Mike Fischetti raced home last week after getting a frantic call from his neighbor to find almost two feet of water covering his front yard. The water was inches from reaching his Lake Ajay Village home of 23 years.

A makeshift dam — built by construction workers to control runoff from an adjacent housing project — had failed and let hundreds of gallons of rainwater go rushing the length of a football field down the road, across Fischetti’s property and into Osceola County’s Lake Ajay.

Fischetti’s neighbors could relate. In January, Brian De Leon’s backyard slowly filled after the project developer began pumping out water from a different flooding incident.

Lake Ajay Village sits next to a brand-new Pulte Homes development, being built on former wetlands that used to absorb Central Florida’s frequent downpours but no longer do that job. The neighborhood also abuts the border between Osceola County and the city of Orlando, and sits in a zone overseen by the South Florida Water Management District.

It’s that tangle of jurisdictions — Fischetti, De Leon and other residents of the 110-home community say — that has caused their current dilemma, where floodwater from a development in one county plagues homes in another, and the responsible entities have failed to communicate about how to fix it.

Residents say they go to one local government agency for assistance and officials point them to another.

“We’re stuck in the middle and we’re going to have to pay the price,” Fischetti said. He said the conflict between Pulte’s project and Lake Ajay Village should have been obvious from the beginning. “We’re the Titanic and they’re the iceberg and we’re steamrolling into each other.”

Pulte, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, purchased the nearly 40 acres in 2022 for $7.6 million to build two subdivisions: The Cove at Nona Sound and The Estates at Nona Sound. The city of Orlando approved construction of 168 townhomes and 122 detached single-family homes abutting Lake Ajay Village. Construction is ongoing.

In a statement to the Orlando Sentinel, Pulte said it “sympathized” with the community, calling the flooding a “temporary failure” and saying it has fixed the issue.

“We have implemented actions to enhance our stormwater management systems to prevent future incidents,” the statement said. “When the site is finished with development, we will have a fully functioning stormwater system that will capture on-site water and is designed to drain away from the Lake Ajay Community.”

The three government agencies, in separate responses, assigned blame to each other and to Pulte in the same way the Lake Ajay Village neighbors have found so maddening.

The water district said it holds Pulte responsible for the floodwater spillage into Lake Ajay.

“A Notice of Violation for water quality and erosion impacts in the neighboring community is being prepared and will be sent to the permittee,” spokesman Randal Smith said by email.

An Orlando city spokeswoman blamed the flooding on issues overseen by the water district, which has responsibility for water operations on development sites, controls drainage systems and manages Lake Ajay.

“It’s our understanding that based on this information, the developer, their contractor and their engineer of record are working on a modification to this process and permit and will resubmit it to SFWMD for approval,” Ashley Papagni said by email. “The city’s Engineering Inspection staff will continue to closely monitor construction activities of this site, and we will review the updated plans.”

And Osceola County spokesman Mark Pino said by email that while staff in his county are in contact with the other jurisdictions, there is little more they can do.

“Ultimately, the County has no control over development in Orange County,” Pino said. “Osceola County staff has tried to be a voice for the community and to get the right folks to the table to have a discussion about resident concerns.”

Pulte spokesman Tim Chatlos said the new drainage system will be built to state requirements to handle all future storms.

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But Lake Ajay Village residents aren’t convinced. During Hurricane Ian the gated community saw massive flooding and now they worry that the displacement of wetlands by the new subdivisions will make the problem even worse.

“It just doesn’t sound like they put any forethought or any consideration to think, ‘What am I doing to these people?’” De Leon said. “Knowing that we were devastated during Hurricane Ian and knowing that that used to be wetlands … ‘What does that do to this property?’”

Lake Ajay Village residents want the county, city and water district to work together to ensure Pulte builds adequate drainage, but say they’re getting nowhere and might have to take legal action.

“The Osceola County engineer has some ideas of what they should do to help with drainage and so the Pulte engineer was supposed to draw up a plan according to those recommendations, but we’ve heard nothing,” said Angela Phillips, village HOA president.

Bob Turner, an HOA board member, said the issue highlights a larger problem of poor communication among the jurisdictions that have impact on his neighborhood and others along the Orange County-Orlando-Osceola County border.

“There’s no interlocal agreement between the City of Orlando and Osceola County,” Turner said. “So it seems to me that would be a wonderful thing … for everyone involved to have such an agreement between abutting jurisdictions so when there’s development they can coordinate.”

The area’s newly elected Statehouse member, Rep. Tom Keen, D-Orlando, said he would support legislation that encourages the jurisdictions to work together — especially as Orange and Osceola continue to grow rapidly.

“I think in this case it shows a communication issue … at the end of the day it’s all about being a good neighbor and communicating,” Keen said. “This won’t be the first or last time something like this happens that impacts families, it impacts existing homeowners as well as the new homeowners.”

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He said he’s been in contact with residents and the jurisdictions involved — except for the South Florida Water Management District, which has not responded to his outreach.

“Again, good communication, right? I’ve reached out to them several times and haven’t heard back,” Keen said. “I’m brand new so it could very well be that I’m just not on their radar yet but Orange and Osceola are clearly inside that water management district and I would hope that they are responsive.”