Email from Comm. Regalado on recent problems at SW 8th Street Home Depot

Dear Ms. McConnell,

I am writing to share an experience with you that I had last week, which I believe will help you and your group to understand that what you are doing is the right thing. As you know, since day one I have expressed many concerns regarding the Home Depot plans for the grove I never had a personal agenda nor did I want to intrude in an area that I do not represent as a city commissioner. I just believe that my experiences dealing with a Home Depot in my district will be helpful to residents and city leaders.

 Last week, I had a meeting with residents of West Little Havana at the corner of SW 11^th Street and SW 31^st Avenue. The meeting was requested by the area residents, and they wanted to meet right at that corner. We had more than fifty residents and most of them have been living in the area for more than thirty years along with a few new residents. I brought along the Code Enforcement Director, the area NET administrator, the area police commander and the Neighborhood Resource Officers. I arrived at 5:30 pm and departed at 7:30 pm. We were lucky we brought the police in their cars because if not we would have been run over by dozens of cars, pick-up trucks, and vans who use SW 31^st Avenue as a way to avoid SW 8^th Street when exiting the Home Depot. In fact, every complaint was only about Home Depot.

The residents complained about broken streets and damaged swale areas that are caused by the eighteen wheel trucks that travel through residential streets to unload merchandise at the store. The main complaint was the noise because residents report that the trucks are unloaded as early as 1 AM until approximately 7 AM. It seems that there is some type of schedule whereby truckers must take a number and wait until the number is called. During this wait, the truckers park their vehicles on residential streets (mainly SW 10^th St & SW 11^th St) with their engines running. A resident of SW 12^th Street even recorded the noise from his home, and I must tell you that it was loud. Another resident whose backyard abuts the loading area of the store complained that FP&L came to his home to trim a tree that had branches entangled in wires and FP&L workers were unable to complete the task because Home Depot would not allow them to go into the loading area to trim the tree because the store was too busy. The old timers in the area swear that there was a covenant that the store would not unload after 10:00 pm. We have researched with the City Clerk’s Office and they have no record of any commission action.

The next day I met with Deputy Chief of Police Frank Fernandez who told me that there is little the police can do since the law allows trucks to be parked in residential areas for an hour and we do not have enough police officers to stand there waiting to see which truck spends more than one hour in the residential area. I requested that each neighbor give me a documented hourly account of the situation.

I do not know how much I can do, but I promised them that I would do something to remedy this situation. I thought that this experience would be useful to you so you don’t have to go through what the residents of West Little Havana are suffering from.

Sincerely,

Tomas Regalado