The council voted to reallocate $21.5 million from the Stormwater Bond Series 2023 Fund in the FY26 budget.<\/p>\n
TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Tampa City Council approved a resolution Thursday evening to advance the long-anticipated South Howard Flood Relief Project.<\/p>\n
The council voted to reallocate $21.5 million from the Stormwater Bond Series 2023 Fund in the FY26 budget for the project. Those funds will help close the gap on a project that was once set to cost $65 million but has since risen to a $98 million price tag.<\/p>\n
The project seeks to address decades of severe flooding in South Howard through a massive overhaul of the area\u2019s stormwater drainage system. It would also include widening sidewalks, enhancing landscapes and expanding tree cover.<\/p>\n
Many residents, businesses and council members have said the need is immediate for some improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s traumatizing,\u201d council member Guido Maniscalco said. \u201cYou don’t sleep at night when your house is destroyed and all your possessions are in the front yard.\u201d<\/p>\n
But businesses have expressed concern over the significant construction project they say could cause them to lose profits over its four-year term. Others have wondered whether the project will, in fact, resolve the flooding issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Council members participated in a workshop Thursday morning to discuss the project\u2019s budget, why other alternatives haven\u2019t been as seriously considered and the impact it could have on businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn’t the only project, obviously, that’s going to potentially economically burden workers, small businesses and so forth,\u201d council member Luis Viera said.<\/p>\n
Some residents say the workshop shouldn\u2019t have taken place at all. SoHo Business Alliance sent a letter to the city council, accusing it of trying to mislead the public about the topics of the workshop and violating Sunshine Law by not \u201cprovid[ing] reasonable notice\u201d of the workshop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SoHo Business Alliance claims it only became clear that this topic would be on the agenda last week. The alliance asked the city to postpone the workshop as a result.<\/p>\n
The City Attorney\u2019s Office said it reviewed the letter and \u201c[did] not believe there\u2019s a legal basis for the Tampa City Council to delay the workshop.\u201d<\/p>\n
If a final vote on the project passes this fall, construction is expected to start in January with a completion date of 2031.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council voted to reallocate $21.5 million from the Stormwater Bond Series 2023 Fund in the FY26 budget.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-137001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-tampa","9":"tag-tampa-headlines","10":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}