The request of staff for Council is to review and consider for approval Task Order No. 24-001 from Colliers Engineering and Design, Inc. for the Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) Project in an amount not to exceed $40,000. 

As Council may be aware, construction projects within the Tampa Bay area have been a constant activity for many years that are expected to continue.  The City of New Port Richey is not excluded from these activities which include State, County, City, and Private construction projects in right of ways.  During design phases, utility information is gathered by engineers.  Part of this information gathering is identified as Subsurface Utility Engineering or SUE.  This practice is an effort to avoid unnecessary utility relocations, unexpected conflicts with utilities during construction, delays in projects caused by damaging unidentified existing utilities, as well as delay claims by contractors resulting from the unidentified conflict.    As the City existing utility systems ages, it becomes more difficult to keep updating existing utility facilities on a proactive basis; this proposed program is expected to facilitate that process.  If approved by City Council, contractual services will be used to identify utilities in two areas.  These two areas were purchase by the city in 2016 and were formally known as the Orangewood Lakes and Lakewood Villas utility systems.  Upon completion, staff will review the results, determine what adjustments need to be made with the program, update Council on the results, and request that the SUE project become an annual program in older areas of the City’s existing utility system where facility locations are deficient.