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.
The analogy is incomplete. You need to add:
- If you pay the $5000, you'll own the property in question and can clean it up as you like
- What prompted him to make the mess was you removing property markers and playing golf on his property without permission, claiming that the prior owner did let you play golf on his property.
When I was about 8 years old, the family next door moved out and a new family moved in. Operating on habit, a bunch of us local kids proceeded to play in that yard, just as we had done for years before. The new owners pointed out that the old occupants had left, someone new lived there, and that we were not to play in that yard any more. We whined a little, sucked it up, and played somewhere else. Sounds like the whiny property owners around the lake haven't learned what I figured out at age 8.
Please answer this: do you have any college education? If so, have you ever taken any courses in Logic?
Just a hunch, but I predict your stay on Free Republic will be a brief one.
YES, We have a WINNER!
Can't Drive, follow directions OR read Property Descriptions. MORONS! Next thing they'll expect is for some poor slob to have to pay for their medical coverages while they live in those half million dollar "cottages"! (/sarcasm)
LOL! Welcome to Free Republic, newbie.
No. It meant that they would then OWN the land on which the fence sat and they could then remove the fence if they wanted to....
Unless Florida law is really strange, the county did publish notice of the sale, with a description of the property, in a general circulation newspaper. Or do you mean that the county should always provide direct, actual notice to owners of abutting properties whenever there is a tax sale?
It meant the $30,000 would be for the purchase of the strip around the lakeshore. Then they'd be free to do with the fence as they wished. Sheesh! 806 posts and you still haven't figured that one out?
I tend to agree, however, it is the law in many places, and so from start to finish, this sordid tale has been conducted in strict accordance with the law (as far as we know - we do not know whether Connelly was given notice in some other manner to which the homeowners aren't privy), excepting of course, the removal of surveyor stakes and their tossing into the lake.
If people feel strongly about it, then they should work to have the law changed. I would suggest that in addition to publication, property-holders adjacent to the property in question should be notified in writing or some such. I'm just throwing the ideas out there, I haven't thought through all the ramifications, such as would it have to be by certified mail, etc, etc.
muriaticMuriatic (hydrochloric) acid on the fence? Besides destroying their lawn when it seeps, all it does is bring out the "security equipment". They'd be better off using paint.
In the lake? You'd need several tanker truckloads to accomplish anything. If you did, the EPA would give birth to porcupines. Breech presentation.
-Eric
That's exactly why we lawyers are questioning the circumstances. Presumably each of these homes was sold at differing times and likely re-sold. Therefore, numerous lawyers were called on to review the conveyances. If the lake was not a "common area," it seems like it would have been addressed prior to this incident.
On the other hand, if the lake appeared to be part of the "common area" in the homeowner's documents (and therefore homeowners had a right to expect the use of the lake), then there likely was a breach of that relationship when the taxes were not paid. The Speculator's actions are the rather dramatic consequences of that breach.
'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.'
From the article it appears that he is willing to sell them the land down to the water for the $30,000.
What perspective? If it ain't yours, you have no right to it.
A friend of mine is a developer. In his most recent development he had some tennis courts that were to be taken over by the owners when half the houses were sold. For the past 5 years he has been paying the taxes and insurance on the tennis courts and trying without success to get the homeowners to take over the responsibility. They've been using them for the past 7 years. They refused to do it. It's not money since these are 700K houses with 3 car garages. They want him to run their tennis club for free - forever. As said earlier, nothing like freeloaders when the handouts stop. Oh yes, they complain when they need to be maintained.
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