Tampa leaders kill Hillsborough River development that threatened wetlands

Tampa city councilors rejected a developer’s rezoning request Thursday, handing a victory to neighbors who long opposed the Hillsborough River housing project.

The lengthy hearing sparked a larger conversation among city leaders about how Tampa should approach the future in the wake of the hurricanes that hit the region last year.

For some activists in attendance, the council’s rejection of the plan is an early sign that a city is finally slowing development after storms flooded areas not previously thought to be vulnerable to rising waters.

More than 50 residents crammed into the city’s Old City Hall in downtown Tampa cheered and hugged after hearing the final vote cast.

Many wore matching green and gray T-shirts with a message: “Save our wetlands.”

After a public comment period that lasted more than two hours, they felt council members had voted to do just that.

The council voted 5-2 to deny multi-use housing on the lot zoned for single-family homes. The decision killed a ruling made in August that would have allowed developers to fill a 5,000-square-foot wetland on the property.

It was an unlikely victory for residents of Tampa’s Riverbend neighborhood, who have been fighting an uphill battle against developers and county environmental regulators for more than two years.

Last summer, the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission granted developers a wetlands mitigation permit that allowed them to fill in the sensitive habitat as long as another one was built in its place.

In exchange for the Riverbend wetland, another wetland had been slated for preservation in the Fox Ranch Mitigation Bank area, about 50 miles upriver in northwestern Polk County.

But the decision was pending on Thursday’s hearing on realignment. Now that council members have rejected their request, the property owners are barred from destroying the wetland.

Hank Cramer, president of the Riverbend Civic Association, said he had been confident city leaders would side with the neighbors.

“People were really ready to fight this. It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable,” he said. “We got an incredible amount of support, as you can see, and it was effective support.”

Developers intended to build 42 townhomes and three single-family homes on the 4.6-acre property at 6111 N Rome Ave. Neighbors angered by plans to fill in the sensitive wetlands along the river and cut down mature, code-protected “grand trees,” quickly organized against developers.

Elise Batsel, an attorney representing the developers, said the company took residents’ concerns to heart and had redesigned the site’s stormwater plans, added pilings to the single-family homes and increased the size of drainage ponds.

She pleaded with council members in her closing remarks.

“We’re exhausted from this project, to be honest, and I think your staff is exhausted too,” she said. “This application has taken longer to reach you than any other application in the City of Tampa that I have ever been involved with.”

“We thought we had a thoughtfully designed project that will be a treasure — a future gem,” she said.

Developers had originally planned to cut nearly 90% of the property’s 260 trees, including eight large trees, the Tampa Bay Times previously reported.

Kevin Reali, another attorney representing the developers, said five large trees were to be preserved in the latest iteration of site plans. He also promised that a sixth tree, made dangerous after damage from Hurricane Milton, would not be cut down as part of efforts to preserve wildlife habitat.

Reali said the property, which previously housed the German-American Club of Tampa, appeared overgrown and neglected when developers Mize and Sefair bought the land in 2023 for more than $3 million. The company, which has close ties to the largest corporate investors in the state, specializes in build-to-rent housing.

Some trees are healthy, but many are invasive species, Reali added. He also highlighted the lengthy process of filing a lawsuit over the project.

“We hired more experts than I’ve ever spent on a zoning,” he said.

Attorneys also stressed that the development met every city code.

But for a city now rethinking how to build and rebuild in the wake of an unprecedented hurricane season, it would be a mistake to destroy more natural features that could curb future flooding, said Councilman Charlie Miranda.

“The code is something on paper, but we just went through hell. Places that were never going to flood, they flooded,” he said. “You don’t get what you want by doing the things we’ve been doing normally for the last 100 years.”

“It doesn’t work anymore,” he added.

Riverbend neighbors showed the council photos of neighborhood buildings flooded by Hurricane Milton’s near-record rainfall. They argued that more concrete and stucco would lead to flooding that washed out nearby homes, including the proposed townhouses.

A Tampa sewer station adjacent to the Rome property was flooded during Milton, although flooding did not cause the facility to fail. The nearby Police Athletic League building also received 2 to 8 inches of water during the storms, Cramer said.

“That’s what happens when you stop a wetland,” Cramer said. “Water always wins.”

Cramer, echoing some council members, said the destruction of the Rome development’s wetlands would be problematic as hurricanes, fueled by human-induced climate change, become more intense.

He cast doubt on developers’ plans to build stormwater ponds to handle rain runoff instead of the natural wetland.

“I don’t know if that’s enough,” Cramer said. “Does anyone know if that’s enough to handle the power that comes from these intense storms — these volatile and vicious and bigger storms that we’re getting?”

The council’s decision flew in the face of recommendations from city staff and the planning commission, which argued the developers’ plans were consistent with the Tampa Comprehensive Plan, the city’s master planning document.

Council members Gwendolyn Henderson and Luis Viera voted in favor of the rezoning. They argued that the council’s decision should support cooperation between developers and city staff.

“You can clearly see that the applicant has put in the work, even if you don’t like it,” Henderson said, addressing the Riverbend residents.

Council member Lynn Hurtak suggested that the comprehensive plan should be amended, especially when it comes to building in high-risk coastal areas.

“This does not promote the efficient and sustainable infrastructure with careful consideration of potential negative impacts on natural elements on site,” she said, citing the planning document.

With the owners’ plans for development thwarted, the future of the Rome property is unclear.

Despite Thursday’s victory, Frank Greco, a member of the neighborhood association, said he doesn’t expect the fight to be over.

“They’ll come back with something else, I’m sure,” he said. “They’re not going to let the $2.5 million they spent on this go away.”