BAYSHORE BEAUTIFUL - More than 50 families on Wallcraft Avenue are petitioning the city to install fire hydrants on their street between MacDill and Lynwood avenues.
The residents also want the city to replace the street's 2-inch water main with a larger pipeline to improve water pressure in their homes.
Resident Kimberly Hoskinson said "storm sewer drainage, curbs, sidewalks and perhaps a couple of speed bumps would be nice as well."
Hoskinson and her husband said they collected signatures from 54 of 59 households on Wallcraft. Michael Hoskinson is principal at Coleman Middle School.
The couple and their two children are among families on the street who have built two-story houses that dwarf cottages from the 1920s.
The waterlines were installed in the late 1930s and '40s, city water department spokesman Elias Franco said.
He said six hydrants on nearby streets can be reached by the fire department's 1,200-foot-long hoses.
"From a purely fire protection perspective, we don't see this as an emergency," he said.
City officials estimate it would cost $400,000 to install an 8-inch water main and six hydrants on the street.
Residents of the three-block stretch between MacDill and Lynwood are expected to pay about $115,575 in city taxes this year, according to the Hillsborough County Tax Collector.
"We feel with the taxes our street generates here in south Tampa, our needs should be taken seriously," Kimberly Hoskinson wrote in an e-mail to The Tampa Tribune.
Franco said the request will be considered with hundreds of water-related projects, which are ranked and budgeted according to fire protection, water quality, breaks and other factors.
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