About 90 people met at a Volusia County church Thursday night to discuss concerns about flooding and water quality in the Tomoka Farms Village community, a designated rural area just west of Port Orange where some thousand families live, attendees said.
Many Tomoka Farms Village residents say area flooding is getting worse, blaming impacts from newer, surrounding developments built up several feet higher than the older homes in their community.
“The encroachment is upon us,” said longtime resident and meeting co-organizer Mike Poniatowski, speaking to Thursday’s crowd.
“We want all of you folks to be part of our voice: to protect the Tomoka Farms Village as we age out and municipalities try to move in, and people try to do things that aren't appropriate for what the village is meant to be,” Poniatowski said.
The area is designated for rural residential and agricultural use per its Local Plan, one of 15 such area-specific plans listed online by Volusia County. But in recent years, bigger developments have sprouted up in the surrounding area: creating more stormwater runoff that ultimately floods into Tomoka Farms Village, according to residents.
“It's happening because of overbuilding, and requirements that require new development to be raised,” Poniatowski said. “We get the brunt of all the development, and it's happening all over the village. No matter where you are, you probably see ponding and puddling.”
Rob Pasternak also addressed the crowd Thursday night, saying he thinks higher elevation requirements for new buildings make sense — but not at the expense of his neighbors.
“There's properties that have flooded multiple times here. So is it just on that property owner, because that property was built 20, 30, 40, years ago?” Pasternak said.
Some Tomoka Farms residents have lived in the area for generations, Pasternak said.
“There's [gotta be] a way to figure this stuff out, to where we don't have to flood every time we get a heavy rainfall just because the new standard is to build much higher,” Pasternak said. “There's gotta be a happy medium somewhere.”
But with more, higher-intensity development already on the horizon nearby, meeting organizers said they’re urging Tomoka Farms Village residents to band together as a unified force. The goal is to push local officials to preserve the area’s rural character, and to address drainage issues that remain unresolved after being identified more than a decade ago.
A watershed study published in 2009 recommended six drainage improvement projects, along with cost estimates totalling roughly $1.3 million for all six. Today, just one of those projects would cost roughly $8 million, according to a Volusia County spokesperson who confirmed that for various reasons, most of the work outlined in that 2009 study was never done.
Meanwhile, with higher stormwater fees set to begin next month for unincorporated Volusia County residents, some in Tomoka Farms Village wonder if the extra revenues will do their community any good.
“We're all paying a lot in taxes, and we'd like to see it used appropriately,” Pasternak said. “None of us want to flood.”
Volusia County Councilmembers approved the stormwater rate hike in April, after speaking at length about how much it would likely cost to make serious, necessary upgrades across the county’s 16 watersheds. Right now, only 11 of those watersheds have stormwater management master plans prepared and many are more than 20 years old, according to Public Works Director Benjamin Bartlett.
“With no change in revenue, by fiscal year 2026 we’ll be running a deficit,” Bartlett told Council in April.
Ultimately, the council voted 5-2 to approve a new monthly stormwater rate of $8 per ERU (Equivalent Residential Unit): the maximum allowable increase before a public hearing would be required, per Bartlett, and up $1.50 from the current rate.
That’s “a start,” County Manager George Recktenwald told Council in April, but won’t be enough to cover all needs. Before the end of the year, Recktenwald said he plans to bring back a plan for more, incremental rate increases moving forward.
Meanwhile, ad-hoc community organizers said they plan to hold more regular meetings like Thursday’s, to keep residents engaged in efforts to preserve their beloved Tomoka Farms Village.
“It's a place where we cherish our posterity and our property that we've had for generations, and if it floods, it's no good to anybody,” Poniatowski said.
But speaking up persistently and collectively can help, he said.
“If they keep building and lifting and filling, it's going to keep flooding, until we make our voices heard so that we can change things,” Poniatowski said. “And yes, we can change things.”
