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Nearly $4 million for flood mitigation in Osceola County requested ahead of legislative session

Funding for flood mitigation, affordable housing and ways to regain local government authority are on the wish list of elected officials from Osceola County, and the cities of Kissimmee and St. Cloud, and they asked the region’s Tallahassee representatives to fight for them during the upcoming session, which starts Jan. 9.

Reps. Carolina Amesty, Kristen Arrington and Paula Stark and Sen. Victor Torres attended Wednesday’s meeting.

The county and cities are asking the legislative delegation for almost $4 million for flood mitigation. This comes after the county requested nearly $164 million from the federal government for flood mitigation projects in January. Only months before in fall 2022, across Osceola County, residents experienced flood waters over 18 inches during Hurricane Ian, which left the city flooded for weeks after the hurricane. The historic flooding along East Lake Toho, Lake Runnymede and Shingle Creek left some residences at the Good Samaritan Society retirement community condemned or severely damaged, displacing many residents.

Kissimmee city manager Mike Steigerwald asked the Florida House and Senate members to secure funding for a study to prevent flooding. He also asked for $500,000 to complete a $1.1 million drainage improvement project in the city.

“As the delegation is aware, we experienced unprecedented flooding and rainfall during Hurricane Ian,” Steigerwald said during the more than three-hour meeting. “… We have to better anticipate the types of storms that we’re seeing with greater frequency today.”

Steigerwald and Osceola County Manager Don Fisher asked the delegation for $1.28 million in funding to increase Lake Toho’s ability to retain more water and clean vegetation in the lake.

“[Lake Toho] is packed with hydrilla but it also creates capacity in the pond,” Fisher said. “Think about a cup of water reaching in a bunch of sponges and they can’t take out more water so removing that one time will help us be more resilient during storm events.”

In 2022, Arrington filed a bill for funding a water quality and restoration project in Lake Toho but it was vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

St. Cloud Mayor Nathan Blackwell asked the delegation for $2.2 million to complete drainage improvements along U.S. Highway 192 and downtown St. Cloud’s historic district.

“These areas have experienced and are prone to significant flooding, certainly during heavy rainstorms and when tropical systems hit our area,” Blackwell said. “We’ll be installing new drainage inlets and high-capacity storm sewer pipes and this will increase the capacity of our aging system that is prone to flooding and will certainly benefit the low-to-moderate residents who live in that area.”

Blackwell, who also serves as the president of the Tri-County League of Cities for Orange, Osceola and Seminole, said he supports any legislation that would require all money from Florida’s Local Housing Trust Fund to be used for Florida’s affordable housing programs and to champion the local government’s authority.

Blackwell told the Orlando Sentinel that championing for local government’s authority is important because many times legislators in Tallahassee will pass laws that preempt city ordinances, making them no longer applicable. One example, Blackwell said is the Live Local Act.

DeSantis signed the Live Local Act into law in March, which established $711 million in funding for affordable housing but stripped some authority from local governments. The law forces local governments to surrender control of some zoning and land-use regulations through the approval process for new affordable housing developments. The law also bans rent control.

All the delegation members at the meeting voted to pass the Live Local Act.

Many local municipalities argue it will result in less affordable housing and that it strips the local government of its authority. In Orange County, voters approved an ordinance last year that would put a one-year cap of 9.8% on rent hikes for non-luxury apartments, and similar caps were being advocated for in Osceola. The Live Local Act thwarts such efforts.

“It just becomes a problem because every city is different, every municipality is different,” Blackwell said. “So what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to urge them … to continue to let local voices make local choices.”

Blackwell said as long as local government’s laws don’t violate the constitution or conflict with federal or state laws then the local municipality should have the authority to pass their own regulations.

“Every municipality ought to be able to decide what their own zoning laws and rules are going to be,” Blackwell said. “Just don’t keep making new laws that make it more difficult or that totally pre-exempt all of our rules, which means that we have to go back and take a long hard look to modify all of our rules.”

City and county officials worry Home Rule, a law that establishes cities’ rights to enact their own ordinances and self-govern as long as it does not conflict with state and federal law, won’t be protected after seeing their authority dwindle in the past legislative session. City and county officials asked the delegation to protect Home Rule in the meeting.

John Newstreet, the executive director of the Osceola Legislative Effort, a combined lobbying effort of Osceola County, the cities of Kissimmee and St. Cloud, and the Osceola County School District, adding to the list of officials at the meeting who also asked for Home Rule protection.

“We ask that you protect Home Rule. You know how important it is for us to do the bidding that we have for our constituents here,” Newstreet said.