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Infrastructure upgrades ongoing in Pasco migrant community

Tribune photo by FRED BELLET

A heavy equipment operator works on grading one of the muddy streets in the Tommytown North neighborhood along Patchoosa Ave. between 21st St. and Pinellas Ave. Recent rains have slowed progress, but has not stopped the revitalization project from moving ahead.

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By LAURA KINSLER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 2, 2009

Updated: 07/02/2009 09:55 am

DADE CITY - It's been a long, muddy summer in Tommytown, which is now six months into a major road construction and utility project.

Residents on the north end of the migrant community can look across Lock Street and see the Promised Land. Pasco County completed a $7.5 million project in 2008 to improve drainage and pave the neighborhood's notorious dirt roads.

"If you go and look at that side, you'll see that kids can go outside and ride their bikes," said Margarita Romo, executive director of Farmworkers' Self-Help, which is on Lock Street. "You can see the big difference. There are roads where there never were roads before."

The second phase of the project is well under way. The $10 million contract calls for extensive drainage work in the flood-prone neighborhood. The county also is paying to install municipal water and sewer lines in the 60-block area before paving the roads.

Construction started in January and was scheduled to last about 18 months, but Community Development manager George Romagnoli said it could come in ahead of schedule. That's because much of the utility work going on isn't slowed by the rainy weather.

"They're at the halfway point now, so it could be completed by the end of the year," he said.

Officials are paying for the project with a U.S. Housing and Urban Development loan and Community Development Block Grants. Block grants are being directed to Tommytown for a decade or until the loans are paid, Romagnoli said.

The neighborhood was developed in the 1920s, when roads were not required to be paved. Over the years, the area has become densely populated and has grown into the county's largest pocket of blight.

"You can imagine what we've had to live with for years and years," Romo said. "I hope when it's all over, we can celebrate."

Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 259-8109.

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