The Indian Trail Improvement District Board of Supervisors agreed 4-0 in a Monday, July 15 special meeting to accept an offer from developer GL Homes to install a new culvert at the south end of Carol Street in the Santa Rosa Groves neighborhood.
The 80-foot pipe rated for agricultural uses would allow the reconnection of Carol Street to 60th Street/59th Lane North.
“The plans are done, and we’re ready to go,” GL Homes Vice President Larry Portnoy said. “We’ve actually ordered the pipe.”
GL, which owns several thousand acres near Santa Rosa Groves, agreed to purchase the pipe and install it at no cost to residents.
GL filed its permit application with the district this week, said Robert Robinson, ITID’s assistant executive director and operations director. The application was sent to the district’s engineering department for review, he said. Afterward, it will be reviewed by ITID’s legal counsel.
ITID and the Cypress Grove Community Development District, which is in charge of drainage for a narrow strip including the Carol Street crossing, remain in negotiation about which entity will maintain the culvert and the crossing, Robinson said Wednesday.
Even if the permit is quickly approved, work cannot begin until an amendment to ITID’s Water Management Plan is voted on at the board’s Aug. 21 meeting.
“I’m very satisfied,” Santa Rosa Groves resident Bill Derks said of the apparent resolution.
Derks and his wife Young have been leading the push to have the culvert replaced and the crossing re-opened.
However, ITID President Elizabeth Accomando said it’s too early to say whether she is satisfied.
“I want it to be a safe crossing,” said Accomando, a Carol Street resident. “If [District Engineer] Jay Foy says it’s safe, I’ll take his word. That’s why we have these professionals.”
The special meeting was called in an attempt resolve frustrations over the board’s April decision to remove the previous, aging culvert. 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.
Initially, there was no plan to install a replacement culvert, but an outcry from Santa Rosa Groves’ 200 or so residents forced ITID officials to reconsider. Residents worried that with only one way in and out of the neighborhood, which has suffered flooding issues for years, they would be in greater danger from rising water or fire, and from an increase in response time from emergency responders. Others complained that the change doubled or tripled the distance and time it took for them to reach agri-businesses in Sunny Urban Meadows.
Supervisor Patricia Farrell said she would have liked to have seen a more robust installation. However, Foy estimated the cost of a so-called “dry install” to more typical ITID standards would have cost some $334,000 — a cost that would have been borne by the neighborhood’s 99 property owners.
GL’s engineer has approved the plans, but ITID’s July 15 agenda noted 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 prior to the meeting that the district remains “concerned with the long-term structural integrity of the culvert.” He suggested it may be necessary to install guard rails.
In the end, Farrell called GL’s offer “a happy medium.”
“I’m glad it won’t be financially impacting the residents,” she said.
Supervisor Michael Johnson was not present for the July 15 special meeting.
