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Business Journals
24-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Tampa council unites to slow coastal development as hurricane season looms
In the wake of recent hurricane damage, Tampa leaders are reconsidering growth policies for vulnerable coastal zones, which could impact housing and jobs. Story Highlights Tampa City Council opposes intense coastal development to protect lives. Nearly 96,000 residents expected in hazardous areas by 2050. Council warns against overdevelopment as hurricane season approaches. The Tampa City Council is ready to crack down on development in the city's Coastal High Hazard Areas. During a workshop on Thursday, the council was told that nearly 96,000 Tampa residents are expected to live within the CHHA by 2050. Many residents are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton last October. In a rare show of solidarity council expressed a unified message following the report: Tampa can no longer support intense development in its coastal neighborhoods. 'We're putting people's lives at risk,' Councilmember Bill Carlson said. 'It's not a debate anymore about developers versus NIMBYs, it's about protecting people's lives.' From 2020 to 2024, residential numbers shifted, with 52% of new residents moving into the vulnerable areas and 48% moving outside. Currently, roughly two out of every 10 Tampanians live in the CHHA, and one out of every four new residents moves into the CHHA. Planning Commission staff said they expect the trend to revert to growth patterns before 2020 as capacity is more readily available further inland. Many jobs are also located within the CHHA. By 2050, it is projected that 163,400 jobs will be located in these vulnerable areas, up from the 127,639 jobs in the CHHA in 2020. Currently, over 70% of jobs in the city are outside of the CHHA, and staff expect that this will increase to 84% by 2050. Part of the shift is simply due to many areas along or near the water being built out. The properties staff identified as being most likely to be developed or redeveloped lie further inland, and growth is expected to continue to balloon further away from the coast, where there is more available land. But without meaningful changes to land use codes, developers can continue to redevelop existing properties along the waterfront, and many are attempting to do so with greater density—for example, tearing down a single-family home and replacing it with a duplex or triplex or petitioning to rezone existing industrial property to construct hundreds of units. As Tampa recovers, the clock is ticking. In just over five weeks, the 2025 Hurricane Season will begin. Councilmember Alan Clendenin warned staff that any plan to overdevelop the CHHA would be 'dead on arrival' when it came before the council. 'These policies and the data you just presented us are only going to work if those of us in government create policies that are intentional to minimize growth in hazardous areas,' Clendenin said. 'If we bury our heads in the sand and pretend they don't exist and allow density to explode in these areas, then your data won't reflect reality.' Carlson said building the infrastructure to accommodate the flooding in the CHHA costs billions of dollars, which is not fiscally responsible when there is 'plenty of land' to build on at a higher elevation. There is also the issue of overcrowding already-strained roadways during evacuations. Outside of the downtown core—which has many buildings built to withstand hurricane-force winds and is nestled between multiple interstates—CHHA properties often see hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic as fleeing residents slowly crawl toward a major roadway. Chair Guido Maniscalco said the data following the destruction of Hurricanes Helene and Milton showed that Tampa was not fully prepared. Florida's tremendous growth has negatively affected its natural habitat, and Maniscalco said the more that is built, 'the less place the water has to go.' 'You can't beat storm surge, you can't beat hurricanes,' Maniscalco said. 'Mother Nature, in the end, depending on intensity, can always win.'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Flood relief for Tampa's SoHo neighborhoods still stirring rancor
A South Tampa business alliance is accusing the city of ignoring other, less disruptive options to provide eagerly sought flood relief for neighborhoods along the South Howard Avenue corridor. Its members are pleading with the city to slow down plans for the $64.5 million project, given initial approval in November, which calls for tearing up parts of South Howard to install new drain pipes. They want other options to get an airing. But some residents along the corridor, one of whom said his family had drained its life savings to repair its flooded home, urged the city to plow ahead Thursday. The tension spilled into the open after the City Council heard an update on the project, which the board approved in a contentious 5-2 vote in November. Council member Bill Carlson, whose district includes the area where the work would take place, called on the project to be canceled. He said it was approved under 'false pretenses,' and said other routes and solutions need to be considered. 'The other engineers and experts who have looked at this … they not only laugh at the process because it's so incomplete and not scientific,' he said, 'but they also laugh because putting culverts down the street is like 50 year old technology." Business owners are objecting to the project because it would close busy, two-lane South Howard to traffic for a couple of blocks at a time. It is intended to reduce flooding in South Tampa neighborhoods including Parkland Estates and Palma Ceia Pines that have seen devastating flood levels even prior to recent hurricanes, On Wednesday, a lawyer representing the SoHo Business Alliance, LLC, which includes establishments like Bern's Steak House, Epicurean Hotel, Fresh Kitchen and MacDinton's, wrote to the city and council members with dire concerns over the 'incredible and potentially devastating disruptions and consequences for South Howard businesses, the citizens who frequent those businesses, and those who live in the surrounding neighborhoods.' The letter alleged that the City Council was misled and that city staff claimed that the contract approved with Kimmins Contracting Corp. in November precludes board members from considering alternative routes. It claims that city Mobility Department Director Vik Bhide previously stated that would not be the case. 'It is apparent that the City Council was either misled into believing, or mistakenly understood, that approving the Kimmins Contract would allow the City to consider, rather than preclude it from considering, routes for the Project that do not include South Howard,' the letter said. Joe Collier, president of Mainsail Lodging and Development and former chairperson of visit Tampa Bay, said the business alliance met with the mayor and chief of staff and hired a separate engineering firm on its own and that it came up with five alternative routes. Collier said they met with Parkland Board and the city's mobility team to present them. 'We have some really good alternate routes that we put forward, I think that are pretty sharp, if you guys would just take the time to look at them,' he said. Collier said he asked Bhide if the mayor and the City Council tasked his team with a project that didn't close South Howard, would they be able to do it? Collier said Bhide said it would be possible but that it would be a political decision, and they were tasked with finding the fastest and cheapest route. But some residents of the neighborhood pleaded with the council not to reverse course and to take action quickly. 'It's been said that engineers from all over the world laugh at this project and that they have a better plan,' said resident Steve Gerrish. 'Where are those plans? Is it ready to start right now? Show us these engineers are laughing at the project. Because I can assure you that after spending a life's worth of savings on restoring my house, I am certainly not laughing.' Elizabeth Dinwiddie, another resident, said she believed the engineers had done their homework in selecting the best option and that years of research had gone into it. She expressed urgency in taking action. Council member Luis Viera reiterated his support for the project. 'For me on this issue, I'm going with city professionals on that,' he said. 'We've got to make sure that we do this in the most collaborative and decent way with all of the stakeholders there. But I just don't want anything that serves as real big delay.' Council member Alan Clendenin, who voted in favor of the project but asked other alternatives to be considered at the time, said the city may spend more money but gain public trust in presenting other options. 'Maybe this is the absolute perfect plan, but why not fully flesh out one or two other options?' he said. 'So that we can actually look at everything on the table at the same time? Say, OK, this is how much this costs, this is how much this costs.' The city's mobility administrator Jean Duncan said the city planned to present the alternative routes considered in May.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tampa council moves forward with whistleblower, grievance changes
Tampa's City Council unanimously moved Thursday to seek an outside lawyer to review the city's grievance processes and reach out to former employees to offer better options for those with workplace complaints. The vote came after two former employees in the city's mobility unit told council members they faced retaliation after raising concerns about a toxic work environment. They are among other former employees from the department who have previously voiced similar complaints. Council member Bill Carlson, who called for the discussion, said that most entities have a third party system for people to report complaints without fear of retribution having to be identified. Within the city, he said he's heard employees across divisions who fear reporting a concerns to human resources overseen by the mayor and her chief of staff. The move comes after a series of recent departures in high profile city offices that some said is part of a pattern. Stephanie Poynor, president of the Tampa Homeowners An Association of Neighborhoods, presented a list of 13 employees during public comment whom she said she knows who recently left the city, seven from the Mobility Department. She said it was a list of only those she was aware of. 'The bottom line is these are some big fish,' she said. The two former employees of the department told council members about their experiences. Danni Jorgenson, who filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, told the council she decided to share her experience thinking about 'others who left the city and those still with the city who may be afraid to speak up.' Jorgenson told the council that she experienced discrimination and harassment that she believed was based on her sex and familial status. 'As a working mother, the Mobility Department director told me to keep my opinions to myself, and I witnessed his constant criticism directed at women employees for occasionally taking advantage of remote work for child care reasons,' she said. 'Despite that, these women were some of the highest performers.' She said after contacting human resources about what she believes is a city-wide policy against remote work, she was directed by her department's director not to do so again. After that, Jorgenson said, she raised concerns to the mayor's executive team about how she believed working mothers 'were experiencing harassment, discrimination and a toxic work environment from the Mobility Department's leadership.' She said after that she was fired with no explanation other than she was an at-will employee. Alana Brasier, former coordinator for the city's Vision Zero project from 2020-23, called her experience traumatic and pointed to at least five others who resigned, retired or transferred divisions after she left. 'The larger issue that I believe has not been addressed is why so many people, in particular, women, left a small division of the Mobility Department in a short span of time, and why no one has been held accountable,' she said. 'Clearly, something is wrong with this picture, and what's more along that, there's not been any investigation by the city as to why so many people left.' Carroll Ann Bennett, a former union representative, called the two public testimonies a feat of bravery. 'I saw people on a regular basis who would come to me about issues that they were afraid to file grievances,' she said. 'They were afraid to try to do something about it, because they worried about retaliation in 100 little, petty ways that would make their life more miserable.' Carlson said he heard 'at least 100 calls like this.' 'Many of them, I'm in tears like we all felt just now, because you don't know what to do and what to help,' he said. 'And then when I call to ask to get help, I'm told, well, that the employee has to, has to call us and ask to report it. And employees are afraid of retaliation. So what are they supposed to do?' Council member Luis Viera supported bringing in an external party but alluded to the source of complaints being beyond the municipal office. 'The idea of why so many people have left mobility, that is obviously a real question, that is a real issue of concern, and one that we could look at,' he said. 'I've had talks with people who left the city, including different departments, etc, private talks and people leave for many, many, many reasons. Reasons to do with people in the administration, reasons to do with people in City Council, reasons to do with family, reasons to do with many, different things, a whole lot of reasons.' Viera and Carlson were later alluded by a different commenter as likely rivals for mayor when Castor leaves office. Council chair Guido Maniscalco said the departures raise concern. 'We've lost a lot of very, very good people,' he said. 'It's a huge loss to the city of Tampa that they're not here. 'And if there are issues, if one department is seeing a mass exodus, that's something that needs to be looked at. It's just, it's unhealthy.' Council member Lynn Hurtak asked if any exit interviews had been conducted. She said she believed people had the right to know why they were fired beyond being 'at-will' employees. The city's chief of staff, John Bennett, said no one had come to him, but he was unaware if others had taken place. Bennett said he has made a point of telling new employees to the city he always has an open door if they believe they have been aggrieved. Adam Smith, the city's communication director, said while an employee can request an exit interview, the city's Human Resources Department does not typically conduct them. He said the city attorney advised them not to comment on the allegations brought forth during the council meeting 'since most of what the two former employees spoke about today is either the subject of litigation or likely to be.'
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tampa council members looking into city employee complaints about harassment, discrimination
The Brief Tampa city council members listened to a series of former city employee complaints about alleged discrimination and harassment. City Council voted to look into hiring an independent employee attorney to analyze complaints. Council was presented a list of former employees who left in recent years, allegedly due to a bad work environment. TAMPA, Fla. - Tampa City Council members listened to a series of complaints from former City of Tampa employees about alleged discrimination and harassment during the council's workshop on Thursday. Council members voted to look into hiring an independent employment attorney to analyze the complaints and determine what the city's response should be. READ:Could the Tampa Bay Rays move to Orlando? 'Dreamers' aim to make it happen What they're saying The discussion about employee grievances, which was brought up by Councilman Bill Carlson, follows accusations from two former members of the city's Mobility Department, who said they experienced discrimination because they were working mothers. "I've had at least 100 calls like this and many of them I'm in tears like we all felt just now, because you don't know what to do and what to help them," Carlson said. "Individuals who have reported to me that they feel discriminated against feel like there may be retribution. They feel like they may be turned into a political pawn." Council was presented with a list of more than a dozen former employees, some who held higher-ranking positions, who allegedly left in recent years due to a bad work environment. Follow FOX 13 on YouTube Carlson, however, said the list doesn't include union-represented workers, such as police and firefighters, who have also left. Councilman Charlie Miranda said the situation is so concerning, he suggested turning to law enforcement. "I want an investigation from the top at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, see if there is criminal [conduct]," Miranda said. What we don't know Tampa Mayor Jane Castor's office declined to comment on Thursday, and the mobility department deferred to the mayor's office. MORE: Man accused of ramming Hillsborough deputy's vehicle gets bond after strong words from judge: 'Depraved mind' What's next The city's chief of staff, John Bennett, told council any concerns raised during employee exit interviews should have been reviewed. "Things that are routine or repeatable are discussed for continuous improvement. So those things do work up and down the organization," Bennett said. The Source The information in this story was gathered through Tampa City Council's workshop on Thursday. WATCH FOX 13 NEWS: STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app:Apple |Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tampa City Council blocks Rodeph Sholom condo proposal a third time
A third attempt to build a condominium on the site of the Rodeph Sholom synagogue on Bayshore Blvd was shot down by Tampa City Council Tuesday night after hours of public comments and a heated back and forth between council members. For nearly three years, The Related Group has tried and failed to rezone a portion of the synagogue's land to build a high-rise condo tower. Two earlier iterations of the plan presented in May 2023 and February this year were rejected by the city council for being too tall and out of place in the neighborhood. The first proposal called for 29 stories and the second called for 26. The third time around, the developer and synagogue took a different approach. Last year, Related and Rodeph Sholom filed a request for relief under Florida's land use laws. They claimed the synagogue's property value was diminished by the city's attempts to block rezoning. All three parties entered mediation in June. They agreed that the synagogue and developer should present an amended proposal and let council decide whether to accept or reject the plan as a form of settlement. That's what Tuesday's meeting was about. Council members Charlie Miranda, Bill Carlson, Lynn Hurtak and Guido Maniscalco voted to reject the settlement while Alan Clendenin, Gwendolyn Henderson and Luis Viera voted in favor of it. The updated plan called for a 16-story tower with 38-condo units. It also included additional sidewalks, an enhanced crosswalk and more trees than prior proposals. Members of the neighboring Tampa Garden Club and several nearby condo owners who turned out to oppose the measure said this wasn't an adequate compromise. 'If you start with a project that is absurdly incompatible, that doesn't make it compatible, it just makes it less absurdly incompatible,' said Richard Harrison, an attorney representing the Garden Club. He compared the plan to putting 'lipstick on a pig.' Rodeph Sholom congregation members and other supporters said the land deal would make it possible for them to pay for necessary building upgrades and remain on Bayshore, which has been their home for more than 100 years. They pointed to nearby buildings like the 24-story Altura Bayshore condo and the 15-story Presbyterian apartments to show the prevalence of high-rise development in the area. 'This is bigger than one building,' Lloyd Stern, president of Rodeph Sholom said. 'This is about Tampa's future. Will we be a city that embraces responsible sustainable growth, or one that caves to a small vocal opposition at the expense of progress?' Though the proposal is stalled for now, the fight may not be over. The developer and synagogue already laid the groundwork for a potential lawsuit when they filed a petition in court last year. In an interview ahead of Tuesday's meeting, Nicole MacInnes from Stearns Miller Weaver, the law firm representing Rodeph Sholom and Related, told the Tampa Bay Times that they would 'certainly be looking at all legal opportunities that they have to continue with this site.' Council members Viera and Clendenin, who voted in favor of the settlement, questioned whether this was a battle worth waging considering the potential legal implications and the possibility that a future council may vote to approve an even bigger development on the site. Hurtak, who opposed the measure, argued that voting in favor of the plan just to avoid litigation would set a dangerous precedent. 'This is exactly what developers are going to do,' she said. 'If they can get on this they are going to start high and they're going to end a little bit higher than they are allowed. We are opening the floodgates to this.'
