TALLAHASSEE When Louise Terry glanced outside her Southwinds at the Moorings home early last summer, landscapers looked like they were planting trees on top of trees along State Road A1A in Vero Beach.
She watched workers shove palm trees in between, under or atop plants the neighborhood already grew.
That was the first Terry heard her area along A1A would get additional shrubbery and state taxpayers would foot the bill. The well-groomed stretch already was lined with vegetation and trees maintained by high-end neighborhoods like Southwinds. But in a $1.58 million Florida Department of Transportation resurfacing project for 5.4 miles of A1A, $100,000 worth of new trees and plants were due to spring up.
"We went out one morning and they were planting trees, and said they couldn't stop," said Terry, president of Southwinds homeowners association. "They came and planted more on top of what's already there, and it just looked crazy."
After hearing from A1A residents about the now-complete project, state Rep. Debbie Mayfield set out to curb potentially frivolous landscaping projects this legislative session. The Vero Beach Republican slipped a provision into a bigger transportation bill to keep FDOT from spending taxpayer money on landscaping during simple resurfacing projects. In HB 1399, the only exception would be if top FDOT officials signed off on additional plants or trees.
"That'll hopefully help avoid what happened on A1A," Mayfield said.
The way Florida law reads, FDOT needs to spend at least 1.5 percent of its total construction project dollars on foliage. In 2011-12, landscaping will cost FDOT $41.8 million statewide 1.86 percent of what's contracted for construction projects this budget year. The A1A landscaping, though, made up less than 1 percent of that project's entire cost.
Mayfield's co-sponsored bill would require 1.5 percent of all contracts for significant enhancement projects not basic paving jobs to go toward landscaping.
The House measure and a similar Senate companion, SB 1866, are ready for floor votes, but haven't made it on the schedule yet. The two bills proposed a bevy of transportation changes and have to match before passing by session's end on March 9. The proposal then would need the governor's signature.
The Vero Beach chunk of A1A got $100,000 worth of live oak, sabal palm, saw palmetto, dwarf holly, beach sunflower, crepe myrtle and fakahatchee grass. Both the city of Vero Beach and Indian River County signed off on the project, said Barbara Kelleher, FDOT spokeswoman.
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State Rep. Debbie Mayfield attempting to curb potentially frivolous DOT landscaping projects