LAKELAND, Fla. — Four times in eight days. That’s how many times a Lakeland mobile home park has flooded recently, according to a group of neighbors that includes Carol Coy.
“It’s so hard to see this,” said Coy. “This has been one of the most frustrating things I think I’ve ever been through.”
Coy and the others live at Citrus Center Colony, a 55-and-older mobile home community off W. Beacon Road in Lakeland. She and other neighbors say the community has flooded repeatedly over the years, even after routine afternoon showers.
During one rainstorm last June, floodwater seeped into the home of Coy’s 73-year-old neighbor.
“I walked over to her house just to see if I could take her blood pressure because she was screaming she was so upset,” she remembered. “Seeing what some of the elderly have gone through, I guess that’s what’s been the most upsetting thing.”
Over the past eight days, there have been four more rounds of localized flooding in low spots of the mobile home park: Monday, July 8; Friday, July 12; Sunday, July 14; and Tuesday, July 16.
Neighbors at Citrus Center Colony continue to contact ABC Action News seeking help. They want a meeting with the mobile home park’s management, Bedrock Communities; they want some of the lowest lying neighbors relocated; and they want Bedrock to fix the infrastructure problems that they think are causing the flooding.
“They need to put bigger pipes in here so that the water flows, so that it doesn’t back up in the middle of the street here,” Coy said.
ABC Action News has sent multiple emails and made multiple phone calls to Bedrock Communities seeking answers. So far, the company has not responded.
According to Kevin Cook, a spokesperson for the City of Lakeland, Citrus Center Colony was built in the 1950s before many modern-day stormwater infrastructure requirements were in place.
“As private property the park would need to build their own retention ponds and stormwater collection. Unfortunately, when the mobile home park was created there weren't stormwater systems that we have today and there were no requirements. Today, a development would be required to include stormwater infrastructure,” Cook wrote, in part.
“The mobile home park owners are responsible for managing the storm water in the park,” Cook continued. “Based on the repeated flooding incidents, the current system is either undersized and/or there are blockages causing the lack of proper drainage.”
“You know, it might just be time we take a look if HOAs are really even necessary.
Maybe we should just do away with homeowner associations as a whole.”
South Florida lawmaker Rep. Juan Carlos Porras (R-Miami) says it may be time to do away with homeowners associations altogether, as more Floridians speak out about rising fees, costly lawsuits, and even arrests tied to HOA disputes. He said this week that he is considering filing legislation in the next session that would abolish HOAs statewide.
