Treasure Island homeowners can now elevate with fill dirt

Residents of the barrier island can voluntarily raise their whole property, including garages, driveways and seawalls, using fill dirt when elevating their homes away from rising seas.

The sea level around Treasure Island has risen nine inches since the 1940s, when a tidal gauge first started recording the measurements.

Now, high tide events, like sunny day flooding, can back up the city’s stormwater pipes into the roadways.

Using moderate or intermediate projections, the city expects the tide to rise seven more inches from current levels by 2040, 2 feet by 2070, and over 3 feet by 2100.

Sea levels rise when heat-trapping fossil fuels from transportation and electric utilities are burned into the atmosphere.

The trapped heat does two things: expands water molecules and melts land-based ice up north — all of which leads to a higher water volume in our oceans.

A Treasure Island proposal from last summer called the Terrain Modification Program suggested that residents in flood zones who either choose to make substantial modifications to their homes or are forced to do so after severe flood damages should be required to elevate not only the houses – per federal standards – but also the surrounding property, like garages, driveways and sea walls to combat the impacts of sea level rise city-wide.

Some residents shared their disapproval of the idea during a four-hour-long commission meeting on Aug. 20.

“Why are you imposing this on the resident? I don’t get a premium discount. It makes it harder for me to stay in my house,” resident Andrew Vasey told commissioners.

Public commenters also shared concerns about elevating homes and structures before raising main roads, like Gulf Boulevard.

“I’d love to have a nice, tall house, but if I have to go everywhere by boat, I mean, I’m just not sure that’s what we’re looking for,” Greg Smith said.

Overall, the crowd was particularly not fond of a suggested 10-year cumulative lookback at substantial home improvements, which would look back starting from when the program would’ve been implemented.

Although this was falsely misunderstood by many in the audience as looking back at the recent past 10 years.

The plan was tabled for revision.

About a month later, Hurricane Helene hit. Seven feet of storm surge pushed ashore across the region, killing four on Treasure Island.

This past April, commissioners officially approved the elevation program, but only on a voluntary basis for homeowners, while also revoking a policy that banned the use of fill dirt in the elevation process.

This all took effect May 1.

The approved plan doesn’t require a 10-year look back, nor does it say residents must use fill, although it does support and encourage that practice.

“We’ve given the community a toolbox to use in order to, at their discretion, utilize fill, in order to offset the impacts of sea level rise, or at least protect them from sea level rise, with the possibility of the city performing improvements within the right of way at a later date,” said Justin Keller.

He’s a civil engineer with Advanced Engineering and Design, which has been contracted by the city since 1999.

When using fill dirt, residents will have to abide by the city’s new Terrain Modification Manual to ensure that their elevation doesn’t interfere with floodplain management and have unintended consequences like flooding out their neighbors.

Keller explained that when residents choose to elevate their properties, the city’s infrastructure could then follow suit.

“What we determined was that maintaining the use of gravity-based stormwater systems was preferred, and so therefore that would require that we look to elevate, or strategically use fill in order to elevate, public and private development as it happens organically throughout the coming decades,” he said.

During the Aug. 20 commission meeting, Keller said this program is an alternative to “managed retreat,” which refers to strategically relocating people and infrastructure due to increased climate change vulnerabilities.

“There are people that believe, ‘Hey, these were barrier islands. Let’s return them to barrier islands.’ And this program says, ‘Hell no.’ This program is a fighting chance to say, ‘We’re not going to just let the waters take over,” Keller responded to public commenters.

Stacy Boyles, at the time, was Treasure Island’s Public Works Director and Sustainability Coordinator.

She backed up Keller’s point, telling commissioners that she’s visibly seen the flooding situation worsen during her nine and a half years on the job.

“You can see, especially down in the Sunset Beach area. To tell them that our solution is ‘Managed retreat, and hell with your neighborhood.’ I don’t know how we do that. That is not something that we can sit up here and professionally recommend,” she told commissioners.

There was a lot of interruption and booing by the public as both Boyles and Keller addressed commissioners at that Aug. 20 meeting.

Since then, a local election voted in two residents to the commission who spoke openly against the initial plan: Tammy Vazquez and Chris Clark.

Stacy Boyles left her position at Treasure Island to work for Pinellas County as Special Programs Division Director.

And Justin Keller with Advanced Engineering nearly lost his contract with Treasure Island recently, but was saved in a 3-2 vote.

Jessica Meszaros is a reporter for WUSF, the NPR station for the greater Tampa Bay area.