Council reviews 30 percent plans
The Fort Myers Beach Town Council praised Tetra Tech Thursday for what some of the members deemed the clearest presentation on stormwater processes to date.
“This presentation shows us clearly the decisions we have to make,” said Council Member Joanne Shamp.
Danny Nelson and Tim Vanderwalker of Tetra Tech gave a presentation to council at Thursday’s planning session. The 30 percent plans, which outline everything the town needs to do for the stormwater system for the rest of the island, are almost complete.
During a meeting in Nov. 2017, Tetra Tech updated the council on the 30 percent plans, showing them estimated costs and “value engineering” costs to accomplish the town’s goals. During that meeting, council instructed the engineers to come back with a razored-down cost, addressing as many streets as possible with value engineering – seeing where costs could be cut by fixing problem spots on a street that floods, rather than putting in a pipe for the entire street, for example.
At Thursday’s meeting, Tetra Tech came back with those results.
The town has committed to spending $20 million on its island-wide stormwater system. Approximately $8 million of that sum must be dedicated to the cost-share with Lee County for the joint outfalls primarily used to drain Estero Boulevard.
The joint outfalls for Segment 2, of which most are under construction, are: Bay Road, Donora Boulevard, Eucalyptus Court, Jefferson Street, Connecticut Street, Bay Mar Drive, Hercules Drive and Bayview Avenue. Segment 3’s outfalls are under design: Williams Drive, Dakota Avenue/Palmetto Street/Easy Street, Lazy Way, Aberdeen Avenue/Lauder Street/Dundee Road, and Mound Road. Phase 4’s outfalls are still in planning, but the suggested streets are: Lenell Road, Buccaneer Drive and Redfish Road/Lagoon Road.
That leaves a little more than $11 million for approximately 15 side streets the town wants to fix.
“The approach Tetra Tech took is that, we have to fund the joint outfalls, that comes off the top,” Town Manager Roger Hernstadt said. “Then it becomes an issue of what can we afford beyond that assuming we keep the same fee.”
The 15 streets Tetra Tech is suggesting for its highest priority, and the biggest bang for the town’s stormwater fee, are: First Street, Crescent Street, sections of Shell Mound Road, Madison Court, Mid-Island Drive, Andre Mar, Mandalay Road, Gulfview Avenue (Bay), Bayland Road, Williams Drive, Lauder Street, Fairview Boulevard, Buccaneer Drive, Lagoon Road and Estrellita Drive.
The $11 million also includes $4 million for “minimum improvements” to all the town’s outfalls: 65 sediment boxes to help treat stormwater before it discharges to the bay, and 65 back flow preventers, which keep the bay from flowing back into the outfalls.
Vice Mayor Tracey Gore wanted to see Lovers Lane added to the list.
Council Member Anita Cereceda expressed concern that none of the “bird streets,” Ibis, Curlew or Egret, were included in the 15 hot streets list.
Tetra Tech used a matrix to score each street within a set of criteria, such as citizen complaints, flooding frequency, level of service improvement, and cost to address, when ranking the streets. While Curlew Street is often complained about, it didn’t rank high enough in other categories to make the cut.
Curlew Street landed in what Tetra Tech called the “Tier 2” list, a collection of streets that would cost the town an additional $14 million to make improvements. These streets also didn’t quite make the matrix’s cut of highest-scoring streets.
Hernstadt told the council that should it want to add another street to the high priority list, it could be funded from different sources than the stormwater utility fee.
“This is the list of streets Tetra Tech is recommending being the highest priority in terms of spending money there and getting the best benefit,” Hernstadt said. “The council has adopted a capital renewal and replacement plan. If you decided Lovers Lane was a priority, we would reschedule the work in that plan if you felt that was a priority over other things in that plan. If you wanted to introduce one more street, I don’t think that would be a problem.”
Vanderwalker said a back flow preventer, one of the minimum improvements included in the overall $20 million price tag, would help Curlew Street with some of its flooding issues.
“It’s a matter of how much improvement are we seeing, and how much bang for the buck are we seeing with those projects,” Vanderwalker said.
Since it was a planning meeting, no action was taken. But based on the council members’ general agreement on Tetra Tech’s presentation, the consultant will bring back the 15 hot streets and minimum improvements for approval to move forward with design.