Environmental reporter Jack Prator moderated a panel discussion at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg Thursday night. The topic? Climate change’s impact on Tampa Bay housing.
The panelists included Mack Feldman, vice president of asset management for Feldman Equities; Rep. Lindsay Cross of House District 60; Claude Tankersley, St. Petersburg’s public works administrator; Sam Henderson, adjunct professor of natural sciences and former mayor of Gulfport; and Amber Woods, youth chair of Florida Rising.
These were the panelists’ responses to key questions posed by Prator, a reporter with the Tampa Bay Times.
Nearly two years after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, how much has Gulfport changed and what has stayed the same?
As former mayor of Gulfport, Henderson said roughly 60% of the city’s land area was affected by storm surge. Many of those residents have had to rebuild, or are still rebuilding, with FEMA assistance.
Those affected not only have to rebuild, Henderson explained, but “have to build back higher,” changing the scale of the city. As a result, people are spending far more money than anticipated.
“It’s also changing the demographics of areas,” he added. As waterfront neighborhoods become more expensive to rebuild and insure, living a little farther from the water has become more desirable, driving up housing costs elsewhere.
Feldman noted how downtown St. Petersburg has seen a “massive influx” in population. Because downtown sits at a higher elevation, he said, it’s become an increasingly attractive place to live.
But there are tradeoffs. “When you are looking at downtown generally,” he said, “how many people displaced from the waterfront can we accommodate downtown? It’s going to take very careful and thoughtful planning.”
Woods, who lives in Wildwood Heights, said her neighborhood didn’t bear the brunt of the storms. However, she pointed to the concept of “climate gentrification.” She said her neighborhood now “looks delicious” to homebuyers and developers, leaving legacy homeowners worried they’ll eventually be priced out and see their neighborhood become unrecognizable.
Cross represents Shore Acres and Riviera Bay, neighborhoods that have become nationally known for flooding issues. Of the roughly 10,000 homes flooded during the hurricanes, many were in those communities, where homeowners are still waiting for state and federal funds to help make them whole.
“Many are paying both their mortgages and for a rental,” she said.
Tankersley said that even his neighborhood in west St. Petersburg, which isn’t in a flood zone, experienced flooding. “When you look at aerial photographs of St. Pete, you can see much of St. Pete has divots that are always wet,” he said. “When we built St. Pete we built canals and waterways, but when you have enough rain, they flood.”
Tankersley said his house sits just six inches higher than that of his neighbors. Their yards and homes flooded while his remained dry.
How does climate change affect housing costs, and where are people moving?
Woods returned to the notion of climate gentrification. “People are being priced out from insurance,” she said. “The more these infrastructure programs develop, we are fighting for equity, but the catch is the more your home value increases, which increases your taxes. And wages are not increasing with it.”
She explained that many households have become overcrowded, with multiple generations living together because families can no longer afford other options.
Feldman, speaking from the perspective of real estate, described the challenge as one of land use and policy. Where can the city put homes, and what type of homes should be built to keep housing costs reasonable without creating unintended consequences?
Ultimately, he said, it will require carefully balancing policy, land use and development to keep people “high, dry and safe.”
Cross, approaching the issue as a policymaker, said, “Unfortunately, at a state level, when cities like St. Petersburg are trying to do things that are proactive, but maybe don’t fit the model of the development community, Tallahassee is really good at preempting those and making proactive solutions more difficult,” she said.
Tankersley echoed that concern: “The city doesn’t have the opportunity to implement sales taxes or gas taxes. We are limited in what fees and taxes we can generate … but without that revenue coming into the local community we cannot redistribute that money where it’s most needed.”
What has the city done to make the community drier and safer, and what’s left to do?
“There’s a lot left to do,” Tankersley said. “We failed to develop the community correctly in the first place by learning to live with St. Pete as it naturally is. We sought to overly engineer it. And thought we could conquer it.”
He explained that many homes are now built directly alongside canals and drainage systems, making it nearly impossible to expand those waterways to handle increasingly intense rainfall.
Harkening back to the city’s limited ability to collect taxes, Feldman stressed the importance of the city’s proposed $600 million St. Pete Agile Resilience (SPAR) bond referendum, which voters will consider in November. The SPAR initiative accelerates citywide flood protection, stormwater drainage and wastewater infrastructure improvements.
“I would implore you all to consider the investment we need to make in this city,” Feldman said. “We are going to pay these costs one way or another.” He pointed out that the proposed bond would cover only about one-quarter of the city’s estimated $2 billion in resiliency infrastructure needs.
What can regular folks do? What’s the most effective way to bring people together on climate issues?
Woods answered: “Well … the most effective strategy has been to find a common enemy, and right now Duke Energy is that guy.”
She said Florida Rising’s Clean St. Pete initiative has focused on issues ranging from alleyway cleanup to trees growing into power lines — problems that became even more apparent after the storms, problems that Woods claims are the result of Duke Energy.
Tankersley lauded those grassroots efforts. “We have found that the silver lining after the storms is we’ve been engaged with a lot of grassroots organizations,” he said. “They’ve been coming to us with their priorities, asking, ‘How can we work together?’”
Henderson said those partnerships will become even more important as communities confront future storms. He also stressed the importance of preserving local revenue sources, warning that continued erosion of home rule — including proposals affecting property taxes — could leave cities with fewer resources to maintain infrastructure, much less improve it.
Cross pointed to Shore Acres as an example of the difficult choices communities face. “Perhaps we can elevate some of the houses,” she said. “But then do we also need to elevate the roads?” Keeping homes dry is only part of the challenge if residents still can’t leave their neighborhoods during major floods.
Feldman pointed to St. Petersburg’s Coastal High Hazard Area, where more than 40% of the city lies. He suggested future development in those high-risk areas should continue helping fund resiliency projects through mitigation requirements and impact fees, ensuring new waterfront development also contributes to protecting the broader community.
Panelists spanning government, development, engineering, advocacy and education, all agreed on one point: adapting to climate change will require long-term planning, continued investment and cooperation between residents, local governments and the private sector.