Smart Growth, Clean Water, Stronger Communities
What is Suzanna Pavelle’s position on growth and the environment? Suzanna supports smart growth that protects clean water, respects infrastructure limits, and preserves the natural heritage of Flagler County and part of St. Johns County. She is not against growth. She is against growth that leaves local families with more flooding, more traffic, more utility strain, and bigger bills.
Responsible growth helps protect both quality of life and household stability. If growth drives flooding, wastewater strain, and infrastructure backlogs, families pay twice.
Growth is coming. Reckless growth is a choice.
Suzanna will fight to:
- Put infrastructure first before major development approvals
- Make growth pay its own way
- Protect wetlands, waterways, and natural flood buffers
Why this issue matters
When development outruns infrastructure, families pay the price. Flooding gets worse. Roads become more crowded. Water and wastewater systems face more strain. Utility costs rise. Insurance pressure grows. And current residents are left subsidizing growth that never paid its own way.
This is not about stopping growth. It is about making sure growth is responsible, transparent, and fair to the people who already live here.
What this looks like in District 19
- The 2026 St. Johns County Local Mitigation Strategy reports 1,135 repetitive-loss properties countywide, including municipalities, and 99 severe repetitive-loss properties.
- Florida DEP’s August 2025 critical-erosion inventory identifies 24.8 miles of critically eroded shoreline in St. Johns County.
- St. Johns County’s SR 207 Water Reclamation Facility is a $191.8 million capital project built around reclaimed-water reuse and nutrient reduction.
- The county’s 2026 legislative action plan prioritizes septic-to-sewer and water projects in places including St. Augustine South, Treasure Beach, Dolphin Cove, Vermont Heights, and West Augustine.
What Suzanna Will Fight For
1. Infrastructure before development
Major development should not move forward unless water, wastewater, stormwater, road, and evacuation capacity are in place and ready to handle it.
2. Growth that pays its fair share
Developers should not be allowed to pass the real costs of growth onto existing residents. Growth should help pay for the infrastructure it demands.
3. Protection for water, wetlands, and natural buffers
Wetlands, floodplains, waterways, dunes, and conservation lands are not decorative. They help protect clean water, reduce flood risk, and lower long-term public costs.
4. Stronger local voice and local planning authority
People who live in a community should have a stronger voice than state lawmakers or special interests when growth decisions shape their daily lives.
5. State support for wastewater, septic-to-sewer, and resilience projects
Suzanna will push for state funding and oversight that helps local communities deliver the water, drainage, shoreline, and resilience projects they already know they need.
Suzanna’s Commitments
- Put infrastructure first before major development approvals
- Make growth pay its own way
- Protect wetlands, waterways, and natural flood buffers
- Defend local planning authority and community voice
- Support ready wastewater, drainage, and resilience projects
What This Looks Like In Real Life
In St. Augustine, the Lake Maria Sanchez stormwater project shows what ‘fix it later’ can look like. When flooding problems build for years, communities end up paying for major retrofit projects that are expensive, disruptive, and long overdue. It is far smarter to protect natural flood buffers and require real infrastructure planning upfront.
That is where Suzanna’s approach is different. She is not against growth. She is against growth that outruns infrastructure, weakens local trust, and shifts avoidable costs onto the families already living here.
Smart growth means conditions first, approvals second. If the infrastructure is not ready, the project is not ready.
Smart Growth That Protects Our Future
District 19 can grow without losing what makes it special. We can protect clean water, preserve the region’s natural heritage, support better neighborhoods, and make sure growth strengthens our communities instead of straining them.
Suzanna is running to bring practical leadership, local accountability, and a long-term view to growth so families can keep trusting, enjoying, and affording the place they call home.
