LONGWOOD, Fla. – It seems a neighborhood that has been plagued with flooding issues ever since a woman poured concrete into one of the drainpipes is finally getting some results.
News 6 obtained documents that show the homeowner’s permit application to fix the problem has now been approved by Seminole County.
Our team has been following the story since March when the woman went door to door with a letter to inform her neighbors that she planned to close off the pipe, which was installed long before she bought her home in 2012 according to records.
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The letter reads as follows:
“Please be advise that I reside at (Shadowbay address). I am downgrade from all of you in your residential community. At some point in time in the past, a drain pipe was installed in my property, without my permission. It drains the road in front of me and also a number of upgraded houses to whom I am sending a copy of this letter.
I advise you of this, because once I close that pipe off, you will have a drain problem that will back up on the road, and on your property, and potentially on my property, because the drain, as I said, goes through my property without my permission, or without any authority.
Your Home Owners Association, and people in control, knew about this and have failed to do anything about it to right the situation, nor has there even been a legitimate offer to compensate me for the use of my property for a passage of your water to the waters behind my property.
If, in fact, you do nothing about this, and my property is flooded at any point in time and there is damage, regardless of how insignificant, each of you are responsible for that damage.
I give you this warning in advance, and advise that this should resolve this by the end of March or beginning of April. I would hope that you would take care of alleviating this problem so that none of us have any problems when the rainy season is in full force.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.”
- Homeowner's letter to neighbor
The next month, neighbors watched as a mixer truck showed up on their street and started pouring concrete into the pipe through two manholes.
With the drainage system blocked, Shadow Bay suffered heavy flooding in the months to follow. Neighbors who spoke with News 6 said a car got stuck, they struggled to walk their dogs or get kids to the bus stop.
At a civil court hearing in September, a judge noted one instance where someone could not have oxygen tanks delivered to their home because of significant flooding. She ordered the homeowner who blocked the pipe to fix the problem in 10 days.
Documents from Seminole County show the woman has been working with an engineer to find a solution. A permit that was approved this week shows two manholes and the section of pipe between them will need to be removed and replaced. There are also plans to install a silt barrier fence to avoid clogs or other potential drainage issues.
The homeowner must now secure a contractor to do the work and attend a pre-construction meeting before construction actually begins. The documents state that typically takes about a week to schedule.
The woman told our News 6 crew Wednesday that she found a contractor she plans to hire and hopes to have a quote for how much the work will cost and a timeline for the repairs soon.
She has installed a pump, so water doesn’t collect by the drain closest to her property on Shadowbay Boulevard. The neighborhood is mostly dry because the water is now flowing back into the retention pond it’s designed to drain into.
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