The Winter Springs City Commission voted unanimously at a special meeting Thursday to approve a new stormwater master plan to reduce flooding problems.
The plan identifies 46 areas of interest with flooding issues throughout the city, and lays out 12 capital improvement projects to address some of them. But when commissioners return in the new year, they’ll still need to hash out some necessary specifics about the plan — including how to fund it.
District 1 Commissioner Paul Diaz didn’t hide his apprehension about the financial uncertainties.
“I'm just overall concerned about how open-ended everything is,” Diaz said. “We've got a lot of open-ended costs … We're going to be dealing with things that we have to budget first. And we have no numbers.”
Dollars, cents — and ponds
The new stormwater plan was prepared by engineers with the city and the consulting firm Kimley-Horn. Its financial services sub-consultant will take the city through a budgeting process next year, said professional engineer Matt Brosman. The process will include a utility rate study.
But first, early next year, consultants and staff will bring commissioners a proposed pond maintenance policy to consider. Once adopted, that policy will be part of the rate study, said Director of Public Works and Utilities Clete Saunier.
The ponds warrant their own, separate meeting, Saunier said.
More than 300 lakes and ponds weave through Winter Springs, and not all of them are owned or maintained by the city. Some “cross-pollinated” ponds are “hybrids,” Saunier said, with multiple entities involved.
Ultimately, the question before the commission will be how much responsibility the city should assume for maintaining those hybrid ponds. The finalized pond maintenance policy could have a potentially “significant financial swing” on the overall stormwater plan, Brosman said.
The goal is to figure out creative ways for the city to finance flooding solutions over time. What length of time will ultimately be left up to the city to determine, based on results from the forthcoming rate study and the funding expected to be available.
“I fully intend that …. once we understand what the revenue streams are from the rate study, we're going to have to refine and tweak this a bit, just to make sure that the rates aren't so prohibitive to the citizens of the community (that) they can't afford it,” Saunier said.
Winter Springs utility rates rose significantly earlier this year. Tim Wansbury, treasurer of a local homeowners’ association, or HOA, asked commissioners to preserve the city’s existing 25% stormwater rate discount for gated community residents.
“Keep the 25% credit. Fifty percent would be better,” Wansbury said. “See what you can do for us.”
For the last five years, he’s been the treasurer for the Howell Creek Reserve HOA, Wansbury said. The association has spent nearly $160,000 on maintaining its stormwater infrastructure, including five ponds, he said. Wansbury described his community’s stormwater management program as “very aggressive.”
“Although we are not the public stormwater infrastructure,” he said, “we are certainly part of the city of Winter Springs’ stormwater infrastructure. If we don't do our job, then that affects a lot of other folks.”
City resident Art Gallo said creeks and ponds on private property can’t be fully separated from the concerns of the broader public utility.
“We may be private, but we're part of the overall stormwater system. If something happens in my backyard, it's going to impact a lot more than just me,” Gallo said.
“I think we've neglected this argument,” he said, “or we've avoided it, or we haven't thought of it … for many years. And I'm hoping that we'll address that in the future.”
He’d like to see more from the stormwater plan about private ponds. But still, Gallo said, he’s glad the commission approved it.
“I want to thank you for all your hard work, especially those of the team that put the plan together,” Gallo said. “Although it’s not perfect, it is a good starting point.”
What’s next
Besides utility rate revenues, grants and legislative appropriations are options the city could explore for funding the stormwater plan. Saunier floated the idea of pursuing an interlocal agreement with other entities, like the St. Johns River Water Management District or Seminole County.
The county’s newly-approved stormwater studies for five watersheds overlapping with Winter Springs’ city limits allowed for improvements to be incorporated into the city’s new plan, Bosman said. The five overlapping watersheds are Gee Creek, Howell Creek, Little Lake Howell, Soldier’s Creek and Lake Jesup.
All over Central Florida, flooding is a serious problem communities are working to address.
“I've said it a thousand times. It'll continue to be an issue that our community deals with for decades,” said Mayor Kevin McCann.
Consultants will bring the proposed pond maintenance policy to the Jan. 12 commission meeting.
