‘Tempting fate’ with project approvals

Fort Lauderdale leaders push development despite crumbling pipes

FORT LAUDERDALE — In one of the toniest parts of town, millions of gallons of toxic sewage escaping from a broken sewer main spilled into a nearby river for nine days straight. Two days after it was fixed, the same pipe opened again just a block north.

As the sewage spewed by the barrel, fouling yards and the air and driving people from their homes in the Rio Vista neighborhood, Fort Lauderdale commissioners signed off on yet another new hotel.

Though the city’s sewer pipes are bursting around them, Fort Lauderdale’s city leaders continue to approve major developments,

putting ever-more pressure on a sewer system at the breaking point after years of neglect.

Some residents have urged city leaders to “take a pause” and let the city’s water and sewer system catch up to the building boom.

“We don’t want what happened to Rio Vista to happen to us,” said Rosie Kurlander, a beach resident who urged commissioners to vote against the hotel. “The pipes are old and failing. They’ve had pipes break down all over the city. I think we’re in a crisis situation . ... I really feel like we’re on the cliff here.”

The 12-story hotel on the beach, approved late Tuesday in a 4-1 vote, would have relied on a decrepit clay sewer pipe in use since the 1960s. But after last-minute negotiations, the developer agreed to pay an estimated

$55,000 to replace a

200-foot section of pipe that lies beneath the property, just south of Las Olas Boulevard near A1A.

The only vote against the project came from Mayor Dean Trantalis, who questioned the wisdom of approving new developments when Fort Lauderdale’s pipes have been allowed to deteriorate so badly it will take an estimated $1.4 billion to fix them.

Fort Lauderdale has been plagued by a series of sewer line breaks in recent years, with millions of gallons of sewage being diverted into nearby waterways to keep the sludge from seeping into neighborhood homes. For years, city officials have siphoned away millions in water and sewer fees paid by residents. The city has used that money to pay other expenses — including salaries and raises for police officers and firefighters — to keep property taxes low instead of upgrading the water and sewer system.

The rupture of a huge 54-inch sewer pipe is to blame for the current catastrophe in the Rio Vista neighborhood. The sewage spewed for nine days before an aboveground bypass pipe could be put in place. On Friday, just two days later, another sewer main break hit Rio Vista. Emergency crews raced to contain the spill.

In recent years, Fort Lauderdale officials have come under fire for continuing to approve highrise towers on the beach and downtown while sea levels rise and sewer pipes collapse.

Since 2012, Fort Lauderdale has added or approved nearly 22,000 hotel and residential units downtown, according to an October update from the city’s Urban Design and Planning Division. On the beach, the city has added or approved more than 4,800 residential and hotel units since 1998.

In their zeal to spur development downtown and on the beach, the city eased rules at least a decade ago to allow many developments in these areas to proceed without a vote of the city commission. City staff can sign off on them unless the developer is seeking a rezoning or waiver of the rules.

Mayor Trantalis and two of his commission colleagues, Ben Sorensen and Steve Glassman, ran for election last year on slowgrowth platforms.

It may be time to “put a pause on new development until we are comfortable in knowing that our water and sewer infrastructure is intact,” Trantalis said.

“We can’t afford to have any more Rio Vistas,” he said. “We keep burying our heads in the sand and pretending we don’t have a problem... And all we are doing is tempting fate by [saying] build, build, build.”

Glassman, whose district includes the beach, said he’d rather say yes to a smaller project similar to the proposed hotel than to a more massive project that would further strain city streets and pipes.

The hotel, a 150-room Marriott Residence Inn, will sit south of Las Olas at

425 Seabreeze Blvd., near the Swimming Hall of Fame.

Before it won commission approval, Glassman said he wanted to see the hotel’s developer replace the 10-inch clay sewer pipe before construction begins. Under the city’s capital improvement budget, the pipe is not slated to be replaced for at least seven years.

“I know the city manager says it’s not on the top of the repair list,” Glassman said. “It’s on the top of my list. I don’t know how we can build this project if we don’t replace that 10-inch clay pipe.”

Local activist Abby Laughlin, who was watching the meeting from home, applauded Glassman for exhibiting what she called “common sense horse trading.”

“Why would they build anything there without fixing that pipe?” she said. “It’s cheaper to do it before it’s built. This is the time to tackle it. It’s going to be twice as expensive if we have to deal with it on an emergency basis.”

Glassman said he’d like to see the practice of having developers pay upfront for new pipes on their site become standard.

“This is a new era,” he said. “Look what we’re facing. We need to make sure that infrastructure is taken care of.”

Under the new commission, not every project is getting the thumbs up. In mid-2019, commissioners said no to the proposed Bayshore Hotel, a project with 115 residential units and 168 hotel rooms proposed for 3016 Bayshore Drive.

But many high-density projects were approved before the new commission took office in November 2018, when Trantalis traded his commission seat for the role of mayor.

Riverparc Square, a mammoth threetower development that will swallow an entire downtown city block, won approval in September 2018. Under rules designed to encourage dense development downtown, the three-tower complex was approved not by the commission but by city development staff.

The project calls for 790 apartments or condos, 297 hotel rooms, nearly

300,000 square feet of office space and about

45,000 square feet of retail. Riverparc’s three towers, at 501 S. Andrews Ave., will be 36, 42 and 43 stories.

City staffers say Fort Lauderdale’s water and sewer system has the capacity to handle the new Riverparc project.

But this week at the city commission meeting, Glassman brought up another relevant question in the era of the city’s exploding sewers.

“This is not just about capacity,” he said. “I want to know the age of the pipes. I want to know what’s the condition of the infrastructure underground.”

It’s up to the city to fix its own pipes without penalizing developers, Vice Mayor Robert McKinzie argued.

“If you want to hold development hostage, it does not negate our responsibility to fix our own infrastructure,” McKinzie said. “We still have to roll up our sleeves and do something. We have to see what we are going to do to fix our Rio Vistas.”

But the city’s underground pipe system has not kept up with the pace of development, Trantalis said.

“We’re years behind,” he said. “Whether it’s water, whether it’s sewer, whether it’s stormwater. I think it would be insanity to keep approving projects with the position we’re in.”

Minutes later, the new hotel on the beach got four “yes” votes.

“I think we’re in a crisis situation.”

Rosie Kurlander ,a beach resident