The flooding and the story behind it is unlike the other reasons for flooding in Palmetto Bay.
Flooding began when the village issued an administrative variance after the council did not pass an application for a tennis court and other buildings by the property owner. See “Draft Analysis 10-048.”
In addition, the administrative variance was granted without the required five signatures of neighbors adjacent to or across the street from the construction site as required by PB code. Please see “FarmerRdVarience Dec2010”.
Two signatures are from residents on Old Cutler Road, and one signature from a Farmer Road property adjacent to but not next to the construction site on 72 avenue and questionable. The manually drawn map of properties surrounding the construction site property is deceptive and does not reflect true locations.
As a result, neighbors on the west side of 72nd avenue experienced severe flooding due to the tennis court and other buildings the village allowed built. Since the beginning, we have been in meetings questioning the administrative variance granted by the village, but the village continued to ignore us and the problem allowing the construction to continue then issued a final approval with certificate of occupancy! We made public records requests but not provided all the information received until later through a third party.
After pursuing this flooding issue for years with council members, Ron Williams, Village Manager at the time, was directed to hire Corzo Castella Carballo Thompson Salman, P.A. to study and prepare a drainage report on our claims of excessive flooding on 72nd avenue. The village had the work done at a cost of approximately $80,000. However, after the drainage was installed, the council passed a resolution to reduce setbacks for driveways and allow several different entries for access. The property owner was allowed to pave a driveway that appears not in compliance with Miami Dade County code that requires property owners retain storm water runoff on their own property. Also, the administrative variance required the installation of a french drain to contain storm water run off on the owners property per code, however, I never saw an inspection report to verify a french drain was actually installed. When I asked Ed Silva if the french drain was installed, he replied he didn’t know.
This is a flooding issue that appears to be caused by incompetent village employees and cost taxpayers money. Storm water runoff continues to flow over the crown of the road from the property and we will continue to pursue having that corrected as well.
From observing the videos, it appears the road surface is NOT graded or sloped correctly to channel the runoff to the catch basin. Poor engineering.