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Council likes drop-off center; neighbors don't

"This is a dump no matter how you dress it up," resident Rick Fifer said Thursday.

By JANET ZINK
Published June 1, 2007

TAMPA -- It's being billed as a "neighborhood drop-off center," a place to dispose of "unwanted bulky household items."

But people who live near the proposed project on 22nd Street at Sligh Avenue say they don't want it in their neighborhood.

"This is a dump no matter how you dress it up," Seminole Heights resident Rick Fifer told the Tampa City Council on Thursday.

David McCary, Tampa's solid waste director, said the drop-off center will help solve the problem of illegal dumping in east Tampa. Thirty-six of the 52 illegal dump sites identified by the city are in that area, he said.

The 3-acre project will be in the center of 22 wooded acres owned by the city near Rogers Park Golf Course. It will be open seven days a week and provide a place to get rid of yard waste, furniture, mattresses, appliances and recyclable material such as glass, plastic and newspapers.

McCary showed a two-minute animated video set to music that simulated a drive down the tree-shaded entry to the collection bins.

Council members declared it lovely.

But Council member Tom Scott said his office has been inundated with letters and e-mails from people opposed to the project. He asked McCary if there might be other ways to discourage illegal dumping in east Tampa besides a dump site.

McCary said the Tampa Police Department's environmental crimes unit has made 22 arrests for illegal dumping in east Tampa since the unit was established in December. But that isn't enough to stop the activity, he said.

The drop-off center will discourage illegal dumping by providing a more convenient alternative to the McKay Bay Transfer Station southeast of downtown, he said.

But Fifer was skeptical, and said McKay Bay is actually closer than the proposed location.

"If they're too lazy to get to McKay Bay, they're not going to drive even further to this beautiful amusement park," he said.

Kay Andrews, publisher of the Florida Sentinel Bulletin, a newspaper geared toward the African-American community, said she was watching the City Council discussion on television and rushed down to City Hall to speak on the issue.

"I was dumbfounded by some of your comments about how beautiful this dump site is," she said. "Why are you proposing this for the black neighborhood? This is not fair."

A public meeting on the proposal is scheduled for June 18 at 7 p.m. at the Seminole Heights Garden Center.

In other business, the City Council heard from downtown interests who want to see Ashley Drive made more hospitable to pedestrians. They worry that the busy road is a daunting barrier between the burgeoning residential area east of Ashley and the proposed park and cultural activities on the other side.

A consultant hired by the city presented plans for narrowing lanes on Ashley and widening sidewalks.

Limiting "lane width forces drivers to pay more attention to their environment and slow down," said Steve Schukraft, an urban planner for HDR Engineering.

But some want Schukraft to go further and actually reduce the number of lanes on Ashley Drive, even though a previous report concluded doing so would cause a traffic nightmare downtown.

Council member Linda Saul-Sena said traffic could be diverted to Tampa Street to unclog Ashley.

"Transportation is trumping urban design," Saul-Sena said.

A workshop on the remaking of Ashley Drive will be scheduled in June.

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3401.

[Last modified June 1, 2007, 00:40:47]