For the first time in months, City Hall had an interesting problem come commission night: there was hardly an empty chair in the house.
Between the proclamation for the Strawberry Youth Parade Grand Marshal and Junior Royalty and two controversial public hearings, the room was filled to near capacity. The very first quasi-judicial public hearing tackled an issue that’s filled the city with tension for more than a year. Residents of the Walden Pointe subdivision have watched with rising frustration as flooding continued to pour into their backyards during months of heavy rain.
Some residents of Walden Pointe directed the blame toward the Johnson Pointe Planned Development District, which did in fact have multiple issues. A shoddy contractor failed to properly create the grading needed on the site, which led to “several acres of dirty water” pouring into the backyards of some of the homes in Walden Pointe, according to the engineer of the Johnson Pointe and Walden Pointe projects. It was then determined, however, that the swale required at Walden Pointe was not correctly in place either.
“I designed the Walden Pointe Project and I designed the Johnson Pointe project,” Wayne Griffin, project engineer, said. “There’s probably around 900 projects that I have designed and the contractor that worked on this project was probably the worst that I have ever dealt with.The original problem was the grade was incorrect. The contractor didn’t do it right and then we had a huge rainfall event and several acres of dirty water went into Walden Pointe. At that point, we figured out the swale that was part of the original design for Walden Pointe had not been built. There was no place for the water to go, so it went into backyards. We went through to SWFWMD and corrected the design and we had significantly less draining coming into the area.”
Back when the troubles began, the onslaught of corresponding issues kept the development returning to the city’s Planning Board time and again. Every time it floated up on the agenda, a dedicated and passionate group of Walden Pointe residents showed up in full force armed with photos and videos of the extensive flooding to prove there was an issue.
The contractor in question also continued to disobey city rules and would begin work long before the city allowed, waking up the neighbors in Walden Pointe and keeping them up long into the night. The upset homeowners, who have frequently been represented by Dianne Silliman, acknowledged they were in SWFWMD violation with the swale issue, but claim they did not know of the problem when they built. At Monday’s meeting, Silliman said she has reached out to SWFWMD to no avail in an effort to learn what they must do to correct the issue.
The issue is full of literal months’ worth of twists and turns. Every time the developer had a new issue arise, the city reached out and he then went about fixing the problem. But the initial grade mistake led to a domino effect on the property. Several of those in the audience went to the podium Monday evening to reiterate that fact and shared stories of the issues they have faced over the past year.
As the issues arose, the Planning Board continued to have SWFWMD address the violations, as it is the overarching agency, and would then address the topic based on whether or not the involved parties have corrected what SWFWMD required.
On Jan. 14, SWFWMD issued a letter that noted the Environmental Resource Permit had been approved. With the corrections handled, the Planning Board then unanimously proposed on Jan. 22 that the Johnson Pointe subdivision plat was consistent with the Plant City Zoning Ordinance, Subdivision Regulations and the Imagine 2040 Comprehensive Plan. This agreement forwarded the topic to the city commission where commissioners were asked to weigh in on the plat approval.
After listening to the public hearings all evening, the commissioners repeatedly had City Attorney Ken Buchman lay out the requirements of those at the dais. They weren’t there to comment on the prior ruling of SWFWMD, nor were they able to intervene on the issues that had taken place over the course of the past year. They simply were being asked to approve or reject the Johnson Pointe final plat.
The plat would create a 55-lot single family subdivision on the north side of Johnson Road, east of Mud Lake Road and west of Sam Astin Road.
Vice Mayor Nate Kilton stated that he thought it was important the city was listening and having this discussion on draining issues, but that as of that evening SWFWMD declared the drainage problems were no longer a factor to consider.
“I do think it’s important that we rely on the judgment of the agency of SWFWMD, whose sole responsibility is to deal with water matters in our community,” Kilton said. “In preparation of this evening, I also reached out to our city attorney and with his direction was able to also obtain the new permit that was issued for them addressing the noncompliance issues and knowing the changes that were made were satisfactory to them. The opinion of a third party specific to these issues that has no bias in the matter is very important to me.”
Michael Lawrence, the applicant and developer, was also in attendance at Monday’s meeting and admitted to commissioners that the water that left his project should not have, and that there were several issues with the contractor. He continued to add that the issues that were brought to their attention were fixed and he believes “the situation is over.” He said this was the most scrutinized project he had ever been a part of and believes they did everything they were supposed to and followed instructions to the letter. The compliance issues have been addressed and he said he’s ready to move forward with the development.
“The developer cleared all of the hurdles with these other outside regulating agencies — SWFWMD and (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) — so that brought us to where we were (Monday) night where the commission was basically approving the plat,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said.
Upon hearing the commissioners intended to approve the plat, several in the audience rose and walked out before the vote came to pass. McDaniel said there were strong emotions on both sides and while the answer may not have been what everyone wanted to hear, he believed it was obvious to all in attendance that Plant City has a “strongly ethical and professional city commission that understands their role.”
Lott echoed that sentiment following the public hearing and said that it was obvious everyone, including the commissioners, were frustrated, but that he hoped going forward this type of issue would not occur again.
“Obviously I’m going to vote ‘yes’ on the plat tonight because it meets the requirements of the plat… but just because we’re going to vote ‘yes’ on it doesn’t mean that we are happy with what we’ve heard,” Lott said. “I’m not going to repeat it, but in this public hearing we heard you, we understand and, Mr. Lawrence, I can’t tell you what to do but I sure hope that moving forward with Johnson Pointe, there’s as little disturbance as possible with Walden Pointe because I think there’s some mending that has to be done there.”