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.
Anti-social behavior may lead to the development of corrective legislation. Pretty simple.-Maxine Waters, circa 1992.
That one they figured out and tried to get our contract changed back, however, I prevailed on that point as well.
There was much shouting, but it was a small price to pay for beating them like a drum.
Do yourself and your kid a favor and teach him something. Do a little research and find out who owns the land and ASK instead of being a slob and inviting yourself with out permission.
Sorry to rant, but Tresspassers are SLOBS. I have dealt with them for 30 years and I am tired of it. BTW-In Michigan we no longer have to waste OUR money to post OUR land to inform idiots that like to tresspass to STAY OFF!
It occurred to me when I wrote that that it could me taken the wrong way, but I thought, nah, everyone will know that when I said "my property" I was referring to what is commonly thought of as private property.
So you are right, I really don't own this property. I have certain advantages to holding title but it has only some of the aspects of ownership. Not enough to qualify it as really mine. I have use of it at government pleasure and to a lesser extent my neighbor's pleasure. If you want to know the hoops I had to jump through to have the fence built on the property which most people would agree I own, I will send you to a thread which I recently posted here. I'm guessing that wouldn't interest many.
True enough. But the tax system and laws were the enabling mechanism that give this man the tools and opportunity to do this, and the law will protect him from the wrath of the adjacent owners, shielding him from the consequences of his own actions and ultimately imposing those consequences on all of us.
You haven't shown me one statute or BoR amendment guarenteeing a 'right to privacy', nor have I ever seen Eminent Domain abused. Southack has; I trust his story to be true. So it does happen, but we write laws for the ideal. To write laws dedicated towards corruption is insanity.
And the use of these laws is very local. I personally would make it a point to ensure they are used justly.
You are sounding a lot like the gun control people -- "Eminent Domain might be abused, BAN IT, for the children! If it saves ONE PLOT of land, it's worth it!".
Eminent Domain is a morality-neutral tool. Make sure your local lawmakers do not abuse it. I have never personally seen it abused.
Backwards.
Maxine thought the Los Angeles riots were a justifiable "uprising."
What do you suggest palo?
Understand, the standard lots in my neighborhood are about 70' by 100'.
Seems we had a neighbor who enjoyed sunbathing in the nude. To facilitate her privacy, she erected a fence as tall as the zoning laws allow, six feet.
Add to this a neighbor of hers that is a bit of a voyeur, not to mention a jerk. His backyard backs up to her back yard. His back patio ends about 6 feet from her fence and is topped by a flat roof. He decides, after discovering her little hobby, to turn his patio roof into a sundeck, complete with stairs and handrails. Completely within code.
This, of course, gives him a prime view of her backyard. She decides to make a case of it. She goes out back, takes off her top, and waits. Sure enough, within a few minutes, the nosey neighbor is on his "sundeck" enjoying the view. She grabs her cordless phone, dials 911 and complains about a peeping tom.
Bad move. The cops arrive. One is sympathetic, but the other doesn't approve. He sites her for public indecency and for filing a false report (or some such thing).
She takes it to court and loses! Seems that since his outpost was legal, she had no assumption of privacy. Fined and community service!
Since her fence is as tall as the law allows, she is now planting areka palms, which grow tall and bushy, and will have to wait a few more years for them to grow until she can indulge in her hobby once more.
Until the law gets changed. That's what happens when dolts such as this push beyond reason and good sense. The soccer moms and socialized elderly rise up, agitate for new legislation, the law gets changed and we end up with more--not less--socialism.
Gloat on his behalf all you want. Live it up now, because within a few years neither he nor any other property owner in his neck of the woods will have the law on their side.
There are lots of cases, I can tell you about some if you're bored.
Maxine Waters, circa 1992. Backwards. Maxine thought the Los Angeles riots were a justifiable "uprising."In other words, she thought it was antisocial behavior with the goal of changing things to suit the misbehavers.
-Eric
Like KC said, "This is the kind of stupid-libertarian-trick behavior that generates new laws restricting the use of private property."
"The Speculator" should be pushed into the lake. I hope that the aligator is not too picky.
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