Council sits this week with a 73 item regular agenda meeting Thursday sandwiched by 2 special call workshops. One, Tuesday evening, a 3 hour budget workshop to discuss the upcoming Fiscal Year 2027 budget and one Friday morning for the CRA Board to discuss housing and community grants.

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One big item on Thursday’s agenda that won’t include a vote is the long awaited Land Development Code (LDC) update. There’s a public meeting at Hanna Ave City Center this evening to unveil the first phase with a full presentation to council and the public Thursday. While staff and the consultants are still navigating the uncertainty around SB 180 (the bill that was meant to be about hurricane recovery and is being used by developers as a backdoor to stop any new growth regulations), some updating continues. A fix for the bill to sunset it this year was moving forward, but last report the Tampa Monitor read the House had failed to pick it up. If a fix isn’t found, or if another poison pill is introduced in another bill, it’s unclear how much of the $2 million LDC rewrite would be able to move forward. Same concerns for the multi-modal impact fee approved last December. The city pushed the start date for those fees to go in effect July 1, 2026 with the belief the SB 180 provisions would sunset in June.

One of the big ticket item on this week’s agenda is the guaranteed maximum price (GMP) of $16,346,274. for the 40th St Fleet Maintenance Decentralization project, approved in the FY22 budget, $6,863,085 of which will be paid for with debt. The goal of this project is to better incorporate heavy equipment maintenance with the departments that use them to cut down on travel time and better general logistics. And yes, this project was approved in the FY22 budget and the build contract is just now appearing before council. Improvements have been made in the process but as was shared in the workshop last week, from budget approval to ground breaking it can take 3 years with another 18 months of construction.

Another 8 figure agenda item this week is a request from the Water Department for council to approve a 20 year, $20 million loan from the state with the potential for half of the principal to be forgiven. The goal is to “identify and develop an alternative solution that will enable the Water Department to continuously provide a minimum level of service to its customers during emergencies.” Specifically connections with Tampa Bay Water beyond the 40 million gallon capacity the city currently uses.

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Additional agenda items of note:

• Item 13 $427,000 barricades – the use of stormwater staff to move concrete barricades during special events has been a hot topic around council lately. Residents feel their time should be spent doing maintenance, not security with TPD. Hopefully this investment will solve both.
• Items 18, 37, & 38 – funding request to provide internship opportunities with city departments for persons with intellectual disabilities. This has been an area of focus and near to Council member Luis Viera’s heart—that the city have “skin in the game” in providing these opportunities.
• Item 21 & Item 53 – $1.5 million for tree services and $400K sod – trees, tree service, and landscaping are a significant portion of the Parks Department budget. As council begin to discuss more funding for city parks, items like these should get more scrutiny. Item 53 is for use by the Mobility Department, but alternative landscaping is something that needs to be considered city wide.
• Item 23 – $1.3 million support services homelessness. This is a continuation of an existing contract for providing services, not housing. When renewal service contracts are presented, there should be metrics for the services provided in the previous year with a justification for renewal.
• Item 65 $10 million for CRA Design/Development Assistance. The funding for these projects comes through CRA Commercial Pre-Development Grants, but apparently is limited to specific companies contracted with the city who responded to a Request for Qualifications (RFQ). Guess this is part of the city’s Services Agreement with the CRA. Friday’s CRA workshop will be focused on grants so perhaps more clarity will be provided.

Council return next week with a CRA Board meeting during the day with land use hearings in the evening. They will be off the following week of March 19th for Spring Break.