NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – After hearing dozens of flooding complaints from residents, New Smyrna Beach city leaders are looking to temporarily stop new development in the Venetian Bay neighborhood.
The city commission is voting Tuesday night on a moratorium that would pause development for commercial and non-single-family homes in Venetian Bay Phase II while the city addresses the flooding concerns.
The complaints have been coming in from residents in the Portofino Reserve subdivision for months.
“The water damage is destroying our streets,” resident Nick Rella told News 6.
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Rella showed pictures of his street flooded in the Fall from rainstorms. Then, he showed small cracks that have been forming in his road recently.
He said their stormwater drainage system isn’t working and even more development would overwork it even more.
“Our system never reaches a normal water level, so, it never recovers to the point where we can store a rain storm,” he said.
A letter to the Venetian Bay Homeowners Association from the St. John’s River Water Management District in October found “the system was not functioning.”
New Smyrna Beach city commissioners then jumped in in February, putting the emergency development moratorium in place.
Now, the city is catching up to find a solution.
“The Portofino HOA has had an engineering study done. We’re reviewing those findings,” said Assistant City Manager Ron Neibert.
Neibert said the city’s engineers will run tests next week.
“It may be a design problem, maybe a construction problem, or maybe it was a maintenance issue where the maintenance hasn’t kept up with the needs of the system,” he said.
Neibert said whatever has to be fixed will be on the developer.
The moratorium is technically in effect now under the emergency provision but has to be passed Tuesday night by the city commission to become a real ordinance that can last longer. If passed, it’ll be in effect until the end of June.
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