No water, no new homes: Dundee considers a building moratorium until more water is found

The Town of Dundee is expected to enact a one-year moratorium on new housing developments because of a lack of water for all the residential units that developers have planned.

Dundee, a town of about 6,000 residents nestled on the east side of U.S. 27 between Lake Wales and Haines City, has about 20 proposed housing developments in various stages of the approval process. Those projects, if built out, would add more than 5,000 housing units and possibly double the town's water usage.

Meanwhile, Dundee is already drawing about 90% of the water allowed under its permit.

During a discussion at Tuesday’s Dundee Commission meeting, a consensus of the board directed the town’s attorney to prepare an ordinance placing a moratorium on new development until water is available.

The ordinance would need to be reviewed – possibly as soon as August – during the regularly scheduled meeting of the town planning and zoning board.

A slew of developers with pending housing developments in Dundee attended Tuesday’s meeting, including Polk County Commissioner George Lindsey, who was there not on county business, but to represent Center State Development LLC.

Reggie Baxter and Bob Adams are the managing members of Center State, which is based in Winter Haven. They have proposed two housing communities: including Woodland Ranch Estates and the Legacy.

When reached by phone Wednesday, Lindsey said that Dundee is “bumping up against their capacity and they've got to do something to press the pause button.”

Center State has a couple of projects pending in Dundee, so Lindsey, who has a business relationship with the land development company, spoke at the town’s commission meeting.

“My comments basically said yes, you're doing the right thing. You have a serious capacity issue that you need to address and there's several routes to begin to overcome that deficiency," Lindsey said.

He added that as the town writes an ordinance and policies to address this issue, city officials will have to recognize projects that are “in the queue nearing completion.” But at the same time, the town would have to draw the line on other projects if there is no capacity.

“There is relief on the horizon,” Lindsey said.

Where is Dundee getting more water?

Many of the proposed Dundee developments are for properties with agricultural wells on them, and there is a process to convert them to public use wells when there are sufficient volumes to make any appreciable difference.

“And so that's one course of action that they are taking and will continue to take to relieve, alleviate some of their shortfalls,” Lindsey said.

Davenport to Dundee: Power Line Road extension is Polk County's largest developer-constructed road project

Further, Dundee has an interlocal agreement with Winter Haven for 500,000 gallons of water per day, he said. But Winter Haven still has to design, permit and build the pipeline.

Dundee also signed up for the Polk Regional Water Cooperative , so they will be getting their proportionate share as the organization starts serving water to its members.

Lindsey said the Dundee town attorney has a Herculean task in front of him because, in addition to the moratorium ordinance, the town wants updates to its land development code, comprehensive plan and its impact fees for transportation.

New projects could double Dundee's water usage

City Manager Tandra Wilson confirmed much of Lindsey’s recap of the meeting. She said that Dundee has a state permit for drawing 917,500 gallons of groundwater per day, a figure the Southwest Florida Water Management District confirmed.

Wilson said as of May, Dundee was drawing 818,134 gallons per day from the aquifer. She said of the 20 proposed housing projects, there are 5,702 residential units, including single-family homes, multi-family homes and apartments. Those units would require about 800,000 more gallons per day — nearly eight times what Dundee has left in its current permit — doubling Dundee's daily usage.

'We have to expand our town to survive': Lake Hamilton grows 20% with 626-acre annexation

The presentation at Tuesday’s meeting showed other communities in Florida are dealing with similar water shortages impacting their ability to grow, including Zephyrhills, which imposed a one-year moratorium last year and in June renewed the moratorium.

Of Dundee’s pending moratorium, Wilson said, “We are trying to find our balance. ... We are just trying to be proactive.”

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: No water, no new homes: Dundee considers a building moratorium until more water is found