ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 For the past several months, Tampa Bay 28 has been following a story out of St. Pete involving a group of residents concerned about a new housing project causing their streets to flood. On Friday, Tampa Bay 28 returned to Disston Heights to seek out some answers for those residents.<\/p>\n
Watch report from Robert Boyd<\/p>\n
Homeowners in Disston Heights receive update on flooding concerns<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lived in this neighborhood for 25 years, and we\u2019ve never had any flooding issues,\u201d said resident Scott Osborn, who says flooding is now becoming a recurring theme.<\/p>\n
The last two trips Tampa Bay 28 made to Disston Heights, in August and early January, water was running through the streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been up to their doors, in some of their garages, and some of their houses,\u201d said resident Randy Bryant. \u201cThe project should have never happened, it should have never been allowed to go into this neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents are blaming the flooding on a new 86-unit affordable housing project being built at Palm Lake Christian Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just too much of a demand on the system, I think we are expanding in ways that the system wasn\u2019t designed for,\u201d said Osborn.<\/p>\n
Homeowners say most of the neighborhood was against it, but the city approved the project anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just do not listen, and that\u2019s where we stand, and it continues to happen all the time \u2014 there is nobody to help us out, we are on our own,\u201d said Bryant.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel hopeless at times, and you don\u2019t have a voice,\u201d said Osborn.<\/p>\n
So over the past few months, Tampa Bay 28 has been providing residents with that voice, and today, during one of our interviews, we received a call from the project’s civil engineer, Jeremy Couch, with Tampa Civil.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first event was a really extreme rainfall event while they were installing the retention pond and that got cured immediately,\u201d said Couch. \u201cAnd the most recent activity was a water main break.\u201d<\/p>\n
Couch said all these issues have been resolved and flooding is not going to be a problem going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Southwest Florida Water Management District has reviewed this, multiple engineers, I don\u2019t think this project is going to cause any flooding,\u201d said Couch. \u201cThis project is going to actually hold water back that wasn\u2019t held back before, make things better.\u201d<\/p>\n
We then relayed this information to the residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not believe him for one second, they\u2019ve said it all along, they said it from day one that it wasn\u2019t going to cause a problem,\u201d said Bryant. \u201cYou can look back at the interview last week and you can see how much water from a broken pipe caused. How much water is going to be poured down on these people\u2019s houses when it rains in the summertime.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the church, they said they are proud of this project because it\u2019s going to provide housing for the backbone of the city, people like first responders, teachers and members of the service industry.<\/p>\n
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