The Indian Trail Improvement District expects to see a number of accomplishments in 2016, including the start of the southern expansion of Acreage Community Park after years of delay.
But ITID will also spend a lot of time trying to control the effects of development issues that have sprung up from the ashes of the last recession. “It appears that Palm Beach County is going to be approving more development projects,” District Manager Jim Shallman told the Town-Crier on Wednesday. “Our biggest concern right now is making certain that any impact to our roadways is mitigated by the developers.”
ITID representatives plan to meet with county officials on Jan. 11 to air their concerns.
“That’s two days before Palm Beach County Days [in Tallahassee], so I’m kind of hoping that we coordinate a little with that meeting and go up north and see what we can do,” Shallman said. “The scenery is going to change around here, and there is no doubt that the roadways will be impacted — parks as well. We have pretty nice parks out here, so it’s not really just a safety issue, it’s quality of life.”
He pointed out that ITID is limited to property assessments for its revenue, which remain the same even in a recovering economy, while governments funded by ad valorem tax revenue get more money with rising property values when keeping the same rate. ITID, by contrast, gets 97 percent of its revenue from non-ad valorem assessments.
“We don’t have any other real revenue streams to choose from except grant funding, which we’re getting pretty good at, so we do have some of those opportunities now,” Shallman said. “We want to remain rural, and we think of ourselves as a rural district, acre-and-a-quarter lots with dirt roads. We were recognized as a place in the 2010 census, but we are unable to generate the kind of money that cities and incorporated towns can, so we really do have to rely on grants.”
ITID representatives expect to spend a good amount of time during Palm Beach County Days lobbying legislators to support the district’s grants.
“They are already in the works. We’ve already got two FRDAP [Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program] grants right now that are on the recommended funding list,” Shallman said. “Cultural facilities, we’ve got one for Hamlin House, which would take into account the money that we already have spent there. It would be no match, $100,000, and that would be a great deal.”
They recently applied for three water project grants, including $2.9 million for ITID’s share for completion of the Corbett berm.
“We’d have to work out something with the South Florida Water Management District because it’s really their project, but we’re at least attempting to help out in that kind of funding,” he said.
The SFWMD is near completion of the first phase of the Corbett berm project. “It’s amazing the way that berm looks,” he said. “It’s night and day from what it was before.”
ITID also plans to continue canal bottom clearing, which started with about 10 miles of clearing last year.
“I’d like to make that 15 next year if we could do it,” Shallman said. “That’s our goal. We have 50 miles of swale restorations. That’s basically what we do. We’re in business of keeping the waterways flowing and the roads maintained.”
The district did three major culvert replacements last year and will probably do three to five more in 2016. One culvert project is about to start at Hall Blvd. and 88th Road North.
“We’re going to replace that with a concrete culvert and also add a traffic calming station south of Northlake [Blvd.],” he said. “That’s in the works to start in January.”
A two-mile sidewalk project is set to start on Grapeview Blvd., which was at the request of residents.
The district also plans to support the county buying back a strip of Mecca Farms from the SFWMD for use as an easement for a road to Northlake Blvd. to replace the portion of the Seminole Pratt Whitney Road easement that was abandoned when Mecca Farms was sold.
Shallman also anticipates great strides in park development in the next year, including the Acreage Community Park south expansion.
“The projects that we’re definitely getting ready to start involve Acreage Community Park,” he said. “We have some great, state-of-the-art recreational facilities, but the one thing I want to do, and almost insist on, is sticking a shovel in the ground for the Acreage Community Park expansion. It has been one thing after another for 12 years, and I think, finally, we’re at a spot where we should be breaking ground probably in a month or so. That’s a big issue for a lot of people.”
Canal and pump station maintenance, telemetry monitoring and diagnosis, and storm readiness are key things that ITID does every day, Shallman said, and a pilot pump project is well underway for possible drainage improvements using the Moss property owned by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“That seems to be going along pretty well,” he said. “We’ll find out more when we go up north for Palm Beach County Days.”
