It was standing room only Wednesday night at a town hall meeting in Port Orange, where nearly 200 people packed into a room at the city library to discuss flooding concerns.
Volusia County Council Chair Jeffrey Brower invited community members and officials to the meeting after several inches of rain recently caused flooding for some county residents. The county recently warned that stalled rain patterns, combined with king tide conditions, could make flooding more likely.
RELATED: Volusia County warns King Tide plus stalled, heavy rain could bring floods
Flooding and development
But in Volusia County, flooding concerns stretch far beyond any one given incident or rainstorm. Many residents have long insisted that rampant development of the area is making flooding worse. Brower agrees.
“I hear a lot — in county council meetings, I hear it in the entire community — that the flooding issue is not related to development,” Brower said, prompting an uproar of laughter from the audience. “And that's my response,” he said.
“I have spent four years following water from retention ponds and developments into flooded neighborhoods, and you can follow the path of the water,” Brower said. “I want to see how severe it is, [and] make sure you're not exaggerating, when somebody tells me they've had to replace their walls and their floors more than twice.”
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Earlier this year, the county council voted to adopt several new policies pushing for low-impact development standards, or LID. That kind of development approach focuses on not altering an area’s natural landscape as much as possible, including by allowing for improved stormwater flow.
But now a new, controversial state law has become a roadblock for Volusia’s LID standards, county Public Works Director Benjamin Bartlett said Wednesday. Bartlett described the new, voluntary LID standards as “common-sense regulations” that staff worked hard on, in partnership with members of the county’s Environmental and Natural Resources Advisory Committee.
“We worked through that process to really come up with some regulations that would address a lot of the issues that we saw and observed during these storms that were caused by new development,” Bartlett said. “And so we're just as frustrated by Senate Bill 180.”
The new state law
Effective as of this summer, Senate Bill 180 preempts local governments from making “more restrictive or burdensome” changes to their comprehensive plans or land development codes. The law doesn’t define that term, “more restrictive or burdensome” — a chief complaint among critics of the legislation.
“Its scope is not limited to any particular subject matter or issue but is across the board for the land use and zoning related actions described,” in the law, reads a legal analysis prepared for 1000 Friends of Florida by land use attorney Richard Grosso. “It allows lawyers for landowners to claim that any change that reduces any current options or adds any new standards for development is ‘more restrictive or burdensome’ …. Seemingly, a person can sue to void the things they dislike and keep the ones they like.”
Brower has been pushing on the behalf of Volusia County for legislators to make changes to the law.
“I've called county chairs around the state, because this bill affects every city and every county in the state of Florida. We're all in the same boat,” Brower said.
So far, five counties — including Volusia — are taking a stab at writing proposed amendments to the legislation, an effort facilitated by the Florida Association of Counties, Brower said Wednesday. That same day, Brower said, he learned about some positive news on that effort.
“They [FAC] think that Volusia County's was the best,” Brower said, adding that elected county leaders are expected to vote soon on which proposal of amendments to advance.
Elsewhere in the county and state, local governments are signing onto a class-action lawsuit against SB 180, including Orange County, plus the cities of Edgewater and Deltona in Volusia.
"Don’t change the grade of the land"
Port Orange resident Jan Albert is a longtime real estate appraiser with a degree in hydrology and geology. She’s concerned about two development projects proposed in the county, including one that would go into the rural subdivision where she lives, A Quiet Place in the Country.
“These two developments that they're proposing aren't just gonna flood a few people. It's gonna flood all of East Volusia, because it's like a Jenga block there,” Albert said.
The development proposed for her subdivision would require removing thousands of old-growth oak trees, Albert said. “Literally, if you pull out all those trees, it's going to be like pulling a plug from a bathtub.”
Energy in the room was high at Wednesday night’s meeting, with residents at times applauding responses from officials and fellow residents, and, at other moments, raising their voices in frustration. Brower, Bartlett and county Director of Development Engineering Tadd Kasbeer fielded questions from residents during the question and answer session.
“So far, all I'm hearing is: ‘we can't do nothing about it,’” said Daytona Beach resident Greg Gimbert. “The old rules don't work, the water doesn't follow the science, the ponds aren't good enough. And then we hear we can't change the rules because [of] Senate Bill 180.
“Maybe the next time we have a meeting, we can start talking about actual solutions that aren't part of the normal operating business parameters,” Gimbert said. The room broke out into applause once he finished speaking.
For Gimbert, the best and most common-sense solution is to stop allowing developers to change the grade of the land.
“You can build all you want: high-density, low-density, whatever. Just don't change the grade of the land,” Gimbert said. “Build on stilts. Don't raise.”
What next?
Brower said he'd invited representatives from several cities in the county, plus the state department of transportation and St. Johns River Water Management District. But only Orange County representatives sat before the room to take questions from residents Wednesday. Brower did thank “a friend," South Daytona City Manager James Gillis, Jr., who sat near the back of the room.
“Don't leave here thinking, well, nobody in my city cares because they didn't show up. It was short notice for them,” Brower said. “I need to work with my counterparts in the cities. And I want to do that.”
At several points during the meeting, Brower also urged people to vote based on a candidate’s campaign contributions, not their political party affiliation.
“A lot of us vote for people because of their party affiliation, and we have to stop,” Brower said, urging people to instead seek out public records of candidates’ finances from their respective supervisor of elections office.
“And if you see the people that are making a good living off of development, that probably tells you that their inclination is that — and I'm not saying for nefarious reasons — but their inclination is that we need to keep developing,” Brower said.
Brower was re-elected to the council chair position in November and cannot run again. He beat opponent Randy Dye, whose campaign raised much more money than Brower’s, drawing large donations from entities tied to development, construction and real estate.
For his part, Gimbert remains skeptical that electing any given person to public office would make a significant difference.
“None of these people are going to save you. You’re gonna have to do it yourself,” Gimbert said. “You're going to have to amend the scope and depth of the powers we lend these people, in a creative way, that keeps them from being able to change the grade of the land any further.”
Brower encouraged residents to visit the county’s webpage for flooding and stormwater management to stay updated on staff’s efforts.
