Posted on 05/14/2002 5:05:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
EAST LAKE -- Many residents thought they owned the lake behind their $300,000 homes. They mowed up to the water line and chipped in yearly to treat the lake for algae blooms.
So it came as quite a shock Thursday when workers began erecting a 6-foot-high fence around the lake, obliterating their view.
For good measure, the workers painted a portion of the fence behind Alice Beehner's home bright pink and decorated it with sparkles.
"Isn't that atrocious?" Mrs. Beehner said Monday, pointing to the fence a few feet from her screened-in pool. "It's sickening!"
For 10 years the developer of their Tarpon Woods subdivision had let the taxes lapse on the 4-acre lake and a thin band of land around it.
A real estate speculator swooped in to purchase it for $1,000 at a delinquent tax sale in February. The speculator, 44-year-old Don Connolly of Valrico, now is offering to sell the land behind each of the homes for $30,000 per homeowner.
Residents ignored a letter from Connolly, trustee of the Lake Alice Land Trust that purchased the lake, offering to sell. Instead, someone took a couple of survey posts marking the property boundaries and threw them into the lake.
Connolly said that's when he decided to build the fence.
He started behind Beehner's meticulously landscaped property. The new fence separated her from two mature laurel oaks she planted shortly after moving into her home 17 years ago.
[Times photo: Jim Damaske] The fence behind the house of Alice Beehner, with dogs Beethoven and Bridgette, is pink with sparkles. Don Connolly says the color is to warn workers to stay away "because that person is very volatile and confronted us in the past."
"It's total extortion," Mrs. Beehner, 61, said Monday.
Connolly said he offered to sell the property to the homeowners as a courtesy.
"Is selling a piece of land extortion?" he said. "That doesn't make any sense to me."
He said he specializes in buying properties at tax sales. Records show he owns 50 properties in Pinellas County. Connolly said he owns 150 to 200 statewide.
"When people don't pay their taxes, this is what happens," he said. "I was willing to pay more than anyone else for this property. . . . The business we're in is unpleasant sometimes."
Connolly knows the consequences of failing to pay taxes.
Records show that in 1997 he was charged with failing to remit more than $100,000 worth of sales tax for an auto sales business he owned in Hillsborough County. Connolly blamed it on the company's accounting firm and said he reached a settlement with the state.
Because homeowners have rebuffed his offer, Connolly said, he now plans to develop two or three "executive" homes overlooking the lake. It might entail a dredge and fill project to move the lake a bit to the south, he said.
County officials said that would be difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish.
"He can't build on it unless he replaces the stormwater drainage," said Al Navaroli, a manager for the county's Development Review Services Department. "And pretty much all of it is stormwater drainage. . . . He's limited in what he can do."
But there's nothing to prevent Connolly from erecting the fence, Navaroli said, or painting it any color he chooses.
"I certainly see the man is trying to be obnoxious to his neighbors," Navaroli said. "But I don't see that he's violating any codes."
On Monday, the fence stretched across three of the 15 waterfront lots. He plans to extend it all the way around the lake.
"My intention is not to annoy anyone," he said.
As for painting the fence pink behind Mrs. Beehner's property, Connolly said, it was done to warn workers to stay away from that site "because that person is very volatile and confronted us in the past."
Connolly said he was shocked by the vitriol from some of the residents. The offer to sell small pieces of land to individual homeowners is off the table. Connolly said he is now negotiating with one homeowner interested in buying the entire 4.7-acre property.
He would not say how much he is asking. "I'm a reasonable man," Connolly said.
Mrs. Beehner warns the pink fence behind her property could be erected behind any number of homes in Pinellas.
"People need to be warned," she said. "This could happen in your back yard."
Connolly said he owns one other lake in Pinellas County.
But Navaroli said his office believes Connolly may own several properties that neighborhoods consider common areas. Navaroli said he warned the county property appraiser's office more than a year ago about the danger of taxing undevelopable lands, such as retention ponds, or selling those lands at tax sale.
"It's a pretty disgusting mess," said County Commissioner Susan Latvala. "We have to prevent this from happening again. That kind of property should not be for sale."
As for the Tarpon Woods lake, however, county officials said there may be nothing they can do to help the homeowners.
Some homeowners blame the developer, Lloyd Ferrentino for allowing the taxes to lapse. At the very least, some said, he should have notified the property owners so they could have tried to buy it. Ferrentino could not be reached Monday.
On Monday, Connolly's workers continued their fence-building, extending it behind the home of Peter Cieslinski. Cieslinski, 44, who was just released from active duty in the Navy a week ago, said he can't believe the county would allow someone to come in and take away his view of the alligators, turtles and wading birds.
"I look at it this way: There's the spirit of the law and the letter of the law," Cieslinski said. "The county is looking at this as the letter of the law. There's got to be a legal Latin term for "the law says this, but wait a minute, look at the extenuating circumstances.' "
Mrs. Beehner said neighbors plan to hire an attorney.
If I wanted to open a car junk shop in my backyard, as you suggested earlier (assuming zoning regs and HOA would allow it, and we all know they wouldn't) I COULD offer my backyard to my neighbor for 30k as a courtesy- and my neighbor would then OWN the land.
What part of this simple business transaction is causing you so much grief?
From what I saw of the shoreline, it's not a natural lake and was constructed very recently, and thus would not be subject to Indian treaties.
And when this jerk steps even a few inches into the someone else ground, I hope they will defend their PRIVATE property with the appropriate weapon.
Wow. Just because the guy is a jerk (an issue not contested by yours truly, but one that is immaterial to the case), you think his right to life, liberty, and property is subject to arbitrary revocation for trivial reasons. I hope that, if you ever damage someone else's property in a motor vehicle accident, the injured party is more reasonable and less robust in defending his property rights than you seem to be.
Ah, but is it your lake?
Do deeds and titles matter? Do boundaries matter? Do taxes matter? Is private property to be protected by law?
But hey, if you DO own a lake, then by all means enjoy it. Keep others out if you must.
I would.
I don't see how that would be any different. As long as the observation deck is contained completely on their property -- no overhang, or danger of collapsing into your yard, etc. -- that would seem to be their right to erect it, just as this Connelly guy has a right to erect his fence.
Are you saying that if one person builds a fence, that the neighboring people are then prevented from building decks, on their own property, for their own use???? Something wrong with that picture...... Nothing that one person does on their property should prevent other people from utilizing their property as they see fit. IMHO
There's alligators in there? I would have thanked the SOB for putting up the fence.
Good neighbors don't threaten to burn their neighbors property, for any reason.
I would research restrictive covenants and reciprical easements (which are every much a property right as the property rights of the fee owner), as well rights under the law of adverse possession and prescriptive easements. (Although adverse possession/prescriptive easement usually requires an adverse and notorious use over a 10 or 20 year period, those requirements are often satisfied absent an express grant of permissive use.) I would also look at the right of redemption.
If I were suspected of loitering and resisted with force (as per your qualifier) you could be darned sure that they'd shoot me, too.
Eminent Domain is as old as the nation. Whereas the homeowners have a vested public interest in the lake, it is within the public's right to seek out a ruling of eminent domain over the lake.
If you think this is tyranny or communism, then the Founding Fathers were tyrannical commies, too, since they recognized the fact that property may be seized provided there is just compensation.
In any case, it is up to the courts to decide whether the original 1,000 clams is just compensation for the lake, or whether the owner can claim a loss of likely future revenues and seek more.
The owner has no right, either to shoot cops, or to take swings at their noses, just because they wish to serve him a summons for an eminent domain hearing. He has a right to do with his property as he pleases, unless and until his foolish actions as a public nuisance result in a takings under eminent domain.
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