PANAMA CITYBEACH — The Panama City Beach City Council Thursday is scheduled to approve engineering studies for stormwater projects aimed at alleviating flooding in Gulf Highlands and The Glades.
In 2013, the council approved a survey to examine flood basins in The Glades and Gulf Highlands subdivisions, which includes the area surrounding Seaclusion Drive where many homes flooded during the July 4 storms of that year.
Many homes in the flooded area were built prior to adoption of the city’s stormwater ordinance, which requires structures be built at least 1 foot above the road.
The council at its 2 p.m. meeting at 110 S. Arnold Road is scheduled to decide whether to enter into a contract with one of the city’s stormwater consultants, Preble-Rish Inc., to perform engineering services for the Gulf Highlands Stormwater Improvement project. The funds are coming from federal hazard mitigation grants the city has been awarded after the flooding in 2013, which affected 400 homes in the subdivision.
The council is being asked to approve a $99,700 engineering contract with the firm and an agreement between the city and the Florida Division of Emergency Management to spend $109,256 in grant money for the drainage project.
In August 2013, CDM Smith was hired to analyze different scenarios to see whether infrastructure improvements could help alleviate some of the flooding for 100-year rainfall events in the subdivision. The report concluded that adding two, 54-inch culverts at Front Beach Road near the Pompano’s restaurant parcel, and lowering a portion of the existing weir, would provide 5 to 6 inches of drainage relief to many Gulf Highlands residents during the severe flooding event.
The engineering work is just part of a two-year project being funded with $690,000 in grants the city is receiving from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Cliff Knauer, the vice president of Preble-Rish that helped the city apply for the grant money, said the funds are also paying for the installation of the culverts, which will lower the flood elevation about a half-foot for the upstream basin.
“A lot of houses that did get flooded only flooded by a few inches, so it could be a huge deal,” he said. “It is going to fix the flooding potential for a large portion of houses” in the subdivision.
The council also is being asked to approve an agreement to spend $15,075 in city funds to hire another city stormwater consultant, McNeil Carroll Engineering Inc., to study wetlands for a possible ditch widening project north of the Glades subdivision.
In August 2013, CDM Smith was hired to see if proposed infrastructure improvements also could help alleviate some of the flooding for the 100-year rainfall events in The Glades.
“The report suggested making a few different improvements that combined would be able to drop flooding levels in the area” a little more than 7 inches, “where most damage occurred to the residences,” states a Jan. 13 memo from city stormwater engineer Kelly Jenkins to City Manager Mario Gisbert. “One of the recommendations is to widen the channel that the Glades discharges to on the north side of Back Beach Road that then outfalls into West Bay.”
Jenkins said in a telephone interview Wednesday there are no grant funds to install stormwater improvements in The Glades, which had about 20 homes that flooded in 2013, but this study would help determine whether improvements are feasible.
“There is so much permitting we’d have to go through,” she said. “We need to see if it’s possible.”
Other action: The council also is scheduled to approve the first of two readings of an ordinance that will require special event organizers to submit applications 30 days prior to the event.
“The advantage of a 30-day notice is we can plan for” the event, Gisbert said.
He said this ordinance is separate from the beach special events ordinance the council recently passed that also requires the 30-day notice.
“This is for all the other special events,” he said. “This works for the horse shows, the car shows, the motorcycle shows, a foot race, ‘The Biggest Loser.’ ”
The council also is scheduled to consider an ordinance that requires those who want to appeal a Planning Board land development code decision do so no less than 10 days prior to the City Council’s public hearing on the application.
Panama City BeachPlanning Director Mel Leonardsaid the ordinance was developed after a case over the summer. In June, the owners of Miracle Strip at Pier Park appealed a development order for a 10-ride amusement park on the same site where their park formerly was located.
“The Miracle Strip attorney had filed the appeal,” Leonard said. “What this does is kick in a requirement that staff has to prepare a report that is available to the public and all parties involved, and the board, at least five days prior to the meeting. The attorney properly filed the appeal, but then within the five-day period after staff had done this report, he amended the appeal, and now staff couldn’t meet the procedural requirements.”