>>This week on NewsNight, work is underway to build flood defenses and mitigation infrastructure in Orlo Vista, an Orange County community regularly inundated in the wake of major storms.

But could last year's hurricane season, with record flooding, uncover more places in need of flood mitigation?

Also, the growing pressures of economic development in central Florida as some residents push back on plans for a green technology park in Kissimmee and Florida Tech on the Space Coast in Brevard County, is working on creating algorithms to help develop technology to clean up space debris.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello Im Brendan Byrne, filling in for Steve Mort.

And welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect you.

We start tonight in the Orange County community of Orlo Vista.

Residents there are finally seeing the start of flood mitigation work promised in the wake of Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Despite being approved by county commissioners in 2018, none of the projects had been done in time for last year's Hurricane Ian, which brought even worse flooding.

The federally funded work includes adding extra space to three existing ponds and the installation of pipes and pumping stations to maintain water levels.

Orange County Chief Engineer Daniel Negron says it's hoped the improvements will protect against a 100 year storm event about 14 inches in 72 hours.

>>Hurricane Ian was a much larger event depending on where in the county you were.

For Orange County, it's about 10.6 inches for rain in a 24 hour period.

That's what we considered a 100 year event.

Hurricane Ian ranged from 15, all the way to almost 20 inches of rain, sort of a substantial amount, well beyond the hundred years.

And so a lot of places that flooded, its not necessarily because they're under design, its because the amount of rain that Hurricane Ian dropped in Orange County.

So we do have certain areas in addition to Orlo Vista, the particular subdivision was pretty hard.

We have Rio Pinar area, and then the Rouse Road intersection, that general area also that flooded.

We're currently looking at the master plan updates.

Orange County's divided into 12 major drainage basins and we are in the process of updating those master plans and their multiyear program.

So we've spent roughly 20 over $22 million updating that.

>>Let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week is Karla Ray, anchor and investigative reporter with WFTV, Channel 9.

Karla, thanks for coming in today.

And from the Orlando Business Journal, we have Ryan Lynch.

Thank you for joining us.

Ryan.

Karla, let's start with you.

The construction is set to be completed by 2024.

But as all of us in the news business are keenly aware, we have another hurricane season starting.

Could that complicate things?

>>Certainly it could.

If we have another bad storm or two bad storms like what we saw last season.

I think what's different about this plan is that it's a layered approach.

You know, some of the things that could provide immediate relief, like the reshaping of those existing retention ponds, that should be an immediate relief and not a huge heavy lift for the area.

Some of the other parts of the plan, the pump station at Shingle Creek and some repiping, those are going to be longer term infrastructure projects.

But I think, you know, Orange County is certainly on notice with Orlo Vista now after what we saw in Irma and then last year having none of those protections in place for those folks, I think they're going to be hyper vigilant about protecting that particular neighborhood.

>>That layered approach, but a much needed approach.

Absolutely.

Ryan, let's talk a bit about how these floodings have affected both property value and, importantly, home insurance rates.

What are you finding?

>>Well, if you lived in the state for a while, you know, the home insurance market is kind of crazy right now.

And a lot of the expectation is that flood insurance rates are expected to rise.

And of the FEMA flood insurance programs, they're expecting 80% of Floridians to get an increase out of that.

Now, that's a variable increase.

Some could see it increase as as little as $120 a year.

Some could see, you know, hundreds more.

And it might depend on where you're located and how they assess that.

In terms of property values, you're seeing a lot of these flooded homes go onto the market now and a lot of people are looking to flip them.

They might be sold at a much lesser value because there's a lot more work that has to be done.

So we'll probably continue to see those homes go into the market as more people decide whether or not they want to rebuild or try to at least save some money out of this.

>>Mm hmm.

You said 80% of Floridians are expecting to see those flood insurance increases.

>>At least through the FEMA program.

>>Wow.

So that's that's that's a majority of Floridians here, right?

>>Yeah.

>>Both of your outlets have covered the aftermath of of Ian extensively.

I'm going to ask you both this question.

Karla lets start with you.

What what do experts tell you about the likelihood of future flooding in central Florida even after we have these mitigation efforts in place?

>>You can only mitigate so much, right?

You cannot, you know, put infrastructure in place for a 500 year event, which is what all the experts have described Ian, you know, it wasn't a 100 year event, which is what our infrastructure is based off of.

I think what we'll see in the future is more of those pre mitigation efforts, you know, days leading up to the storm, the warnings about water usage to try to, you know, limit what's going into the system ahead of time so that we maybe don't have some of those backflow issues that we saw after these storms and more efforts to try to clean things out ahead of time.

I just don't think that you can add enough infrastructure to plan for that type of event because it just doesn't happen very often in our in our community.

>>Mm hmm.

Ryan, you mentioned these rising rates.

There's property flipping.

What impact may this have on on the housing market?

Well, I think, you know, you have a lot of people second guessing and maybe looking at where they might build now.

I think a lot of counties are looking at their flood maps trying to see if they should update them, give additional guidance, and that will obviously shape development for the years to come, because a lot of people you obviously don't want to build a house and then five, ten, 20 years later, you end up with a flooded house.

Nobody wants that.

So I think you'll see that shape the development discussion for the years to come and kind of shape, you know, potentially flood maps, policy and other things.

>>I think we have to acknowledge that this was such an anomaly.

>>Right.

>>I live near Lake Rowena in Orlando, and I have a neighbor who has lived in her home for 70 plus years.

She says that she's never seen flooding like what she saw.

So it's just not something that you can necessarily build your way out of.

>>When the flood mitigation work is completed in the Orlo Vista, the county says there are plans to remove homes from the floodplain.

Many of the worst hit areas last year were underserved communities grappling with an affordable housing shortage.

And it's hoped reducing the need for flood insurance might help.

Last year, hundreds of homes were destroyed by flooding and already scarce affordable housing market.

Governor DeSantis recently signed a bill known as the Live Local Act to try to deal with the issue.

It provides hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to developers and local governments to build more affordable housing.

Karla, you have covered the affordable housing issue extensively, so I'm glad you're here to talk about this.

Supporters of the live local say will benefit neighborhoods like Orlo Vista, but it also has its critics, right?

>>Yes.

So some are concerned about the types of housing that this will create and really focused on those already in the workforce and sort of forgetting about maybe those in the lowest tier of income.

And there are also, you know, criticisms about the fact that lumped into this legislation is it restricts local governments from creating any rent control measures like what we saw recently passed in Orange County.

And I think some people have concerns about that type of preemption at the local level.

>>Ryan, what have you been hearing about that provision that bars local governments from opposing those rent controls?

Is there evidence from from elsewhere that that this works or doesn't?

>>I've looked at policies out in other cities.

You look at Saint Paul, Minnesota, as example.

They had put in rent controls within their city limits and had later amended those to kind of exempt some new development.

Looking at some of the numbers, the HUD numbers and the numbers that the city keep are pretty different in terms of showing different pictures.

The HUD numbers kind of show a slowdown in development while the city's numbers say that those HUD numbers don't show some of the certain types of development that might not get counted.

So the developers are saying this is stopping that and a lot of the proponents are saying, well, that might be a little misguided.

>>Hmm.

The live local act incentivizes the development of affordable housing, but we've been talking about flooding.

Does that ever present threat make that task harder in many Florida communities?

>>I would say so.

I think especially when you're trying to find affordable land to build housing, a lot of local leaders have asked to have a mix of housing, whether that's market rate affordable or attainable.

And obviously, if you're trying to build affordable, it can be hard to buy land.

You've seen some of these land prices within Florida.

They've gone up over the years, regardless of where you're located, you know, whether that's Osceola County or right here in Orlando or some of the other outlying areas.

So I think that is part of the challenge in finding areas that, one are affordable to build, as well as those areas where, you know, you're not going to have a flood 20 years later and wipe out some of that progress you've made.

>>Karla I'll throw the last question to you in the segment here.

There is an affordable housing shortage right now.

How quickly do proponents think that there is going to be some relief in this area?

>>Yeah, I think with the live local act, the good thing is it eliminates a lot of the zoning barriers that developers face and makes it a lot more streamlined for them.

And it also requires local governments to prepare a list of of land.

You know, that the county owns that could be open to this type of development.

And that deadline for that is October of this year.

So very quickly well have identified where these properties could be placed.

And assuming that developers want to get in on this, because who wouldn't?

They'll be looking toward purchasing those properties and getting in and starting to break ground.

>>And I assume you both will be covering this this story very closely, so we'll turn to you for that.

So you can find the text of the Live Local Act and Orange County's flood mitigation plans for Orlo Vista on our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

Next tonight, the Osceola County Commission recently approved the purchase of more than 300 acres of land by a French company to build an energy technology park.

Hydrogen and solar technology developer CMG Clean Tech wants to build what is being called the Green Garden Village.

Economic development boosters say it will make renewable energy sources more accessible to central Floridians, But some local residents say they're worried about the impact it will have on their lives.

Let's hear from both sides.

First, here's the president and CEO of the Orlando Economic Partnership, Tim Giuliani.

>>Having a major European company that has experience developing these renewable energy products, having them here right here in central Florida.

You can do a lot of things.

Yes.

Is this going to be a market that's attractive to them?

Yes, It's a fast growing market in the south.

A lot of sunshine, a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built, particularly around electric vehicle charging stations, but also, you know, their partnership with Valencia College.

So they're discussing how to form this arrangement so that people are able to go through, you know, certificate programs, quick training programs that often last months instead of years to be able to prepare them for these these technical jobs in renewable energy.

So to build our workforce, which should lead to more opportunities in the future.

>>But there still needs to be an environmental study before the plans can move forward.

Debbie Rambis lives nearby and started a petition opposing the plans.

>>The fact that they're putting a hydrogen factory which is extremely dangerous and harmful in a residential area, it's actually sandwiched between two communities and one to the front, as well as 6 to 7 different schools, all the way from preschool up to high school.

So our concern is where they've decided to place this this factory complex.

It's not only hydrogen, but also lithium batteries.

So Lake Toho is a great tourist attraction.

We have national and international bass fishing tournaments.

And if anything would happen to endanger that, it impacts negatively the livelihoods of people that rely upon Lake Toho.

>>Ryan, at last check, there were 2500 signatures and counting on this petition.

On this petition.

But can it really change minds or policy?

I mean, is is is this a done deal?

>>Well, interestingly enough, after that public meeting with public comment tied to the petition, the county was quick to put out a statement that saying that nothing was done yet.

We're still negotiating.

We're going to make sure they go through that process.

So it looks like they're still moving forward with this at this point.

But obviously, they've kind of heard the community, they've seen their concerns and are maybe starting to look at this and go, okay, how can we balance the needs of both sides in this situation?

>>Mm hmm.

And, Karla, a lot of times these are framed as, you know, economic drivers or economic development for a region or community.

I mean, what do we know about this?

I mean, how many jobs will the Green Village, Green Garden Village actually create?

>>Yeah, they're promising up to 1200 high paying jobs with an average salary of around $75,000 a year.

So certainly a high level job for that area of Osceola County.

And something that I think a lot of people would argue is really needed in that area.

I think you have to balance the concerns, though, that people have of of rapid development.

And we see that all across Osceola County, those same types of concerns.

>>Hmm.

And, I mean, are there safety concerns with something like this?

I mean, hydrogen, as someone who covers space, sounds very scary.

>>Yeah, I think you've seen that before.

And a lot of times some of these other projects, you know, we've seen hydrogen projects proposed out in Melbourne, for example.

They say they're in an industrial area and this area is closer to some residences, closer to obviously the Valencia College campus that's right there in a few other commercial corridor is in that area.

So I think that's what's drawn some of the concern compared to some of these other projects.

>>Right.

You mentioned Valencia, Ryan, CMG, Clean Tech is hoping to start a certification program with Valencia College to streamline a class to employment flow.

How beneficial would this be to to the college and then also for the community?

>>I think it's beneficial to both sides.

And you've seen Valencia do this in the past they are preparing to do some of those skilled training programs with Neo City when it comes to the semiconductor program.

So it would work in the same vein where they're trying to provide a workforce to, you know, sort of technology that maybe doesn't have that workforce in Osceola County yet.

And for the residents, that's a pathway to higher paying jobs, which, you know, is always a good thing in Orlando.

>>Mm hmm.

Karla, Ryan touched a bit about this there.

And we talked about the jobs.

But what about the overall economic impact that a headquarter like this may actually have being here in the state?

>>Well, I think that there's always a ripple effect when something's in the news that a company is moving to a new location.

And because, you know, the president of this company has said that the reason he wants to come here is the region's depth of talent.

I think that that's going to attract other companies potentially.

And, you know, maybe traditionally in the past they've looked at the Orlando Metro and that now I think Osceola County is becoming a huge opportunity for these types of developments because there's little more space there to to grow and more people are moving there.

So I think that it makes sense that we'll see other companies follow suit if this is successful.

>>Mm hmm.

I mean, this is happening as Governor Ron DeSantis is making an international trip, trying to court more businesses to come here.

Right.

I mean, how much of these businesses, Ryan, or how much does the state rely on on bringing these businesses into the area for economic development?

>>I think you look at the area at large, it's usually a collaboration between a number of parties, whether that's the state, local government or some of the other companies located here.

And when companies like CMG, Clean Tech locate here, that's a big deal.

You know, we talk about the hundreds of jobs and the other things, but also the ability to draw additional businesses.

And, you know, a state like Florida has touted its business successes for years, even through the pandemic.

So I think, you know, having these sort of additional companies move in, that's something you can build upon and cluster industries within a particular area.

>>Mm hmm.

Does this exacerbate the affordable housing problem, Karla?

>>Certainly.

I mean, and we see that particularly in Osceola County, because although these wages that they're promising are on a higher end, that's not the case for everybody working in Osceola County.

So you think that you're going to have to find places for all of these people to live.

And we we've seen that in the in the school district, too, that it's just becoming a problem with this rapid development there.

So I think they need to take a greater look at, you know, what's coming in over the next five, ten, 20 years and figure out the infrastructure around it.

And housing is a huge part of that.

>>And I'm going to ask this, Ryan, I know we may not know the answer to this yet, but I mean, how quickly may this make it through the county commission and development actually start breaking ground?

>>So right now, they're negotiating for the first phase of land, and that would help with the initial part.

And then they would eventually negotiate the second phase.

I think, you know, in my talks with the developer, they said as early as 2024, they could start building and aim for 2025 for the first phase.

>>That's quick.

Right?

>>Yeah, I mean, it would depend on a number of factors.

It could get brought quicker, further, depending on how negotiations go.

And you can never tell.

There's always challenges with the development pipeline in Florida.

So I think that always shifts timelines.

It could be quicker.

It could be farther.

>>Mm hmm.

Well, be sure to join the conversation on social media, were at WUCFTV on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Finally tonight, Florida Tech on the Space Coast is working on ways to tackle the growing issue of space debris.

With a record number of rockets launching into space from Brevard County, concerns for safety of astronauts is increasing.

Dr. Madhur Towari heads the autonomy lab at Florida Tech.

He says right now researchers are in the beginning stages of creating an algorithm for an autonomous system in space to identify potential hazards and other autonomous spacecraft.

>>So basically, we are working on algorithms that can detect these space debris and also model create a 3D model using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques.

If you have a lot of space debris, it causes, you know, astronomers to it creates light pollution in space.

Because of that, they cannot do a lot of their astronomy stuff.

Right?

They cannot do that.

The other thing is all our satellites that we have, the Internet, the satellite TV and all the communications can also come down because if if we have a growing concern of space debris and also it affects the future exploration of space as well.

So growing, going to Mars, establishing our base on moon, for example, NASA is really interested in that right now.

All of that gets affected because now we have to be super careful when we do launches.

And also, you know, weather satellites and all of that stuff gets affected as well.

>>So, Ryan, we were talking before the show about space debris and you had a wonderful analogy saying these are like cosmic Legos that we might step on.

Right.

So tell us, just how big is the space debris problem?

>>Yeah, NASA's estimated there is 23,000 pieces of space travel degree that are debris that are bigger than a softball.

And, you know, that kind of puts in perspective how much is floating out there.

But there's even more that are smaller than that.

And these are traveling at very high speeds.

And obviously, if you have a spacecraft out there, regardless of the size, you know, even those small millimeter pieces could still serve as a problem if you're, you know, traversing space and within the Earth's orbit.

>>Mm hmm.

>>Think of a rock hitting your windshield.

>>Right at the speed of five times the bullet, you know?

Well, Karla, I don't have a spacecraft.

WMFE does not have a news.

A new satellite.

>>You're working on it, right?

>>We're working on it.

We are working on it.

So why do we care?

Why is this such an issue that that we really need to have on on the front of our minds?

>>Well, I think for a big picture, you know, space is a huge industry in Florida.

So we need to make sure that the folks who are doing this work on our space coast are safe when they're going up and they're not at fear of running into this type of debris.

The main threat, though, seems to be kind of what he was discussing there, the density of this, it can actually hinder the ability to get a clear picture of space and also for use of weather satellites.

You know, if it becomes so dense that we can't have that clear picture and causing damage to active satellites, that could be a real problem.

Very rarely is this stuff making it back through the Earth's atmosphere.

It'll burn up on the way back in.

But there have been occasions on record where some of this space junk has made its way back to Earth and caused damage.

And so certainly you don't want that falling into your backyard.

The chances of it happening pretty rare.

But, you know, it's something to think about.

And I think this is something that, you know, we don't really think about that often, but it's becoming a more of a large conversation.

>>We are living in unprecedented times.

So who knows?

>>Yeah.

>>So you mentioned weather satellites.

I always worry that a GPS satellite will go out and I will have no idea of of where to go.

Ryan, I'm wondering if, you know, all of the recent activity at the Space Coast and big headline grabbing missions like the launch of Artemis is really putting a lot of the public's focus on space, which makes this more of a pertinent issue to regular people down here on Earth.

Is that what you're seeing?

>>Yeah, I think many of the general public would like to see a launch without any issues, you know, And obviously the space debris problem complicates that.

But, you know, you go out to the coast, you see so many people line up.

These are, you know, tourism driving events.

You know, you have people come in from all over the state or even outside of the state to visit.

And if there's anything that's impacting that business, that's going to be an issue, whether, you know, you're unable to get rockets up or, you know, your satellites have issues.

That's never a fun time.

And that we saw in the past how, you know, the Space Coast can be impacted with any shifts to the space industry there.

And aerospace.

>>Mm hmm.

With the reliance of this, you know, Florida economy.

So much on the aerospace industry, should this be top of mind for both companies and regulators Karla?

>>I mean, I think that the conversation is driving in that direction, and especially, you know, we think about the number of jobs that are created out in our Space Coast each year as we get more and more launches, more and more companies coming in, I think that it's only natural that this will start to be something that they're basing solutions on now and looking for for new ways to clean it up.

But we also have a problem here on Earth of cleaning up our pollution.

So I think that it's going to take a lot to come up with a real solution for this.

>>Mm hmm.

Ryan, one of the solutions would be to kind of mitigate the amount of launches or have some policy in place to to stop some of these launches or junk being up there.

Do you think that that's something that the private space industry would welcome with open arms?

>>I think there might be some pushback.

Obviously, if you tell somebody, hey, you can't do as much as you were hoping you could do thatd be an issue.

But obviously for the regulators, it's balancing act when it comes to business interests as well as, you know, safety of these crafts, especially when you start getting into crafts that might be carrying, you know, human astronauts into space.

But I think it's definitely going to be a balancing act for the regulators just in terms of balancing the businesses, being like, hey, we want to do, you know, X amount of launches versus, okay, we want to limit this so that you can do these launches.

>>Mm hmm.

And Karla, you mentioned kind of cleanup in space.

What do we know about businesses that are trying to do that?

And is there some economic viability and maybe we can use some of that technology down here, right?

>>Right.

Well, I think everybody is, you know, in this space, no pun intended, is is looking for ways to to get more and more vehicles and things up into space.

So I think that, you know, if this is an avenue that is less traveled and less crowded and maybe not as competitive, I think we will see more companies coming up with ways to to lead the efforts of the cleanup.

And I do think that everybody's looking at a way to to enter into that.

So I think that we'll see more companies joining that effort.

>>And the big takeaway is nothing is going to fall on my head when I walk out of the studio because that's what you said Karla, so I'm going to hold you to it.

>>So it should burn up on the way back in.

So.

>>Well, that's all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Karla Ray from WFTV and Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal.

Make sure to join us next Friday night at 8:30 right here on WUCF.

You don't want to miss it.

Have a great weekend.