:30:57And I mentioned our summit scheduled for the end of January 2022. This will be our second summit. We would have had one last year, of course COVID threw a curveball at us, but we're we're really excited to release the Regional Resiliency Action Plan. If you FOR or what I can't help but every time I walk through the door and look at the trophy case in the lobby, Pasco County is well represented over the years with that rep. And this is our, as I mentioned briefly, this is our resilience and energy assessment of communities and housing funded by JC JP Morgan Chase. This uh summit will

1:31:27be scheduled for May 6th in the spring. And that's a quick rundown of what we do. I'm happy to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman.

1:31:33Mr. Chairman Mariano, good report. Ms. Barkey. So I was on the search committee when we hired you and we did a great job. Thank you very much. You're doing fantastic work. And I have a sponsor for your um at the summit in January. I've sent that to Commissioner Long. Oh, terrific. They're a NACO gold sponsor or whatever, platinum sponsor, whatever they call it. So

1:31:52Thank you very much. Okay. Great job.

1:31:57John, thank you very much for the great work you're doing. Your uh work on this resiliency and helping us protect our coast is fantastic. So thank you very much. Greatly

1:32:04appreciate

1:32:05it.

1:32:05Thank you for your presentation. Thank

1:32:06you.

1:32:07Yes, sir.