ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The St. Pete Resident Task Force pilot program will kick off next month with a bus tour of the Shore Acres and Riviera Bay neighborhoods to find innovative flood mitigation solutions.

What You Need To Know

  • St. Pete Resident Task Force pilot program will begin with bus tour of the Shore Acres and Riviera Bay neighborhoods on May 10

  • The group was created by the City of St. Petersburg and the the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council 

  • A third party engineering consultant company will also join the group and create a topographical map of flood hot-spots

  • A public workshop for all neighborhoods will be held at the Coliseum on Aug. 9

“The city is giving residents a seat at the table,” said Kevin Batdorf, President Shore Acres Civic Association. “Which is what we asked for and is being proactive in helping to develop a plan that someday may stop flooding or at least get our homes out of harm’s way.”

The task force was created by the City of St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council to look for flooding solutions with neighborhood leaders. A third party engineering consultant company will also join the group.

“During this process, they are going to create a topographical map of the areas affected by flood to show where the hot-spots are.” said Batdorf. “Look at the problem through a different set of eyes and possibly come up with some alternative solutions that haven’t been considered.”

Batdorf said Hurricane Helene flooded 82% of the homes in Shore Acres last September, sending water inside 2,196 homes.

Vanessa Pugliese is the President of the Riviera Bay Civic Association and said all 1,250 homes in the Riviera Bay neighborhood were flooded, but some only had water in the garage.

“There’s a lot of sections of the neighborhood where it’s RVs and pods still,” she said. “We’re having issues that we never had before and we’re noticing all of the development around us and all of the runoff and it’s all dumping in our canals.”

Pugliese said she has been trying to get the city to dredge the canals because they fill up with sand after every storm.

“We’re hoping that is one of the things that the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Commission does recommend for Riviera Bay is to dredge the system of canals to help protect the homes,” she said. “The depth of this canal has been reduced so far that you can barely get a kayak in here anymore. And even worse so after Helene.”

The city had planned to raise a low-lying seawall along a canal last September, but those plans were put on hold after Helene, according to Pugliese. She’s looking for bolder recommendations from the task force but is skeptical.

“We are hoping that maybe they have some bigger infrastructure ideas for managing the water, not just in Riviera Bay, but of the surrounding areas that brings it into our area,” said Pugliese. “We had that meeting a year ago and nothing has changed in Riviera Bay since. There hasn’t been a project completed. There hasn’t been a project started of any significance. So we’re a little bit wary.”

The St. Pete Resident Task Force will focus on maintenance and upgrades to infrastructure that draw on best practices, according to TBRPC. The pilot program will combine studies to get results for future projects.

The bus tour is scheduled for May 10 and is open to the public, although with limited seating, residents may have to follow in their car, according to Batdorf. The Shore Acres tour will run from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. followed by Riviera Bay from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The tour will extend to North, West, Central and South neighborhoods on May 17 and 31. A public workshop for all neighborhoods will be held at the Coliseum on Aug. 9.