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Catalyze 2025: Mayor Ken Welch

Mark Parker

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St. Petersburg is at a pivotal point in its 137-year history. Mayor Ken Welch must guide the city through an unprecedented hurricane season’s aftermath and help create a more resilient future.

He noted the city is still in recovery mode 10 weeks after Hurricane Milton, but the focus will turn to rebuilding in 2025. Welch expects necessary, yet sometimes difficult, conversations with constituents regarding the path forward.

Milton damaged nearly 16,000 homes in St. Petersburg, and many affected residents now face a convoluted rebuilding process and potentially exorbitant costs. Per federal regulations, those with damage exceeding 50% of a structure’s pre-storm market value must elevate their homes to new standards or relocate.

Welch noted structures built according to those standards can better withstand increasingly severe storm impacts. He is “certainly sympathetic and empathetic” for residents who live in flood-prone areas; however, the “ultimate fix” is elevation.

“Some folks may take an abandonment strategy, where they’d be willing to sell or move out, rather than try to repair at the same level and have a fifth or sixth instance of flooding,” Welch said. “Certainly, if somebody is in a home they can’t afford to elevate, that is a tough situation.

“But we’re going to have to have that conversation.”

While he is not ready to announce program details, Welch hopes to mitigate climate gentrification. That occurs when higher earners move to areas less affected by sea-level rise – often inland neighborhoods with a lower area median income.

Welch said the overarching goal is to retain affordable and workforce housing built away from the coast. That could include acquiring land or partnering with property owners.

Investment firms often contact residents in lower-income areas with what Welch called a seemingly great offer to buy their homes. He wants to “educate them on the realities that you really can’t turn around and buy anything in the city for that amount of money.”

“So, it’s a multi-tiered strategy to keep affordable housing in those areas of the city when there’s going to be heightened pressure to turn that into market-rate,” Welch said.

Over 150 city employees, including Emergency Management Director Amber Boulding, suffered significant damage during the storms. Welch said their continued service highlighted an unwavering commitment to St. Petersburg.

He also sympathizes with those who still wake up with storm debris in their yards. However, Welch believes collection teams, led by the city’s parks and recreation department, “are killing it.”

He noted the city has cleared more than six times the amount of debris as it did during the previous three hurricanes, combined. Crews have collected 2.08 million cubic yards of refuse and will begin their final sweep Jan. 3.

“The system worked, and they’re way ahead of any pace we’ve had before,” Welch said. “Hopefully, we don’t ever have to do that again.”

However, preparing for increasing storm impacts will be a theme in 2025 and beyond. Welch realizes the city must make costly investments much sooner than expected.

While the state, through its Elevate Florida program, will help vulnerable residents, the city must storm-harden its wastewater treatment plants and critical infrastructure.

Property tax revenue could help pay for those efforts. Welch has reduced the city’s millage rate for the past two years, and that streak could end after the storms.

County and federal funding could mitigate the local cost burden. Welch has also discussed creating special tax districts in “successful areas.”

“I think all those things are on the table when we talk about raising a billion dollars-plus to get where we feel reasonably secure,” he added. “The other thing is, there will have to be a change, I think, in our understanding of the limitations of our infrastructure.”

Welch stressed his excitement for the coming year despite the storm-related challenges that lie ahead. He said the city has increased its investment in the Shirley Proctor Puller Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to meeting the educational needs of Black students.

The city and St. Petersburg Police Department will launch Forward Together, an initiative to address the foundational causes of youth involvement in crime. Welch noted two major developments, at the former Ceridian campus and Raytheon site, respectively, will each provide 100 new affordable and workforce housing units.

Welch, echoing recent comments from Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott, noted that discussions surrounding a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium “kind of sucked all the wind out for the last several months, but there’s a lot going on.”

“The work we do now is going to make an impact on our community for decades to come,” Welch said. “We’re thankful for what we have – understanding that some of our neighbors have had losses, and we need to support them – but we’re going to build back as a stronger community.”

 

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Avatar

    S. Rose Smith-Hayes

    January 2, 2025at9:29 am

    Homes built on dredged in land was a huge mistake in the beginning. Continue to build high rises, then complain about infrastructure makes no sense at all. ‘Regular folk’ live in areas where there is not much flooding and these areas are being targeted by developers. Please STOP selling your valuable land to these greedy developers unless you are leaving town. There is almost no place to build unless something is torn down. The new City Council Rep in District 3 is correct $22 million is no where near enough to solve the infrastructure/flooding issues. Our city Leaders including the Mayor need to wake up to reality……

  2. Avatar

    Donna Kostreva

    January 1, 2025at10:56 pm

    The current administration is on the wrong path as evidenced by the bolloxed up traffic flow on 9th Street, the messed up traffic on 4th street , and the destruction of traffic flow on the major arteries on First Avenues North and South created to accommodate the Sun Runner we see with five passengers. I’d like to know who is the concrete contractor? Who was responsible for red macadam,the most expensive which deteriorates in the Florida heat. Then there is the fiasco of BONUSES TO WELL PAID STAFF already getting paid for their work. Happily that was caught before payouts occurred. On the map for the Innovation Zone no one on staff seems smart enough to see 17th Ave does not exist in two different places. Counting the days until your term expires! Rethink all of your promises above,”foundational causes of youth involvement in crime,”
    Building “workforce housing” on contaminated Raytheon land,and increasing funding to “meeting the educational needs of black students.”Isn’t that discriminatory ??

  3. Avatar

    Mike

    December 31, 2024at6:27 pm

    NOPE!

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