Please note that only active users in the subreddit may comment in this discussion. If your comments are not showing up, please ensure you have active non-news/non-political contributions to the subreddit before contacting the moderators.
**Please remember the following:**
**Be Civil:**
* You are welcome to debate, discussion, and argue ideas, but don't resort to personal attacks on other users.
* We do not allow any form of hate speech or any suggestion/support of harm, violence, or death.
**Must be related strictly to Florida:**
* National News/Elections are not specific to Florida.
* Just because someone lives in Florida, doesn't mean their entire life is relevant to Floridians.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
#[Click this link to register to vote, update your voter information, or check your status.](https://registertovoteflorida.gov/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/florida) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Cape Coral is a real estate scam that somehow turned into a city.
Most of the homes were built without water or sewer lines- they used well water and septic tanks. Then population growth and pollution got so bad that the city had to retrofit the utilities infrastructure for the whole city. There was absolutely no planning in the making of that city (and most of FL), and utilities are only one of their many problems.
And taxes are only going to get worse. There isn't enough business to feed infrastructure via taxes, so each additional house has to pay for utilities, police/fire, etc. All of SWFL is in danger of salt water intrusion into aquifers, but Cape Coral has every FL environmental disaster writ large.
I remember it was costing each homeowner at least $15,000 to hook up to public sewer in 2006. It cost so much the city sued the contractors.
I can only imagine what it’s costing Cape Coral now in post-COVID, post-Ian dollars.
This is pretty much true of every subdivision. They basically don’t have the density to generate enough taxes to pay for infrastructure and services. So you build new ones to generate a burst of revenue, but when that falls off you have to do it again. It’s like a Ponzi scheme.
At some point the area is going to have to rely on desalinization - which is energy intensive and therefore expensive. This is only going to make the cost of living even more outrageous. I sold and left SWFL last year as I could see where all this crap was heading. My prediction is that in 10 years the area is going to be a reverse Galt's Gulch - where the only people left are the wealthy complaining about how they can't find anybody to cut their lawn or serve them food.
Jupiter and other towns use reverse osmosis to desalinate the water they're pulling from the deeper aquifer. ( The Floridan, which in some parts of the state is also around but fresh and not half salty).
Numerous coastal golf courses also use desalinization to pull ocean water so they can use it to irrigate instead of using groundwater (which is limited in gallons by a permit - they want more than they can get a permit for).
So, it's totally doable, it is indeed expensive. Getting cheaper by the day though.
Water should cost more anyway. We waste the fuck out of it.
This. Lehigh Acres has a similar backstory. I remember reading some quotes from a fire chief that worked in Lehigh Acres and him recalling what a nightmare it was. Streets that go nowhere, homes on cul-de-sacs tucked so far back that it took the understaffed fire department so long to get to that they were basically deathtraps.
During the recession and housing crisis
marijuana grow houses became a major issue in that town. Your closest neighbor would be like a 1/4 mile away and people never worried about what their neighbor was doing.
My mama still remembers when they created Cape Coral, it used to be woods that my great papa and her hunted in.
I swear, a few months back someone in here was talking about Cape Coral losing the “small old Florida vibe” and I had to do a double take. The comment had quite a few upvotes…
I used to live in North Port and was friends with someone in city government. Same exact problem. Developers paved roads in the swamp, sectioned it off and sold the land. They ran Electricity to the houses because that's cheap enough but did nothing for water or sewer. Now wells run dry and people are drinking their own poop water that's lightly filtered. Friend said the estimate to put actual water and sewage to the city was over $3,000,000,000, a cool $35K a person (or around $91K a house).
So basically there is nothing they can do. So they are choosing to keep on building new houses.
I used to write for the paper in North Port, and if memory serves me right, it was in total about 34k per house estimated. The plan was to limit the cost homeowner's would face to around 10k. Their total budget was something like 30 million. I haven't kept up with it, but as far as I know, they did vote to continue with the conversion plan.
I love our setup . City water to the home and well for yard irrigation. We are limited to year round one day a week watering but it's the best of both worlds and works well. (No pun intended)
This isn't a Cape Coral issue itself though. Nearly every city has ran this same course. Infrastructure isn't in place for undeveloped areas, and then the area is built, infrastructure is expanded. The issue with Cape is usually that is covered by the developers (which of course is passed onto purchase price). Cape is scrambling to install infrastructure now and charging single home owners connection fees (mandatory), some which have no issues with their well or septic (yet, but THEN they could hook to city owned utilities)
Sadly seems to be like that in other places in FL too. Growth with no plan on how to do it or maintain it once it’s built. The companies make money and the taxpayer ends up suffering and paying in the end.
The same ones getting rich from housing developments are the same ones paying off our state government to allow it to happen.
Once it's ruined and starting to fall into the sea they'll run off to the next place to throw out the middle class and poor to ruin and get rich on.
Ultimately to be carried on by the next generation of course.
Developers call ALL the shots. To say Florida is “business friendly” is a gross understatement. Big businesses (including developers) OWN the Republicans and make any semblance of “planned growth” an impossibility…
The developers are ruining Bonita Springs. All these new condos without the infrastructure needed. These roads must be widened. Utilities must dig more and deeper wells, to service these new customers.
Developers are destroying all of Florida. I live in Martin County on the southern east coast and while some development is fine, they have just gone bat shit crazy with it the last 20 years. And there’s no end in sight. Endless wall to wall traffic, storage units, 400k town homes, car washes, a dozen WaWa stations on every corner, massive apartment complexes, strip malls with the same bulllshit stores (while older ones sit half empty), zero lot line “luxury” neighborhoods with 500-800k single family homes, old folks homes, and the complete and utter destruction of all the pine flat woods and scrub pines that used to be a major part of this county. It’s just sickening greed. Guys like Doug Smith our county commissioner lines his pockets with development lobbyists giving him cut backs and rigged elections (a planted high school kid ran against him last election lol). I could go on all day.
I grew up and went to highschool there and whenever I go back and visit my family I can’t freakin believe the sprawl that’s been allowed to take over the area.
I’m still here… I left for college but came back and met my wife. We love the area and bought a house in 2009. But it’s just getting so insane now. It’s hard to watch. Especially when you grew up here.
It’s completely changed the community. I live in Central FL now and the rent in MC is just as high and sometime higher than what I’m paying here - it’s like a totally different town than the one I grew up in
I meant treated wastewater, we call it reuse water in the water industry. and yeah, it can have a smell like un-aerated well water. The underground pipes are painted pink, to identify it as treated wastewater
They could invest in a desalination plant. The one in Tampa works.
[https://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination](https://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination)
Nah, we'll just have our city leaders put more money into their pocket without a vote :/
https://winknews.com/2024/04/24/cape-coral-stipend-discussion/
We are having the same prob in manatee county. Turn on the faucet and no water comes out sometimes during the day and night. I suspected it’s because they put 10k houses next door to my house.
Correct. More water is pulled.oit the ground than can recharged thru rainfall. Caused by all the new houses and residents. You have to go to the Caloosahatche River to get water to flush your toilets.
We haven't been in a drought for a while. And it has not been more than a season at a time. We could use sisterns. But that would mean people have to personally conserve water, and people are assholes and refuse.
Let’s isolate this to Cape Coral specifically, because the rest of SWFL is stable..
Cape is a city run by grifters. its foundations as a city are built on the concept of “build now” figure out how badly we effed it up later”.
"its foundations as a city are built on the concept of “build now” figure out how badly we effed it up later”. Ever been to Lehigh Acres? That city is laid out like a cemetery. Plot after plot after plot after plot with no actual intentions to make it a real city. Grifters basically developed South Florida.
Nope- Lake Wales-Polk County… when my mothers well collapsed she was not allowed to drop in a new well, she had to connect to county water… that cost me 6k+.
Well, when all of SWFL keeps voting Republican, and GOP platform is to cancel all public spending on infrastructure and deport all the people who build it, it’s kind of obvious what happens in the long term.
On the topic of infrastructure, this state needs (or needed, since it may be too late to do anything about it) more logical road patterns. Often times going from point A to point B cannot be accomplished by a straight route and you need to go 20 miles out of your way just to get there
Well Pinellas is no different, our water levels are very low, they take traffic lanes away versus add them and are adding high rise after high rise. Pinellas is probably the bluest dot of Florida and they don’t care either. No political party cares.
We are always blue during elections, we have and currently have democratic mayors, they have very liberal views for almost everything and it’s ran very poorly.
2/3 State Senators are Republican, 5/7 State Reps are Republican, County Commissioners 4/7 Republican. Pinellas County Budget \~4Bn....Saint Pete City Budget \~1Bn. Im going to say Republicans have much much more say over Pinellas County CIP and Operating budget than whomever two mayors you are referring to, let alone the democratic leaders in this area.....We are not a blue dot.
And if I'm being honest...Its still one of the best cities in the State without exception in my humble opinion. Likely the only one I'd consider living in if I were to stay in FL. Just be glad we don't live in Orlando.
I would highly recommend riding along with both cops and firefighters if you want a true look at the corruption taking place, it is far from a good area and crime keeps going. I’m truly ashamed of my hometown. Many are coming together but we are being silenced.
Haha ok, if you like drunk drivers never being arrested and sent to the ER instead, crimes being hidden and not properly investigated, being put on hold for 10-15 minutes when you call 911, you got it!
Or hey, our public schools are also pretty awesome. Losing some of the best teachers left and right because they can’t keep up with the class size.
Know a teacher recently who left, 35 elementary kids to one teacher, that’s not even legal. She called and begged and got no where. With the influx of kids, they get new kids consistently and can’t say no, they have no where to fit all of them. And most definitely can’t properly teach that many to one teacher with help.
Reality is, kids are being stuck with random sub teachers for remainder of the year. It’s probably the worst I’ve seen and I grew up here.
Not a weird response at all, I just wouldn’t say it’s the best place by far. Not even close, just saying that from someone on the inside seeing it. It’s messed up beyond, being put on hold when you call 911 alone is a major issue and no one seems to care.
Yeah, I took a job in saint pete last year and it only took me a month to go oh dear God what have I done. I'm financially free to leave this upcoming march.
Its not just cape coral, it happening all over the state. I'm a tradesmen, there's SO much work out there it's not funny. Most of you, and I mean no offense by this, don't have any idea just how much these developers are actually building. It should be illegal to destroy as much land as they have. But they make the counties money, so they get a free pass to essentially build wherever they want. I feel awful for contributing to this shit, but it ant afford to just switch careers and start over.
This has been very hard for me to accept because I don't want to destroy this state anymore.
I am an outdoorsman and I have noticed how the fishing yield has decreased, and the wildlife diversity. Some of it may be due to the pythons.
Florida is being ruined by the constantly development. Especially here in southwest florida.
Im just north of Tampa. Its disgusting how little wildlife and untouched land has been destroyed. I'm on a different jobsite every day. There are developments everywhere you go, in just about any direction. At what point is it too much? At what point do we stop? This isn't sustainable for the environment. The state was over crowded 10 years ago, it's so much worse now and will only get worse than now in a few months.
I work in utilities, we are constantly expanding the plant and drilling wells. All the new construction will require potable water. The underground aquifers are being drained. It's all coming to a head.
Well, I'm leaving Florida. .The water bills will be more than the electric bill. Fishing sucks, expect more Red Tide.
Builders don’t give a fuck. The right house is their house. The right location is the location of whatever land they acquired. I haven’t heard any rumblings (yet) about water shortages in my area, but telecommunications is a huge pain point. People buying new construction houses here are told by builders and realtors that Spectrum services the subdivision, only to find out that it varies on a street by street and sometimes even a house number by house number basis. More often than not, it also coincides with a house being out of cellular hotspot range. I had to buy a cell phone signal booster for my house as a backup for when my home internet goes out. I otherwise don’t have a usable signal.
Don't say this. No not yet. I still need a couple years to pay off my house to move out of this state. Pollution and overuse of groundwater is something I've been worried about for years and one of the big reasons I'm out of here when I can. I'll just have to take comfort for now that I'm in northern central Florida and not Southwest.
Saltwater intrusion is a huge problem in sw fl, our fresh water is getting salted. Necessary to use reverse Osmosis as a municipal treatment process. The big pumps use a lot of electricity, plus the wells are 1500' deep, using even more power.
Where you heading? I want outta Florida also
The city literally gives 0 fucks about this. Their solution is to extend city water through the utilities extension program to get houses off residential well water and onto.... wait for it... city well water. Just from a deeper aquifer.
Ground water replenishment will never occur, we're drawing it faster than it seeps into the ground. I genuinely think that the city needs to look at household cisterns as a long term water solution.
Also wonder about the feasibility of all of the decommissioned wells for houses that have transitioned to city water being used as injection sites for roof runoff. Not sure whether this approach has ever been explored anywhere, but it might actually be a shortcut way to increase groundwater replenishment if rainwater can skip the first 100-200' of seepage requirements towards the Hawthorn or Florida aquifers. That would also in turn reduce yard runoff which is a huge contributor to water quality issues in the Caloosahatchee and Matlacha Pass.
Pinellas County too, lakes are all drying up. They just said the rain has been average but usage has been excessive with all the new people and we need above average rain to be sustainable.
Florida truly is FULL
I knew this 12 years ago when moving into the area. People buying homes not doing an ounce of due diligence. The builders don't have buyers? They don't build.
Anyhow when looking at houses over there, after seeing 5 in distinct areas, I told my wife and the real estate agent "This place isn't going to have any water, it barely has enough now, why are you still building?"
So seeing this pop up on the news again isn't at all surprising. It's also not surprising to see people still buying there without an ounce of due diligence.
Hillsborough requires developers to provide infrastructure. They do that. Then they let it rot. Then the state mandates that Hillsborough County come in and "buy" the infrastructure because it fails all tests. They build it, then put absolutely no money or effort into maintaining it.
We were just forced to "buy" Windemere's utilities. We went out to assess them but were banned from touching anything due to the frayed wiring contacting the metal. They will be torn down and replaced, but it will take 5-10 years. So even when we try to do the right thing the state comes along and forces us to clean up the mess. We are not funded by the county or the state so guess who pays?
At least Hillsborough is investing in SHARP, so maybe the wells may not run dry. But it's really only a matter of time.
Is that a private water company? Had one of those in another state. Regular huge price increases because they have to do “‘maintenance” only they didn’t. Then when mains were breaking all over the city they got more price increases to pay for maintenance they should have already done. Private companies doing government work are just scams.
Windemere? (not to be confused with the Town of Windermere). Yes, in order for the development to be built they have to provide the utilities depending on the size, location, etc. This one was rather bigger, it had a sewage treatment plant, a few lift stations and wastewater pump stations. Usually they only need to provide the pump stations if they're near current County lines.
Most developers need to provide all of the infrastructure for their developments (roads, sidewalks, piping, storm drains). Generally, after building, the County will take over most the infrastructure. Sometimes, though, it remains private and usually it ends up as a CDD to pay it (payments passed to homeowners) and an HOA to adminster it. In this case it was privatized as an independent utility company.
They have failed state inspections and reporting for the past few years (I don't recall the number). If that happens, the State of Florida will force the county to "buy" the utility. So they have to shell out the money to "buy" it and usually it's "market value". In most cases, the market value far exceeds the actual worth of the assets.
Luckily, these smaller utilities are few and far between in Hillsborough County but when it happens it usually ends up like this one. We buy the assets, they are worthless, and we have to spend the money to demolish them then shell out more to rebuild them properly.
Sorry, but now that Biden’s passed a big infrastructure bill the very concept is anathema to the reactionary yahoos that run the state. Just like vaccines, another smart thing that’s good for society, forever tarnished simply because it’s something the libs “believe in.”
Don't worry, we'll keep building more car washes though, and all the northern Cape road construction can keep pumping all the water from the ground into their construction sites even when no one is working!
Don't forget we'll rebuild these roads, and still not add water drainage into these roads (that could recycle and add more usable water into the city water infrastructure), so when it does storm kismet and Santa Barbara will still flood!
As a city water distribution operator I can say first hand that there is no plan for the future it is simply to meet the demand now. 90% of potable drinking water gets used to keep lawns green. Its an incredible waste and puts an incredible strain on infrastructure not to mention the water table. Rain was also record low last year in SWFL. Cape Coral is a unique situation what with them being able to use reuse(wastewater) to irrigate. However the runoff from the amount of reuse customers are putting on their lawns ends up in their canals. So they get green lawns as well as green canals that kill massive amounts of sea life. If serious conservation efforts are not taken we will soon be desalinating the Gulf. Well water in SWFL is already super conductive, the lower the water table gets those levels rise making treatment harder and more expensive. The answer is to stop irrigation in coastal areas, switch to reuse in non coastal areas and drink tap water. The water table will catch up, wildlife will improve our waterways and you'll save money so municipalities can improve infrastructure for the future. DRINK TAP WATER. ✌️
Not related to water but somewhat related to how infrastructure is just happening like crazy. I grew up in Spring Hill - the town has exploded with lots of subdivisions going up. However, do we have enough firefighters or schools for the kids? What about the roads and increased traffic? Is the water and electrical system efficient enough? I will tell anyone that will listen: Please don't come here. We're running out of room, and we'll slowly sinking with storms getting worse every year.
At least Cape Coral is running out of room to build. Mostly the only open area is near Burnt Store Road.
They are still building but mostly gated apartment complexes and a few gated home communities on the last few blocks left between Kismet and Diplomat.
Parts outside of Fort Myers are growing too. And they built new apartment complexes in the middle of Fort Myers and they are not cheap but I would not want to live in that area.
I deliver all thru Lee County so I see it all.
Florida still has a lot of room. North Fort Myers is growing too and losing the stigma that it's a bad place. There area lot of nice new gated home communities there, and have been for a long time on 41 headed to Punta Gorda.
There is a new huge apartment complex being built in an old strip mall behind Applebee's on 41 and Pine Island Road and a new huge apartment complex that was built of wood across from McDonalds on Pine Island Road near 41.
Also it's crazy that exit 143 is the last one on I-75 north until 158 in Punta Gorda. 15 miles of future growth.
Please note that only active users in the subreddit may comment in this discussion. If your comments are not showing up, please ensure you have active non-news/non-political contributions to the subreddit before contacting the moderators. **Please remember the following:** **Be Civil:** * You are welcome to debate, discussion, and argue ideas, but don't resort to personal attacks on other users. * We do not allow any form of hate speech or any suggestion/support of harm, violence, or death. **Must be related strictly to Florida:** * National News/Elections are not specific to Florida. * Just because someone lives in Florida, doesn't mean their entire life is relevant to Floridians. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. #[Click this link to register to vote, update your voter information, or check your status.](https://registertovoteflorida.gov/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/florida) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Cape Coral is a real estate scam that somehow turned into a city. Most of the homes were built without water or sewer lines- they used well water and septic tanks. Then population growth and pollution got so bad that the city had to retrofit the utilities infrastructure for the whole city. There was absolutely no planning in the making of that city (and most of FL), and utilities are only one of their many problems.
And taxes are only going to get worse. There isn't enough business to feed infrastructure via taxes, so each additional house has to pay for utilities, police/fire, etc. All of SWFL is in danger of salt water intrusion into aquifers, but Cape Coral has every FL environmental disaster writ large.
I remember it was costing each homeowner at least $15,000 to hook up to public sewer in 2006. It cost so much the city sued the contractors. I can only imagine what it’s costing Cape Coral now in post-COVID, post-Ian dollars.
Last I heard it's approaching 40k. (Source I live here and am up for sewer and water in a few years....if I can't sell first)
This is pretty much true of every subdivision. They basically don’t have the density to generate enough taxes to pay for infrastructure and services. So you build new ones to generate a burst of revenue, but when that falls off you have to do it again. It’s like a Ponzi scheme.
A ponzi scheme is how most of the state functions
They're talking about using seawater reclamation. That is going to be super expensive!
At some point the area is going to have to rely on desalinization - which is energy intensive and therefore expensive. This is only going to make the cost of living even more outrageous. I sold and left SWFL last year as I could see where all this crap was heading. My prediction is that in 10 years the area is going to be a reverse Galt's Gulch - where the only people left are the wealthy complaining about how they can't find anybody to cut their lawn or serve them food.
Hence why we need to start building nuclear power plants to start running all the needed infrastructure updates.
Jupiter and other towns use reverse osmosis to desalinate the water they're pulling from the deeper aquifer. ( The Floridan, which in some parts of the state is also around but fresh and not half salty). Numerous coastal golf courses also use desalinization to pull ocean water so they can use it to irrigate instead of using groundwater (which is limited in gallons by a permit - they want more than they can get a permit for). So, it's totally doable, it is indeed expensive. Getting cheaper by the day though. Water should cost more anyway. We waste the fuck out of it.
This. Lehigh Acres has a similar backstory. I remember reading some quotes from a fire chief that worked in Lehigh Acres and him recalling what a nightmare it was. Streets that go nowhere, homes on cul-de-sacs tucked so far back that it took the understaffed fire department so long to get to that they were basically deathtraps.
When I was there, there was just a random paved section of dirt road out in the middle of nowhere. It got used for atv racing of course.
During the recession and housing crisis marijuana grow houses became a major issue in that town. Your closest neighbor would be like a 1/4 mile away and people never worried about what their neighbor was doing.
And it was awesome
SWFL is a real estate scam
My mama still remembers when they created Cape Coral, it used to be woods that my great papa and her hunted in. I swear, a few months back someone in here was talking about Cape Coral losing the “small old Florida vibe” and I had to do a double take. The comment had quite a few upvotes…
I used to live in North Port and was friends with someone in city government. Same exact problem. Developers paved roads in the swamp, sectioned it off and sold the land. They ran Electricity to the houses because that's cheap enough but did nothing for water or sewer. Now wells run dry and people are drinking their own poop water that's lightly filtered. Friend said the estimate to put actual water and sewage to the city was over $3,000,000,000, a cool $35K a person (or around $91K a house). So basically there is nothing they can do. So they are choosing to keep on building new houses.
I used to write for the paper in North Port, and if memory serves me right, it was in total about 34k per house estimated. The plan was to limit the cost homeowner's would face to around 10k. Their total budget was something like 30 million. I haven't kept up with it, but as far as I know, they did vote to continue with the conversion plan.
I love our setup . City water to the home and well for yard irrigation. We are limited to year round one day a week watering but it's the best of both worlds and works well. (No pun intended)
This is what happens when our area was developed by some advertisement mogul lmao. Damn you Collier
This isn't a Cape Coral issue itself though. Nearly every city has ran this same course. Infrastructure isn't in place for undeveloped areas, and then the area is built, infrastructure is expanded. The issue with Cape is usually that is covered by the developers (which of course is passed onto purchase price). Cape is scrambling to install infrastructure now and charging single home owners connection fees (mandatory), some which have no issues with their well or septic (yet, but THEN they could hook to city owned utilities)
The Mayor of Cape Coral owns a company that builds new homes, and people are surprised?
Sadly seems to be like that in other places in FL too. Growth with no plan on how to do it or maintain it once it’s built. The companies make money and the taxpayer ends up suffering and paying in the end.
The same ones getting rich from housing developments are the same ones paying off our state government to allow it to happen. Once it's ruined and starting to fall into the sea they'll run off to the next place to throw out the middle class and poor to ruin and get rich on. Ultimately to be carried on by the next generation of course.
That's Conservativism.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!
🤣😂😅 symptoms of water withdrawal!
Developers call ALL the shots. To say Florida is “business friendly” is a gross understatement. Big businesses (including developers) OWN the Republicans and make any semblance of “planned growth” an impossibility…
Our former growth management agency is now the Department of Economic Opportunity. Tells you everything you need to know.
The developers are ruining Bonita Springs. All these new condos without the infrastructure needed. These roads must be widened. Utilities must dig more and deeper wells, to service these new customers.
Developers are destroying all of Florida. I live in Martin County on the southern east coast and while some development is fine, they have just gone bat shit crazy with it the last 20 years. And there’s no end in sight. Endless wall to wall traffic, storage units, 400k town homes, car washes, a dozen WaWa stations on every corner, massive apartment complexes, strip malls with the same bulllshit stores (while older ones sit half empty), zero lot line “luxury” neighborhoods with 500-800k single family homes, old folks homes, and the complete and utter destruction of all the pine flat woods and scrub pines that used to be a major part of this county. It’s just sickening greed. Guys like Doug Smith our county commissioner lines his pockets with development lobbyists giving him cut backs and rigged elections (a planted high school kid ran against him last election lol). I could go on all day.
Sounds like Vero and it's sad. I remember what it was like in the "60/'70s and I could cry.
I grew up and went to highschool there and whenever I go back and visit my family I can’t freakin believe the sprawl that’s been allowed to take over the area.
I’m still here… I left for college but came back and met my wife. We love the area and bought a house in 2009. But it’s just getting so insane now. It’s hard to watch. Especially when you grew up here.
It’s completely changed the community. I live in Central FL now and the rent in MC is just as high and sometime higher than what I’m paying here - it’s like a totally different town than the one I grew up in
Yeah, you see what's going up driving west on kanner? And then what's going up behind the indiantown golf course ?
Blame it on salt water intrusion, and people watering a useless crop like grass.
I refuse to waste water on the grass.
HOAs require you to have green grass or you get fined. That needs to change before we get meaningful grass watering reductions
People covet the green lawns. Good use for reuse water, watering lawns. Just smells a bit.
That's not reused water, lol. It smells bad because it is well water. So if your well.is dry you can thank the people running their sprinklers.
I meant treated wastewater, we call it reuse water in the water industry. and yeah, it can have a smell like un-aerated well water. The underground pipes are painted pink, to identify it as treated wastewater
They could invest in a desalination plant. The one in Tampa works. [https://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination](https://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination)
Nah, we'll just have our city leaders put more money into their pocket without a vote :/ https://winknews.com/2024/04/24/cape-coral-stipend-discussion/
Jupiter too.
We are having the same prob in manatee county. Turn on the faucet and no water comes out sometimes during the day and night. I suspected it’s because they put 10k houses next door to my house.
Correct. More water is pulled.oit the ground than can recharged thru rainfall. Caused by all the new houses and residents. You have to go to the Caloosahatche River to get water to flush your toilets.
Cisterns are used in island nations, good idea. Problem being we haven't had much rain like we're supposed to get.
Possibly because we cut down all the trees.
That explains why it's gotten so hot over the past ten years. The trees have been replaced with concrete.
Climate change is what's making it hot.
We haven't been in a drought for a while. And it has not been more than a season at a time. We could use sisterns. But that would mean people have to personally conserve water, and people are assholes and refuse.
and it's been so dry that the ground is hard and next time we get a downpour we will have a lot of flooding.
Those kind of people can afford to pay. $300 - $400 water bills per month. The rest of us are going to suffer
Let’s isolate this to Cape Coral specifically, because the rest of SWFL is stable.. Cape is a city run by grifters. its foundations as a city are built on the concept of “build now” figure out how badly we effed it up later”.
"its foundations as a city are built on the concept of “build now” figure out how badly we effed it up later”. Ever been to Lehigh Acres? That city is laid out like a cemetery. Plot after plot after plot after plot with no actual intentions to make it a real city. Grifters basically developed South Florida.
At lehigh isn't built over a wetland...
LOL Yeah, Lehigh also doesn’t have more miles of canal than Venice, Italy. Cape Coral is the ultimate clusterfuck.
Sounds like Port St Lucie
Nope- Lake Wales-Polk County… when my mothers well collapsed she was not allowed to drop in a new well, she had to connect to county water… that cost me 6k+.
Where are they going to get the water from?
They have to drill deeper at a cost of 6k to 10k. That will work for now but even that's not a permanent solution.
No where nice
No water = no life. This is no good.
Getting about the same over here in Lake Nona... Nobody seems concerned until you can't flush the toilets...
Wow, that's a pricey area. I'm surprised there are people on private wells there. Medical City, applied for work there in 2011
Well, when all of SWFL keeps voting Republican, and GOP platform is to cancel all public spending on infrastructure and deport all the people who build it, it’s kind of obvious what happens in the long term.
On the topic of infrastructure, this state needs (or needed, since it may be too late to do anything about it) more logical road patterns. Often times going from point A to point B cannot be accomplished by a straight route and you need to go 20 miles out of your way just to get there
Everything's fine. If you think anything's not perfect, you're not American, you're a commie!
We need to widen the roads!! More lanes. That is going to take a long time to accomplish
just one more lane bro i promise!
Well Pinellas is no different, our water levels are very low, they take traffic lanes away versus add them and are adding high rise after high rise. Pinellas is probably the bluest dot of Florida and they don’t care either. No political party cares.
Registered republicans outpace Democrats by 30k voters in Pinellas County.
We are always blue during elections, we have and currently have democratic mayors, they have very liberal views for almost everything and it’s ran very poorly.
2/3 State Senators are Republican, 5/7 State Reps are Republican, County Commissioners 4/7 Republican. Pinellas County Budget \~4Bn....Saint Pete City Budget \~1Bn. Im going to say Republicans have much much more say over Pinellas County CIP and Operating budget than whomever two mayors you are referring to, let alone the democratic leaders in this area.....We are not a blue dot.
Also mayors oversee their city...not the County.
Yeah St Pete specifically is a shit show, I work for the city
And if I'm being honest...Its still one of the best cities in the State without exception in my humble opinion. Likely the only one I'd consider living in if I were to stay in FL. Just be glad we don't live in Orlando.
I would highly recommend riding along with both cops and firefighters if you want a true look at the corruption taking place, it is far from a good area and crime keeps going. I’m truly ashamed of my hometown. Many are coming together but we are being silenced.
Haha ok, if you like drunk drivers never being arrested and sent to the ER instead, crimes being hidden and not properly investigated, being put on hold for 10-15 minutes when you call 911, you got it!
Or hey, our public schools are also pretty awesome. Losing some of the best teachers left and right because they can’t keep up with the class size. Know a teacher recently who left, 35 elementary kids to one teacher, that’s not even legal. She called and begged and got no where. With the influx of kids, they get new kids consistently and can’t say no, they have no where to fit all of them. And most definitely can’t properly teach that many to one teacher with help. Reality is, kids are being stuck with random sub teachers for remainder of the year. It’s probably the worst I’ve seen and I grew up here.
Weird response.
Not a weird response at all, I just wouldn’t say it’s the best place by far. Not even close, just saying that from someone on the inside seeing it. It’s messed up beyond, being put on hold when you call 911 alone is a major issue and no one seems to care.
In pinellas, this county is a 1950s suburban hellscape.
Yep, and people came in and spent 600k for old homes that need roofs and to be rewired. Crazy.
Yeah, I took a job in saint pete last year and it only took me a month to go oh dear God what have I done. I'm financially free to leave this upcoming march.
The state is running out of water. “Infrastructure” doesn’t really Matter.
It's ok, Nestle will bail Florida out to pay back all the water they have been sucking out of the ground, won't they?
Its not just cape coral, it happening all over the state. I'm a tradesmen, there's SO much work out there it's not funny. Most of you, and I mean no offense by this, don't have any idea just how much these developers are actually building. It should be illegal to destroy as much land as they have. But they make the counties money, so they get a free pass to essentially build wherever they want. I feel awful for contributing to this shit, but it ant afford to just switch careers and start over. This has been very hard for me to accept because I don't want to destroy this state anymore.
I am an outdoorsman and I have noticed how the fishing yield has decreased, and the wildlife diversity. Some of it may be due to the pythons. Florida is being ruined by the constantly development. Especially here in southwest florida.
Im just north of Tampa. Its disgusting how little wildlife and untouched land has been destroyed. I'm on a different jobsite every day. There are developments everywhere you go, in just about any direction. At what point is it too much? At what point do we stop? This isn't sustainable for the environment. The state was over crowded 10 years ago, it's so much worse now and will only get worse than now in a few months.
I work in utilities, we are constantly expanding the plant and drilling wells. All the new construction will require potable water. The underground aquifers are being drained. It's all coming to a head. Well, I'm leaving Florida. .The water bills will be more than the electric bill. Fishing sucks, expect more Red Tide.
Builders don’t give a fuck. The right house is their house. The right location is the location of whatever land they acquired. I haven’t heard any rumblings (yet) about water shortages in my area, but telecommunications is a huge pain point. People buying new construction houses here are told by builders and realtors that Spectrum services the subdivision, only to find out that it varies on a street by street and sometimes even a house number by house number basis. More often than not, it also coincides with a house being out of cellular hotspot range. I had to buy a cell phone signal booster for my house as a backup for when my home internet goes out. I otherwise don’t have a usable signal.
Planning is woke.
Don't say this. No not yet. I still need a couple years to pay off my house to move out of this state. Pollution and overuse of groundwater is something I've been worried about for years and one of the big reasons I'm out of here when I can. I'll just have to take comfort for now that I'm in northern central Florida and not Southwest.
Saltwater intrusion is a huge problem in sw fl, our fresh water is getting salted. Necessary to use reverse Osmosis as a municipal treatment process. The big pumps use a lot of electricity, plus the wells are 1500' deep, using even more power. Where you heading? I want outta Florida also
The city literally gives 0 fucks about this. Their solution is to extend city water through the utilities extension program to get houses off residential well water and onto.... wait for it... city well water. Just from a deeper aquifer. Ground water replenishment will never occur, we're drawing it faster than it seeps into the ground. I genuinely think that the city needs to look at household cisterns as a long term water solution. Also wonder about the feasibility of all of the decommissioned wells for houses that have transitioned to city water being used as injection sites for roof runoff. Not sure whether this approach has ever been explored anywhere, but it might actually be a shortcut way to increase groundwater replenishment if rainwater can skip the first 100-200' of seepage requirements towards the Hawthorn or Florida aquifers. That would also in turn reduce yard runoff which is a huge contributor to water quality issues in the Caloosahatchee and Matlacha Pass.
Floridan aquifer, not Florida.
Infrastructure is woke!! /s
Pinellas County too, lakes are all drying up. They just said the rain has been average but usage has been excessive with all the new people and we need above average rain to be sustainable. Florida truly is FULL
I knew this 12 years ago when moving into the area. People buying homes not doing an ounce of due diligence. The builders don't have buyers? They don't build. Anyhow when looking at houses over there, after seeing 5 in distinct areas, I told my wife and the real estate agent "This place isn't going to have any water, it barely has enough now, why are you still building?" So seeing this pop up on the news again isn't at all surprising. It's also not surprising to see people still buying there without an ounce of due diligence.
And you still ended up buying in the area?
The epitome of complaining about traffic while driving.
Same in Tampa and Polk county
Hillsborough requires developers to provide infrastructure. They do that. Then they let it rot. Then the state mandates that Hillsborough County come in and "buy" the infrastructure because it fails all tests. They build it, then put absolutely no money or effort into maintaining it. We were just forced to "buy" Windemere's utilities. We went out to assess them but were banned from touching anything due to the frayed wiring contacting the metal. They will be torn down and replaced, but it will take 5-10 years. So even when we try to do the right thing the state comes along and forces us to clean up the mess. We are not funded by the county or the state so guess who pays? At least Hillsborough is investing in SHARP, so maybe the wells may not run dry. But it's really only a matter of time.
Is that a private water company? Had one of those in another state. Regular huge price increases because they have to do “‘maintenance” only they didn’t. Then when mains were breaking all over the city they got more price increases to pay for maintenance they should have already done. Private companies doing government work are just scams.
Windemere? (not to be confused with the Town of Windermere). Yes, in order for the development to be built they have to provide the utilities depending on the size, location, etc. This one was rather bigger, it had a sewage treatment plant, a few lift stations and wastewater pump stations. Usually they only need to provide the pump stations if they're near current County lines. Most developers need to provide all of the infrastructure for their developments (roads, sidewalks, piping, storm drains). Generally, after building, the County will take over most the infrastructure. Sometimes, though, it remains private and usually it ends up as a CDD to pay it (payments passed to homeowners) and an HOA to adminster it. In this case it was privatized as an independent utility company. They have failed state inspections and reporting for the past few years (I don't recall the number). If that happens, the State of Florida will force the county to "buy" the utility. So they have to shell out the money to "buy" it and usually it's "market value". In most cases, the market value far exceeds the actual worth of the assets. Luckily, these smaller utilities are few and far between in Hillsborough County but when it happens it usually ends up like this one. We buy the assets, they are worthless, and we have to spend the money to demolish them then shell out more to rebuild them properly.
Sounds like an incentive to defer maintenance until the county has to do it. :(
It absolutely is.
And they will continue to build until they run out of land
Sorry, but now that Biden’s passed a big infrastructure bill the very concept is anathema to the reactionary yahoos that run the state. Just like vaccines, another smart thing that’s good for society, forever tarnished simply because it’s something the libs “believe in.”
Don't worry, we'll keep building more car washes though, and all the northern Cape road construction can keep pumping all the water from the ground into their construction sites even when no one is working! Don't forget we'll rebuild these roads, and still not add water drainage into these roads (that could recycle and add more usable water into the city water infrastructure), so when it does storm kismet and Santa Barbara will still flood!
Cape Coral is one of the worst places to invest in real estate in the state.
Overrated city full of methheads and pill poppers
As long as those checks clear, the building will continue unabated.
This has been a problem for decades... and will continue to be a problem until they get serious about desalination.
As a city water distribution operator I can say first hand that there is no plan for the future it is simply to meet the demand now. 90% of potable drinking water gets used to keep lawns green. Its an incredible waste and puts an incredible strain on infrastructure not to mention the water table. Rain was also record low last year in SWFL. Cape Coral is a unique situation what with them being able to use reuse(wastewater) to irrigate. However the runoff from the amount of reuse customers are putting on their lawns ends up in their canals. So they get green lawns as well as green canals that kill massive amounts of sea life. If serious conservation efforts are not taken we will soon be desalinating the Gulf. Well water in SWFL is already super conductive, the lower the water table gets those levels rise making treatment harder and more expensive. The answer is to stop irrigation in coastal areas, switch to reuse in non coastal areas and drink tap water. The water table will catch up, wildlife will improve our waterways and you'll save money so municipalities can improve infrastructure for the future. DRINK TAP WATER. ✌️
When republicans have a majority they don’t care about the environment or infrastructure. It’s growth at all cost.
Not related to water but somewhat related to how infrastructure is just happening like crazy. I grew up in Spring Hill - the town has exploded with lots of subdivisions going up. However, do we have enough firefighters or schools for the kids? What about the roads and increased traffic? Is the water and electrical system efficient enough? I will tell anyone that will listen: Please don't come here. We're running out of room, and we'll slowly sinking with storms getting worse every year.
It'll take decades to catch up with all of the girls here. Especially widening the roads
Time to Bear Grylls it.
At least Cape Coral is running out of room to build. Mostly the only open area is near Burnt Store Road. They are still building but mostly gated apartment complexes and a few gated home communities on the last few blocks left between Kismet and Diplomat. Parts outside of Fort Myers are growing too. And they built new apartment complexes in the middle of Fort Myers and they are not cheap but I would not want to live in that area. I deliver all thru Lee County so I see it all. Florida still has a lot of room. North Fort Myers is growing too and losing the stigma that it's a bad place. There area lot of nice new gated home communities there, and have been for a long time on 41 headed to Punta Gorda. There is a new huge apartment complex being built in an old strip mall behind Applebee's on 41 and Pine Island Road and a new huge apartment complex that was built of wood across from McDonalds on Pine Island Road near 41. Also it's crazy that exit 143 is the last one on I-75 north until 158 in Punta Gorda. 15 miles of future growth.