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.
And this shell game speculator bought the lake for $1000 and tries to rip off the honest folks. He is a lazy parasite.
Sounds like somebody needs to introduce the homeowners in the situation to Paladin Press and George Hayduke...Any student of Hayduke knows that a house is a hell of a lot more vulnerable than a fence.
Again, if anyone vandalizes the fence, he has both the right and the demonstrated need to protect his property. Here come the floodlights and the security cameras.
-Eric
Blame the gov't first for that: they took someone's property for non-payment of "protection money" (aka "taxes"). This guy just did what none of the other homeowners bothered to do: buy the property, either from the prior owner or from the gov't. He didn't steal the property, the gov't did.
He may find that he doesn't own the lake either since it is, by law, part of the "waters of the United States" and therefore subject to the wetlands regulations.
He may not own the water space, but he does own the 10-20 foot strip around it.
The Speculator owes no "legal" duty to the homeowners, unless he inherited them with the property. The real "bad guy" would be the developer if the homeowners were mislead into believing the lake was a "common area" for their benefit.
Another point that has not been mentioned is the unintended consequences of an eminent domain condemnation. I am not sure the homeowners would like the lake to be taken as "public property" and therefore open to all of the "public."
And how do we know this? If true, it's the lawyers' fault. The homeowners can sue their lawyers for leaving a loophole in the deed!
Great book but so-o-o depressing. Not one of the characters had any redeeming attributes. I do recommend it, though.
These folks aren't freeloaders, though. They bought their properties surrounding this lake with the verbal, and very likely the written understanding of how the lake fit into the development. There is an easement of some sort that coame with it - because it was implicitly part of the marketing of their properties, and yes, tied into the value.They could have formed an organization to buy the lake at any time. Instead, they kept it in the presumed-to-be benevolent hands of the developer. I have no doubt that the tax delinquencies were listed and the auction was as well. That's the notification required by law. Government isn't required to hold people's hands, nor do we want it to be.Pursuant to their part of the bargain, they kept it up - which makes them "not freeloaders".
When I was growing up, there was an undeveloped street behind us. My one friend's family had a baseball field extending from their backyard to the lot behind them. My one next door neighbor on one side extended his backyard by cutting the grass beyond the property line. On the other side, the neighbor had a vegetable garden in the lot behind him. We had a dense wooded patch that me and my friends made use of. :snicker:
The difference between us and these people: we knew that street was eventually going to be developed. We didn't have the nerve to use the property for free for all those years, and then try to claim some sort of "squatter's rights" when the owner decided to make use of it.
That's what these people (and their allies on this thread) are advocating: "squatters rights". There's no such thing in a society that respects private property.
-Eric
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