A long-awaited flood relief project for 56th street and Broadway Avenue is canceled for now after the city failed to secure the property rights needed to move forward. Now, some of that funding is going to Tampa’s more than $100 South Howard flood relief project.

Fran Tate said flooding is common for Broadway Avenue in East Tampa

“I usually see cars trying to get through it, then they’re backing up trying to do U-turns or just trying to get out of the way of it because the level is just too high,” Tate said.

Several years ago, the city started looking into a project to address undersized piping systems and failing ditches, but the plan ran into a major roadblock: property rights at a scrap metal recycling facility.

“There was a potential pond cited on the Southside of their property in order to get from the road to that potential pond, we needed to have some sort of pipe to get between the two. So that was an area we did not have access,” Brandon Campbell, Tampa’s Mobility Department director, said.

Right now, the project is canceled and around one million dollars has been shifted to the proposed South Howard flood relief project.

“Sounds like the ownership may have changed hands. We’re happy to talk to a new owner if that is in fact the case. If there’s a new path forward. We will pursue it,” Campbell said.

“The money was shifted from the Broadway and 56th Street project because there was no path forward at that time without permission from the property owner. When the new opportunity to complete this project comes, I will make sure it happens. I know the administration continues to look closely at the matter,” City Councilwoman Naya Young said in a statement.

“We would have time to identify where those funds in particular for that project would have to come from, but I suspect it would be from one [of] the next several years of improvement assessment dollars that are specifically for stormwater improvement projects,” Campbell said.

“I don’t think they did enough. We pay taxes just like everybody else, but we get so little,” Tate said.

We reached out to the East Tampa business about this and have not heard back.