Members of the Port St. Lucie City Council got an earful from St. Lucie West residents about traffic noise after two recent stormwater projects cleared old trees from along the Ronald Reagan Turnpike.
At a special meeting on Monday, the council unanimously approved a plan to replace some of that vegetative sound barrier. It also urged city staff to consider potential traffic-noise effects of future projects.
“I’m wholeheartedly in support of this,” Mayor Greg Oravec said during the meeting.
The council approved a plan to spend $120,000 from the city’s tree preservation fund to do the replacement tree planting. The St. Lucie West Services District will contribute $15,000.
After the St. Lucie West Services District’s recent Basin 4E-5 Interconnect Project and Lake Harvey Stormwater Storage Project cleared trees north of St. Lucie West Boulevard, many residents complained that traffic sounds increased dramatically. Both involved removing trees that those residents said were acting as sound diffusers. The city approved both projects, and the district paid it $201,000 for upland woods mitigation for the Basin 4E-5 project.
Council member Stephanie Morgan said in hindsight it’s reasonable to ask why so much vegetation was cleared while adding stormwater drainage to St. Lucie West Boulevard. “It bothers me something was removed that I don’t think should have been removed at that depth,” she said.
John Carvelli represents St. Lucie West on the council. He lives in one of the affected neighborhoods — Magnolia Lakes. In previous interviews, he said other affected neighborhoods are the Palms (of St. Lucie West) and King’s Isle.
“I can tell you it’s a tremendous increase in noise over what it was before.” Carvelli said at the meeting. “We have to put a little more thought into (development plans) beforehand, so something like this doesn’t happen again.”
After resident complaints started last year, the services district did sound readings along Northwest Pleasant Grove Way in Magnolia Lakes, which runs parallel to Northwest Cashmere Boulevard. The district hadn’t done any readings before the Basin 4E-5 work to compare results, and the Lake Harvey project was completed since the readings were taken. Sounds from the turnpike, according to the study, averaged about 55 decibels during the daytime. That’s about the volume of an indoor conversation.
The replacement planting the council approved will be along the turnpike north of St. Lucie West Boulevard. At press time, the project’s start time had not been scheduled.
