There’s been a lot of toilet talk in Coral Gables lately—and not the kind that typically spills over during contentious campaigns or commission meetings. This time, it’s literal.
The city has formally launched its Septic to Sewer Conversion Program, a long-anticipated initiative aimed at phasing out approximately 7,600 remaining septic tanks—representing nearly half the city’s households. The goal: connect more residents to modern sewer infrastructure, in line with state and county directives designed to reduce pollution, protect groundwater, and bolster resilience against sea level rise.
While the environmental rationale is clear, the financial burden has become the focal point of community discussions. Coral Gables officials have hosted a series of public meetings—three this year alone—to explain the implications of the conversion, which presents residents with a stark choice: upgrade aging septic tanks to meet tougher standards or connect to the sewer system at a significant cost.
System-by-system decision
The city has mapped 19 residential basins targeted for eventual sewer connectivity. Under the program’s design, each basin can opt in collectively if a majority of residents are in favor. City staff, along with engineering consultants, have begun presenting cost estimates basin by basin, gathering feedback before proceeding with applications for outside funding.
At a May 6 meeting for residents in Riviera Basins 2 and 4, located north and south of U.S. 1 near LeJeune Road and Cocoplum Circle, officials placed the estimated cost per household for sewer connection about $50,000. For homeowners choosing to remain on septic, the price tag to install a new, compliant system could climb to $65,000 or more, they warned.
“Once you choose to go to sewer, whether you have a high-end septic tank or not, you must connect,” said Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who has championed the effort and made it a central issue in her recent campaign. “There’s a logical reason for that—everybody has to chip in to support and maintain it. You can’t have a willy-nilly opt-in, opt-out situation.”
Anderson has emerged as the commission’s most vocal proponent of the program, arguing that uniformity is essential to both equity and infrastructure integrity. She noted that the city is working to offset costs by leveraging county pump stations—such as one already in place on LeJeune Road—and pursuing federal and state grants. However, staff have made clear that significant funding requests will not proceed until public interest is demonstrated within each basin.
Engineering challenges—and political realities
The city’s approach recognizes that not all neighborhoods face the same conditions. In Snapper Creek, for instance, significant elevation changes and irregular lot sizes complicate engineering solutions and will likely increase project costs. In higher elevation areas like King’s Bay, where residents argue their systems pose little threat to groundwater, skepticism has been more pronounced.
People who live in that southern Gables enclave have questioned whether the benefits of conversion justify the price—especially for properties well above the floodplain. They’ve expressed concern that a one-size-fits-all mandate fails to account for environmental nuance and household circumstance. They question why they should be asked to invest tens of thousands of dollars in a system they feel they don’t need.
Miles Maronto, a King’s Bay homeowner and vocal critic of the plan, said his community is closely tracking the issue and believes the city is misguided in pushing for blanket conversion. “The elephant in the room is that it is cost-prohibitive,” Maronto said. He estimates the real cost of conversion for many households could fall between $80,000 and $100,000—a figure he says the city has not clearly communicated in public meetings. “People simply don’t have that kind of money,” he added.
Maronto also questioned the city’s reliance on a sewer system he described as “already strained.” In his view, connecting more properties will only encourage further development, compounding traffic and density issues that residents regularly raise. “This will just incentivize more building,” he said.
Perhaps most fundamentally, Maronto argued the city is acting prematurely. While Coral Gables officials frame the meetings as exploratory, Maronto said conversations he’s had with officials at all levels—federal, state, and local—suggest a full statewide transition to sewer is decades away. “They all tell me the same thing: this isn’t going to happen in our lifetime,” he said. “So why are we pushing this now?”
Still, city officials maintain that the science is moving against septic. Saltwater intrusion has already been detected just two miles inland, raising alarms about the long-term integrity of the aquifer. “We’re trying to do this dance together to bring the lowest cost to the consumer,” Anderson said. “We do know one thing for sure—saltwater intrusion is ebbing and flowing.”
Unavoidable transition
The city’s Public Works Director, Hermes Diaz, said the basin-by-basin meetings will continue through fall, after which the commission will likely be asked to consider broader next steps. While the process remains incremental, Diaz was candid about the trajectory.
“At some point, the transition will be necessary,” he said.
This Post Has 23 Comments
Hooray! It is about time. I was shocked when I moved here 23 years ago that a City like Coral Gables was on Septic Tanks. Same as many parts of Miami-Dade. I felt that as beautiful a city is, it felt the infrastructure was Third-World.
I am in favor of connecting to a dewer system. Yes, it costs money, but that usually the County issues a Bond and it gets paid off by taxes. You would assess new tax to be paid over 20-30 years. WHen you sell your home, the new homeowner continues to pay and so on.
It is a simple arithmetic problem.
Now for the engineering, that requires planning and will take time to implement.
We live on the south side of US 1 off Lejeune.
Let the construction begin as this should have been done many years ago.
I agree with you
We need to bite te bullet for the sake of our kids and the world
Let’s get it done !!
This could be the start of World War III. One politician, Rhonda Anderson speaking in anecdotal platitudes (follow the money) wants to “throw the baby out with the bath water” and exponentially raise Coral Gables resident’s property taxes.
The EPA has long stated science proves: if you have 2 ft of dirt under your septic drainfield — your family’s drinking water supply is clean 50 feet away. In fact, countless of us residents in Miami-Dade County have our family’s drinking water supply just 100 feet away from our functioning septic system. Your working septic system is an engineering marvel good enough to literally be next to your family’s “every day drinking water” — but it’s not good enough for a politician OK with incentivizing future over-development, density and traffic — and exponentially taxing YOU for it.
Is this a joke? Such an absurd hypothetical property tax increase has ZERO chance of happening. It’s a bunch of bluster by a politician. Directors of public works in a couple of 34 municipalities already said it could hypothetically be an $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 individual property tax bill (or more).
Ms. Anderson is fine with exponentially increasing your property taxes:
A. Force you to pay an astronomical special property tax assessment of $100K on your home.
-OR-
B. Mandate forced-financing property taxes over 20 years while placing a lien on your home.
Not to mention, if you’ve paid off your home, you will now be slapped with a lien [and forced to pay tens of thousands of $$ in new annual property insurances].
Several points were made at the two meetings I attended.
1. There is no funding for this proposed septic to sewer program.
2. There are no plans in place for the program.
3. Each “basin” is ranked in order of “vulnerability to compromise”, but the ranking for each basin wasn’t part of the presentation. My neighborhood is #18 out of 19 basins. Our septic tanks are not considered even close to being vulnerable, and yet our neighbors were not given that very pertinent fact. Fear mongering is not a good look for the city or for Commissioner Anderson who is pushing this program.
4. “We’re trying to do this dance together to bring the lowest cost to the consumer,” Anderson said. But it turns out that Commissioner Anderson’s home was already connected to the sewer system when she bought it…so it won’t be costing her a cent, and she won’t be “doing this dance” along with us!
👍👍👍👍
Miami Dade County Water Authority is not yet in compliance with a 15 year consent decree which expires in 2028. And the County continues to use the ocean as an outfall for waste water. Coral Gables does not have a financing program in place for project and yet we are proceeding with discussions to add additional financial burdens to homeowners as well as an over burdened County waste water treatment operation. Is this really the correct approach?
Based on the “Informational meeting” I attended, Ms Anderson attempts to justify her PROPERTY TAX INCREASE idea (as identified by city staff in “information meeting”) as not some $400 property tax bill increase — but a minimum $65-70 THOUSAND DOLLAR PROPERTY-TAX INCREASE or a $104 THOUSAND DOLLAR PROPERTY-TAX INCREASE if forced to finance (with a tax lien placed on your home).
Ms Anderson needs to be a better listener than a “know it all”. Most understand that until the federal legislature and state of Florida legislature pass and fund a couple hundred billion dollars in their fiscal budgets for a comprehensive plan to address Florida’s millions of septic systems, nothing will be done on a large scale. And until Miami-Dade becomes compliant with the EPA and makes the necessary multi-billions of dollars in repairs to their archaic, decaying, polluting-public sewers it’s not a reasonable option.
This has been talked about for 20 years. I suspect it will be another 20 before anything happens. Just like the money to build more sidewalks, talked about, never happened.
What we need in CG is Elon and his chainsaw. The city should absorb the full cost of conversion to sewer with a bond issuance to be paid with city income over 50 years.
Cut all the frivolous expenses and the woke agenda. Run this city as a private corporation with accountability and oversight. Cut the good old boy network. Cut the fat and fire the inefficient and the unnecessary. Have the State establish a blue-ribbon panel to audit our government. Have the State intervene to enforce any recommendations the panel.
Fix the streets and the sidewalks the parking buildings and their elevators before spending another dime in dog parks, art in public places, ceremonies, parties and so-called quality of life endeavors.
Ditto!
Can’t disagree with that.
Still waiting for Coral Gables public works and engineering to design and finally install some type of efficient storm drainage in the 400 blocks of Vilabella and Alminar, so I don’t have to repeatedly open storm drain grates to prevent more garage flooding here (that i have been doing for decades), whenever there’s a typical South Florida thunderstorm.
Watching all the new development all around “the city beautiful”–and automatic connections to county sewer system–while so many properties still rely on septic tanks, it’s just more of the same effluent.
And more.
There is no way that paying around $65,000 to $100,000 can be justified, specially in high grounds. Also I don’t know where they got the figure of $65,000 for a new septic tank, that is far from the actual cost.
Anyone who has paid off their house will need to get insurance, due to the lien that will be placed on their house. I am totally against it.
Agreed!
Hello, I have lived here in the City Beautiful for 41 years and would like to offer my observations. In years past I was involved with the Garden Club where we would cultivate, educate and inspire on various environmental issues. I do not see that mission here and I wonder if we’re just witnessing future quid pro quos for pipelines that will surely open up more density, more overdevelopment, worsening traffic, and overwhelming gridlock stifling the future of our City Beautiful.
This seems to be a rushed campaign missing a lot of pertinent information. And some misguided representations regarding:
Functional septic vs. leaking public sewers run by the county.
As a widow on a fixed income I think it’s wrong that a politician would lead a promotional campaign through staff that would force me out of my home. And by all accounts, for an irrationally costly conversion to the same leaking Miami-Dade sewer in violation of the federal government, EPA and State of Florida pollution laws?
I am told that I should consider converting to a decaying infrastructure that regularly spews millions of gallons of raw sewage into streets of Dade County, and into Biscayne Bay after heavy rains?
That’s my representative’s justification for me to lose my home?
I simply could not financially afford to convert to what the EPA has identified, in many instances, as a worse polluting sewer option erroneously run by the county. I refuse to lose my home over such an irrational idea and will not allow the government to place a lien on my home.
I am not convinced levying an outrageous property tax burden that would force many residents out of their homes is a prudent means of representing the fine people of Coral Gables.
Therefore, I request every Commissioner to reject any more hypothetical ideas or meetings until the federal government and the state of Florida have formulated a comprehensive plan in the legislatures for the state. And most importantly, both have budgeted and allocated the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to consider such an insanely costly idea for the state that would force countless residents from of their homes.
As a senior on social security, we can not come up with $50.000+. Will we lose our house because of this? To hit us with this kind of money is just not feasible for some of us. We can not afford to move as we have lived in our home for 34 years.
I am VERY concerned as to why Rhonda Anderson is incapable of understanding her constituents and what’s at stake. Why is she pushing her agenda behind the scenes that the large majority of her constituents are opposed to (and would cause them to lose their homes)? ….. She’s now leading the charge, tying up public works staff away from their daily jobs on this hypothetical nonsense, the the city mgr staff, and hiring outside consulting firms to run people out of their homes.
Anderson’s proposed idea? Residents would PAY SIX-FIGURES in NEW PROPERTY-TAXES to align with HER vision (not the Federal governments or State of Florida’s!) — and convert to an over-burdened, antiquated county mismanaged county sewer. Yes!! ….. The leaking sewer under EPA Consent Decree with countless thousands of decaying pipes — spewing into our streets and bay. Where hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage (that makes it thru the countless thousands of leaks and fractures) ultimately arrives daily at Virginia Key in the bay.
Is this really what Anderson should be doing? Please give us an account of how you’re spending our money:
1. Why are you wasting taxpayer’s money directing our staff away from fulfilling their city jobs and wasting exorbitant amounts of their time for a hypothetical that isn’t going to happen?
2. Why are you wasting our taxpayer’s money hiring outside lackey firms (positioning to gain financially) on something not happening any decade soon on a large scale?
3. How much of our taxpayer’s money have you spent attempting to devise YOUR PLAN to exponentially increase our property taxes?
Americans used to have to protect themselves from other country’s governments, now, we have to protect ourselves from our own. This is such utter nonsense. Ask someone who is actually ON the bay almost everyday and doesn’t just read cherry-picked facts about the health of the bay. Even if there is any runoff to the bay from septic tanks, take it from a civil engineering designer, the results are insignificant in a worst case scenario. What is NOT insignificant, is the multiple canals running into the bay. Mount trashmore on the edge of the bay (just TRY and get environmental permits for that monstrosity now, as opposed to the 1970s). How about the nuclear power plant actually using bay water for cooling? All of these disasters permitted by government. Does anyone think about these things? When is government going to do something about these things? These canals during the rainy season flow hundreds of millions of gallons of water with “who knows what” in it, to the bay. They are also, effectively, a deep water injection into the water table of multiple pollutions and toxins. What is being done about these things? The gorgeous Gables Waterway, (and there is your reason for any salt water intrusion) alone is flowing tens of millions of gallons into the bay with every low tide change, every 12 hours. Does anyone think about these things? Is anyone actually required to address these things? Other than the stated nuclear power plant, all of these things are developed and controlled by government. How about the force main break in June of last year on 152nd Street near Westminster Christian School that flowed tens of thousands of gallons of raw sewage across land and down to the Bay? (I’ve got the video as I am the one who found and reported the break). A force main, government owned and supposedly maintained, and exactly the same one Kings Bay would be required to connect to… It was government that permitted our septic tanks and it is government that should not only allow us to keep them but should be fighting for our right to. But alas, we have to protect ourselves from our own government it appears. Take it from a civil designer, we are on an aerobic septic system, a viable and analytical answer to the fractured, and broken municipal system. Mine isn’t broken by any means, and if ain’t broke, done “fix” it.
I am confused. If your property is already on sewer, am I responsible financially for homes that are being connected to sewer?
No but the majority of single family homes are on functioning septic systems in Coral Gables. And the majority of single family homes are on functioning septic in Miami-Dade county. So, if that majority “so chose” they would hypothetically choose to exponential increase their property taxes of $70K-$104K (if they so chose), not the minority of single family homes currently on the leaking, decaying antiquated public sewer going into Biscayne Bay and Virginia Key.
.
There are millions of functioning septics in Florida. A very small percentage don’t have 2 ft of dirt below their drainfield and are susceptible to runoff (according to EPA science) along with the current inundation of lawn fertilizers and countless misc chemicals and pollutants already running off into the streets. But if you have 2 feet of drainfield dirt, the EPA science states you can safely maintain your family’s drinking water supply 50 feet from your septic tank.
There are literally millions of functioning septics in the state of Florida and 120-140,000 in Dade county. As the article states, the elephant in the room is nobody is going to choose to exponentially increase their own property taxes to go from their functioning septic to a failing public sewer (as documented by federal and state government).
Im against this plan to force conversion to sewer. Im retired and trying to control expenses. Im just now becoming aware of this issue and have not attended any public meeting. To the government officials that represent me please OPPOSE forced conversion. I would also like to thank all who have posted on this issue…the info you provided has helped me get up to speed. Thank you. Cheers.
I’m glad to hear this won’t be happening in any of our lifetime. I don’t want to lose my home over something so ridiculous. thanks to all informed residents here