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.
Actually, they can still enjoy his property (the view), they just have to walk up to and look over his fence to do it.
If I was him, the FIRST thing I would have done was to build the fence. If one of the homeowner's kids fell in that lake and drowned how long do you think it would take for them to look for a scapegoat to sue?Bingo.
Respecting this guy's property rights is like respecting the free speech of extremists: if we don't, disrespect of ours is next.
The homeowners are simply the equivalent of the Florida voters who didn't bother to check their ballot and now claim it's "unfair" that their votes allegedly didn't count.
-Eric
Strange enough one of my favorite classes in law school was Land Use Control. The professor was, then, just about 70 years old and he had literally written the (a) book on zoning and land use control. He was so down to earth and practical about the whole thing I couldn't help but love the subject. As he put it, "Zoning isn't sexy, but people care about it a lot, and many people attend zoning board meetings. Win one good case and you will have work in that town for the rest of your life, even if people don't like the side you represent."
He paid to put up the fence so he could charge people to take down the fence. There is no other reason for the fence except to extort money.
Perhaps, and this may be an avenue for the homeowners to pursue.
So it is. Two things come to mind here. Number one: Has this affected the property values of the homeowners? If it has, I think they're due for a re-assesment and property tax reduction. When his actions start costing the government money, he's going to get someone's attention. Number two: Ken Rex McElroy, formerly of Skidmore, Missouri.
You can build a fence to keep your dog in. You cannot build one to purposefully hurt your neighbor. You cannot purposefully build an ugly fence in order to hurt your neighbor's resale value.
I'm not gonna argue the law -- he certainly owns the lake and lakeshore, and it was the lakefront owners who fell down. Yet I'd think a Judge could reach out and condemn his property at a very fair market value for the sake of peace. I understand that law in such cases varies considerably state to state.
But let me make some suggestions to the owners, beyond the obvious legal and politcal ones.
Tree branches fall on fences every rainstorm. Fence posts rot when in wet soil, and fall into gullies. As the bad neighbor planted his extort-a-fence, the lakefront owners can re-landscape to make his fance a high-$$$-maintenence item.
And if the owner expects $30K, why then the county appraisers should re-appraise the property so the lake's tax burden is true to the owner's wishes of its value. I'd say that lake is worth $210K, easily!
I also wonder if there is a home owners association for this neigborhood and if Mr Connolley is following their rules.
In Texas the only title you get from a tax sale is the title the guy who didn't pay his taxes had. If he had no title because he lost it through adverse possession (or the wrong guy was sued) then the Sheriff just sold you nothing.
In a county next to mine an abandoned rail road right of way was sold off a few years ago. One very large ranch disdainfully declined to purchase the right of way through it, and a local bough it for a couple of thousand dollars. He tried to sell it to the ranch, but they weren't interested. Then he hired a crew to start building a fence down one side of his right of way. The ranch called to complain, and he sent them a copy of the deed where the right of way was purchased in the 19th century. It was a form that gave the landowner the right to ONE 20 foot crossing of the right of way per landowner, positioned where the railroad saw fit. The new owner proudly anounced that he intended to give the ranch its one 20 crossing, at the far end of his three mile right of way.
Yes, they paid him, ten times what he paid the rail road.
So it is. Two things come to mind here. Number one: Has this affected the property values of the homeowners? If it has, I think they're due for a re-assesment and property tax reduction.When his actions start costing the government money, he's going to get someone's attention.....
How true!
That's right, it's HIS view, now. It's his right to charge what5ever he wants for it. However, he is not charging for the view, he is offering to sell his land, which he owns, fair and square. Any or all of the homeowners could have done the same thing. They blew it.
He had to PAY to stop people from enjoying the view from the property.
WRONG. He had to pay to buy the land. He did. He owns it.
This is not a matter of his innocence. He had to pay a lot of money to extort money from the people on the lake.
First of all, $1K isn't a lot when it comes to purchasing property, especially lake front property. He bought the property fair and square. Once it's his property, he can charge whatever price he wants for it. If people don't want to pay that price, then he won't sell it. If erecting a fence raises the value of the property, it's his right to do so.
my good sir, this is capitalism-it's the AMERICAN WAY: the householders can litigate.
Let us take heed.
No, he is selling them land. Not rights, not a view.
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