Emerg.-Only Connection Finally Under Construction At Kinnan-Mansfield

The worn-out dirt path that has unofficially connected Kinnan St. in New Tampa to Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe at the Pasco-Hillsborough county line has finally been cleared, along with the weeds, trees and bushes that have covered the 30-foot patch of land no man’s land for so long.

It’s really happening, y’all.

The two roads will be connected, maybe by as soon as the end of this month, allowing access for first responders and emergency medical vehicles only. 

For those who have hoped for years that another north-south connection would allow for easier access between Hillsborough and Pasco counties, sorry — a gate will be installed to prohibit local vehicular traffic.

Hillsborough County will pay for the new connection to be paved and equipped with a gate that Pasco County will control and pay to maintain. Hillsborough County District 2 commissioner Ken Hagan secured $250,000 for the project two years ago in an effort to get the roads connected, although he had hoped for a connection that would be open to everyone, but Meadow Pointe II residents were able to convince the Pasco Board of County Commissioners that opening the connection to everyone would bring an unsafe amount of traffic through their neighborhood.

“I’m absolutely thrilled that New Tampa will finally have emergency and pedestrian access,” Hagan says. “However, I’m hopeful that one day Pasco County will quit being parochial and obtuse and authorize full access, which is undoubtedly desperately needed.”

Pasco County Commission chair Mike Moore says there will be no need for full access, because connections are planned at the intersections of Meadow Pointe Blvd. and K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., as well as at Wyndfields Blvd. and K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., creating additional north-south roads between Pasco and Hillsborough counties.

Moore add that Meadow Pointe and Wyndfields Blvds. are more suited for additional traffic than Mansfield Blvd.

M/I Homes, the developer of New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch, located in the city, will pay for a significant amount of the package as part of its development agreement. A new pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists will also be built as part of the project.

New Tampa Tries To Drum Up Answers To Connections Stalemate

“People on the other side like the idea of living on a dead-end street,” says the City of Tampa’s Bob McDonaugh. (Photo: John C. Cotey)

The Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) asked county residents last month to complete an online survey involving the Wesley Chapel Roadways Connections study, which took a detailed look at traffic improvements mostly within Meadow Pointe, as well as three potential connections to the City of Tampa’s New Tampa area.

The survey, which ran from April 1-30, drew more than 2,700 responses, said Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore, whose District 2 includes most of Wesley Chapel.

The online survey asked a handful of simple questions about whether you approved of the following:

• A connection at Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe and Kinnan St. in K-Bar Ranch.

• A connection at Meadow Pointe Blvd. and the Meadow Pointe Blvd. Extension, which hooks up with K-Bar Ranch Blvd., also in New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch development

• A connection at Wyndfields Blvd. and the Wyndfields Blvd. Extension, which would connect to both K-Bar Ranch Blvd. and Morris Bridge Rd.

• All three connections.

The survey also asked after each question if the respondent’s answer would be different if all of the improvements identified by Wesley Chapel Roadways Connections are committed to be done prior to, or concurrent with, the connection(s).

Along with looking at the connections, the study identified $13.8-million worth of road improvements in and around Meadow Pointe, such as repaving and widening roads, making intersections safer and improving traffic signals.

In anticipation of the results and because the Pasco side has dominated the debate over the proposed roadway connections, District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents those in K-Bar Ranch and the rest of New Tampa, held a forum in April at Cypress Pointe Community Church to discuss the thorniest of the proposed connections: Kinnan-Mansfield, where a 20-foot stretch of dirt and shrubs is all that stands in the way of linking the two roads. 

Roughly 40 people attended the meeting, along with the city of Tampa’s administrator of economic opportunity Bob McDonaugh, who has negotiated on the city’s behalf with Pasco’s MPO regarding the Kinnan-Mansfield connection.

McDonaugh lamented that despite negotiating with Pasco County for years, a deal has never been struck, even though he says promises were made by Pasco officials to connect the roads years ago.

“I wanted to get some ideas from you and would like to hear what’s important,” McDonaugh said at the meeting at Cypress Point. “I’m certainly willing to go back to the table and bring our legal staff and transportation people.”

However, McDonaugh admitted that the Wesley Chapel side has been very well entrenched, and has the support of Moore and other county commissioners as well.

“People on the other side like the idea of living on a dead-end street,” he said. “Not in my backyard, they say, and they are very vocal.”

Their were few new ideas put forth, as the smattering of New Tampa residents took turns expressing their frustration. One resident likened the debate with Wesley Chapel to negotiating with a hostage taker; others suggested taking their concerns to the state legislature.

And, K-Bar Ranch resident Cindy Gustavel  even echoed what Wesley Chapel residents have argued — stop building homes in K-Bar Ranch if the needed connections aren’t made.

Last summer, M/I Homes received City of Tampa approval to build 700 more homes in K-Bar Ranch, where residents are already complaining about having only way out of their community and the difficulty in receiving timely police and fire assistance, or what an evacuation in the case of a major emergency might look like.

“It is irresponsible to keep building houses if we only have one point of egress,” Gustavel said. “It is irresponsible to let M/I Homes keep building homes without proper infrastructure.”

Many in attendance seemed to agree that the hopes of connecting Kinnan and Mansfield are as dim as they have ever been. 

“We’re beating our heads against the wall,” said one New Tampa resident, which may have summed up the feelings of the people in the room perfectly. 

Pasco Roadway Connections Meeting Draws Interested New Tampa Residents

Based on the number of spirited debates that highlighted the first public meeting hosted by Pasco County planners last month at Pasco-Hernando State College (PHSC)’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, the county’s year-long study looking at three possible roadway connection points between Wesley Chapel and New Tampa should be an interesting one.

The long-debated connection of Kinnan St. in New Tampa to Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe predictably drew the most conversation.

However, a crowd of more than 100 people milled about while also discussing the potential connection of Meadow Pointe Blvd. to a road in New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch that is planned, as well as a connection between Wyndfields Blvd. and a road in K-Bar that is not yet approved by Hillsborough County but would eventually link Wesley Chapel to Morris Bridge Rd.

Pasco’s District 2 county commissioner Mike Moore made it clear at the outset that this was a Pasco County project, and that Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa both have nothing to do with it. Moore had met with then-City of Tampa District 7 City Council member Lisa Montelione last year in an attempt to get Kinnan-Mansfield connected, but the Tampa side declined to pay, or contribute to the cost, for any study, he said.

That didn’t stop a good number of New Tampa residents, including Montelione’s replacement on the City Council — New Tampa resident Luis Viera — from showing up to voice their opinions. Viera called the inability to connect the two roads, “government at its worst.”

K-Bar residents Joe and K.D. Ann Avinger were among the New Tampa residents on hand to voice their desire for a connection between Kinnan and Mansfield.

Pasco Roadway Connections Meeting Draws Interested New Tampa Residents

Avinger argued that the fears of Meadow Pointe II residents, probably the biggest opponents to the connection because of concerns about increased traffic on Mansfield, which runs through their community, were unfounded. He said he believes most of the traffic on busy Cross Creek Blvd. would bypass Kinnan and continue to Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. before turning north, especially since the widening of BBD could be completed before any connections are even made.

“Why would you get off a wider street, to get on a 35-mph street that is a further trip and puts you right back on the same road (BBD) you were going to anyway?,” he asked.

The Avingers, who have relatives in Wesley Chapel they like to visit, think the Kinnan-Mansfield connection would be more of a weekend convenience for shoppers going to the malls than a new path for commuters.

Proponents of that connection say it would improve public safety by creating another north-south route connecting New Tampa to Wesley Chapel in case of emergencies, as well as benefitting businesses on both sides.

Opponents cited an increase in dangerous traffic on Mansfield, which already is an important and busy artery in the mornings and afternoons connecting the area to four nearby Pasco schools — Sand Pine and Wiregrass elementaries, Long Middle School and Wiregrass Ranch High. If you add Pride Elementary in K-Bar just beyond where the connection would be made — a point of concern for some New Tampa parents — that’s five schools.

Dennis Smith, the chairman of the board of the Meadow Pointe I CDD, said that he would like to see the connection made.

“We are at loggerheads with Meadow Pointe II,’’ he said.

Smith said it is ridiculous that in the vast area between Livingston Ave. and Morris Bridge Rd., there is only one road — BBD —that goes north and south between New Tampa and Wesley Chapel. Even after listening to all of the debate, however, he still has little hope the connection will ever be made.

“This is my fifth time through this drill,’’ said Smith, who bought his home in 1998. “I’ve been around a long time, I’ve been active a long time and I know what’s going on and I have serious doubts this ever gets done.”

Moore said that of all the correspondence he has received at his office about Kinnan-Mansfield from his Pasco constituents, 70-80 percent of it is against a connection.

He added, however, that the proposed link between Meadow Pointe Blvd. and a planned road in K-Bar Ranch may prove to be a better option. He said it seemed to be favored by the majority of the (Pasco) people he talked to at the meeting.

Moore said he expects the study, for which Pasco is paying engineering firm AECOM $112,000 to conduct, should take about 6-7 months. The study’s findings will be presented at another public meeting.

“I think the important thing is we are now looking at all possible connections,” Moore said. “Hopefully, we can figure this all out.”

Here We Go Again — Politicians To Debate Kinnan St./Mansfield Blvd. Link

kinnanThe infamous and befuddling barricades (photo) blocking Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe from Kinnan St. in the K-Bar Ranch/Live Oak Preserve area of New Tampa continue to stand as the area’s most notorious roadblock. But, whereas the barricades themselves have had zero movement in years, that can no longer be said of talks to remove them.

Pasco County District 2 commissioner Mike Moore and Hillsborough County District 7 City Council member Lisa Montelione sat down for a conversation last month and the two have agreed to re-open discussions to resolve the long-standing Kinnan-Mansfield impasse.

“Lisa and I met and had a great conversation,’’ Moore said. “We agreed to sit down with both of our sides either the first or second week in March. Obviously, there’s a lot of work to get through, but we both agree we want to do what is best for the region and the citizens.”

Montelione placed tackling the Kinnan/Mansfield dilemma — which, if resolved, would give Wesley Chapel and New Tampa drivers an alternative north/south route to Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. (and the two-lane Morris Bridge Rd.) — on her list of things to do in 2016. She sent a letter, dated Jan. 21, to the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) in the hopes of sparking a new debate.

Moore, however, already had agreed to meet with Montelione before the letter even arrived. He said his first priority has been seeing that the S.R. 56 extension was approved, but once that was settled, he was going to set his sights on Kinnan/Mansfield.

“There are a lot of people for (the Kinnan-Mansfield connection),’’ he said, “but a lot of people have concerns.”

Moore said he will be accompanied at the meeting by Pasco County administrator Michelle Baker, assistant county attorney David Goldstein and Ali Atefi, Pasco’s transportation engineer.

A Scary Situation…

In her letter to the Pasco BCC, Montelione laid out the human side of the City of Tampa’s case for removing the barricades. She wrote that in early November of 2015, K-Bar Ranch (located off Morris Bridge Rd. in New Tampa, just south of the Pasco line) resident Otto Schloeter was cooking lunch for his family when a pan caught fire and severely burned his arm.

The 9-1-1 call from a cell phone ended up going to a tower in Wesley Chapel. The Pasco County 9-1-1 Dispatch Center transferred the call to Hillsborough County Fire Dispatch, which then alerted the wrong Hillsborough County station — nearly 20 miles away — in Thonotasassa, when there are two Tampa Fire Rescue stations (Nos. 21 & especially 22, which is only a mile or so from Morris Bridge Rd.) on Cross Creek Blvd. that are both only a few minutes away from K-Bar.

Hillsborough County’s fire truck eventually made it to Schloeter’s, and called in a Tampa Fire Rescue ambulance.

Due to the confusion, it took nearly two hours to get an actual ambulance to Chloeter and get him from his home in New Tampa to the emergency room at Tampa General Hospital.

While Montelione suggests that more updated emergency responder technology be implemented near the border of New Tampa (which has both unincorporated Hillsborough and City of Tampa communities) and Wesley Chapel, she also says that the pathways that should be connecting counties and cities should be open and as easily accessible as possible.

If Kinnan St. and Mansfield Blvd. had been connected, Montelione wrote, Pasco County Emergency Service Station 26 in Meadow Pointe would have been recognized as the closest station:

“With the mutual aid agreement between our governments, I believe it is fair to say that the completion of this road could have prevented Mr. Schloeter from waiting 45 minutes for emergency responders.”

A similar argument was put forward in 2012 by John Thrasher, the CEO of Excel Music (located in the Cory Lake Isles Professional Center on Cross Creek Blvd.). Thrasher organized and submitted a petition with 61 signatures representing roughly 40 businesses on both sides on the county line, to the City of Tampa attorney’s office urging for the completion of the Kinnan/Mansfield connection.

“This is not only about commerce and convenience, but in an area of wildfires, sinkholes, floods and hurricanes, it is a matter of public safety to provide citizens with as many routes as possible in and out of an area,” Thrasher wrote.

The issue of connecting Kinnan St. to Mansfield Blvd has been mired in dispute since the 2,000-ft.-long roadway was paved north to the county line in 2007 by the developer of Live Oak Preserve in New Tampa.

In November of 2012, Goldstein reached out to the City of Tampa attorney’s office about Kinnan/Mansfield and laid out of a list of Pasco’s requirements — which included a commitment from the City and/or K-Bar to pay for traffic-calming improvements at the intersection of Mansfield Blvd. and Beardsley Dr. (which runs along the southern border of Meadow Pointe), as well as at Mansfield Blvd. and Wrencrest Dr. to the north, with a funding commitment by Pasco capped at no more than $500,000.

Those requirements were rejected by Julia Mandell, senior assistant attorney for the City of Tampa, in February of 2013.

Thrasher’s petition a month later also failed to bring about any action.

One of Pasco’s requirements from 2012, however, could be part of any new 2016 negotiations. Pasco asked for four lanes of right of way, or land on which to construct the “Beardsley Extension,” which would link Beardsley Dr. east to Morris Bridge Rd. and take some of the traffic pressure off Mansfield Blvd.

Montelione did not comment on the specifics of the Beardsley Dr. request from 2012, but is open to the extension if the two sides can agree to terms. She did say that it seems unlikely that a Kinnan/Mansfield agreement can be negotiated without the Beardsley Extension being a part of the deal.

Moore says that after years of failed attempts, though, he has hopes for success in 2016.

“I feel good about it,’’ he says.