The Indian Trail Improvement District Board of Supervisors will hold a special meeting Monday, July 15 in an attempt resolve frustrations over the board’s April decision to remove a culvert at the south end of Carol Street in the Santa Rosa Groves neighborhood.
The removal cut access to 60th Street/59th Lane North and left residents of the rural tier neighborhood with only one way in and out — via Louise Street to 70th Road North.
“I’m hopeful,” Santa Rosa Groves resident Bill Derks said Wednesday about the upcoming meeting.
Derks and his wife Young have been leading the push to have the culvert replaced and the crossing reopened.
ITID President Elizabeth Accomando, a Carol Street resident, is also hopeful that the access will be reopened soon.
“I’d definitely like to see a resolution to this,” she said.
On Tuesday night, the Acreage Landowners’ Association used its meeting at ITID headquarters as a forum to allow some 20 Santa Rosa Groves residents and others to express their views. Derks led the discussion. Afterward, the ALA agreed to send a letter to ITID supporting the installation of a new culvert and crossing.
“I don’t think they realized the impact [removing the culvert] was going to be,” ALA Treasurer Lou Colantuoni Jr. said Wednesday. “Hopefully, the board will give the community back that historic connection.”
According to Monday’s agenda, the two choices before the supervisors are to continue their plan to poll Santa Rosa Groves/Unit 20 landowners regarding their wishes concerning installation of a new culvert or to approve a special permit allowing developer GL Homes to install a single 80-foot-long culvert and cover it with the proper amount of soil to allow the crossing to reopen.
GL, which owns several thousand acres in the area that it currently leases for farming, would do the project for free.
The company’s engineer has approved the plans, but the ITID agenda notes that the culvert to be used is designed for “agricultural and very low-density residential usage as currently exists. This crossing is not typical of crossings ITID has in the M-1 and M-2 basins.”
ITID Executive Director Burgess Hanson said that the district remains “concerned with the long-term structural integrity of the culvert” and will be studying the permit request with an eye toward conditions that may be applied to it from a legal and/or engineering standpoint. Those may include the installation of guard rails.
Hanson also pointed out that while only two options are listed on the agenda, “the board could do something completely different. It’s up to them.”
The Cypress Grove Community Development District, which is in charge of drainage for a narrow strip including the Carol Street crossing, will maintain the culvert, if approved.
Derks reiterated Wednesday his view that there is no need for further polling on the issue. He said he already has polled most of the 99 individuals who own lots in the neighborhood, and of the 62 responses he has received, all supported reinstallation of the culvert.
He said some property owners could not be reached because they live elsewhere, and that he did not provide a questionnaire to Accomando.
Derks blames Accomando for the culvert’s removal. Accomando has said she became concerned that the culvert was unsafe and reported her concerns to ITID staff members.
Supervisors voted April 17 to remove the culvert after district staff reported that it was dangerously deteriorated.
Initially, there were no plans to replace the culvert or reopen the crossing, but pressure from a number of residents led by Derks forced ITID to reconsider.
