TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — The city of Treasure Island said the sea level is projected to rise to almost 4 feet by the year 2100. To protect the island from this, the city wants to elevate the city.
An issue that many coastal communities across the Tampa Bay area are dealing with is flooding.
Treasure Island has been dealing with this for years and they want to address it with a new project called Elevate TI.
"It looks about a knee-high river, not quite kayak material, but it gets fairly high," Clyde Davis said.
Davis has been with the Bilmar Beach Resort on Gulf Boulevard for 18 years.
"We've had people with difficulty getting to the property because of flooding," Davis said. "What we do is just tell them to find a safe area, wait about an hour and usually it recedes by that time."
City officials said this isn't just a Gulf Boulevard issue, but the entire island.
"For tiny Treasure Island, I think we have taken a really big step," said city official Stacy Boyles.
The city said high tides often cover their stormwater outfall pipes, even on a sunny day. To address this, they want to slowly elevate the town so it doesn't end up underwater.
Officials said properties are currently being built upon piles, but they want to take it a step further.
"We're requiring that they bring in soil material to elevate the ground of the structures they're building," Boyles said.
Boyles said this is still in the early stages and has not been approved.
"Once we start to have our homes and our businesses and these properties elevated, then we can start to elevate these roads too," Boyles said.
They're looking at grants to help with funding, but Davis wants them to also consider zoning changes.
"We have fifty keys in the building as an example, for me to redevelop under the current guidelines, I would still only have 50 keys," Davis said. "So I would put out tens of millions of dollars to raise that building, but I wouldn't make any more money on the current economic cycle."
Right now, the city has a survey on its website for people to voice their concerns regarding flooding.