'Not a pleasant place to be'

Road widening dispute leaves residents caught in limbo for years

 
Charlotte Sun
June 4, 2008
 
By NEIL HUGHES
Staff Writer

 

The only thing Marjorie Barnes knows for sure is she may or may not have to move out of her home.

The specifics — the timeframe, how much compensation she could receive from the government for taking her home, where she would live afterward — need to be determined. And all of this weighs over the head of the 66-year-old resident of River Haven, a manufactured housing park along Burnt Store Road in south Punta Gorda.

At this point, she just wishes someone — anyone — would buy her home and make the nightmare stop.

“I would be out in a minute, because I’ve been through this for a year and a half,” she said. “I would deal with them in a minute.”

Barnes and more than a dozen other residents of River Haven are caught in the middle of two entities much larger than them: the Charlotte County government, which needs to buy their land to widen Burnt Store Road, and the elected board of directors of the River Haven premanufactured home park, which controls the land on which the homes reside.

Charlotte County officials say they are looking out for the safety, well-being and convenience of local residents. With numerous planned residential developments coming to the Burnt Store corridor, the road must be widened. In order to widen the road, they say they need some of the land currently owned by River Haven.

“We’re trying to build this road and be the least destructive as possible to the neighborhoods out there,” said Brian Barnes, projects engineer with Charlotte County Public Works.

The River Haven Inc. board of directors represents all of the park residents, beyond those who call Burnt Store Road a backyard. They say they are looking out for the best interests of the collective 144 homeowners who, park representatives say, could have their property values decreased by the four-lane encroachment of Burnt Store Road.

“They look at it as the corporation is not looking after them,” Robert Althoff, president of the River Haven Homeowners’ Association, said of the park residents who reside along Burnt Store Road. “But if you have 18 people out of 144, the corporation has got to go on.”

But River Haven resident Ralph Miller wishes the board of directors responsible for the land under his home would make a deal to get him and his neighbors along Burnt Store Road out of housing purgatory, where they’ve been for a year and a half.

“I’m getting to the point where I don’t care anymore,” Miller said. “I’m tired of fighting, arguing, being lied to, not being told anything, from both sides — both the park and the county. It’s just not a pleasant place to be here.”

 

How did this happen?

Years ago, the land along the 35-mile path known as Burnt Store Road, a long stretch of empty road in southern Charlotte County leading to Cape Coral, could be considered the boonies.

Developers recently saw the mostly empty corridor as a growth opportunity. Numerous, massive planned communities have been approved for the long stretch of road.

And Cape Coral already has a population of 150,000, increasing the importance of Burnt Store Road as a hurricane and emergency evacuation route. The tiny two-lane road is not built to handle a massive influx of traffic.

So plans are in place to widen the road in the next few years. Phase one would have Charlotte County four-lane the route from U.S. 41 to Notre Dame Boulevard, and officials hope to begin construction by early 2009.

In May, the Charlotte County Commission authorized its staff to pursue voluntary acquisition of land from property owners along Burnt Store Road. In short, it granted staff the ability to negotiate and purchase land from willing sellers.

Some residents in River Haven who live along Burnt Store Road would gladly sell their home to the county, if only to get it over with.

The problem is, it isn’t their home the county wants. It’s the land underneath it.

 

Stuck in the middle

And that land is owned by River Haven Inc., who control the consortium of residents of the premanufactured home park in south Punta Gorda. Though each resident is a shareholder of the corporation, the company’s decisions are made by a board of directors elected by the 144 park households.

Although they are shareholders in River Haven Inc., the park residents along Burnt Store Road do not have the right to sell the land to the county.

“These individuals do not own the property they sit on,” said Althoff, president of the River Haven board of directors. “They pay a maintenance fee monthly to have a right to be there.”

But the board of directors can’t relate, said Ralph Miller, a park resident along Burnt Store Road.

“The people that are on the board don’t have their home affected,” Miller said, noting that none of the elected members would be relocated by the county’s widening project.

At 60, Miller is the youngest of River Haven’s residents along Burnt Store Road. He’s unsure whether he would be moved even if River Haven Inc. decided to sell to the county.

One letter he received in 2007 stated his home would be relocated, pending the sale of the land. Then he received another note saying the road plans were reconfigured and he could keep his home.

The new plans, he said, would put a four-lane Burnt Store Road literally right outside his back window.

“To me, they’re compromising safety,” Miller said. “I understand widening the road. I believe it, you need it. But don’t compromise safety for a couple of bucks, just for one home.”

Althoff said he sympathizes with Miller and the other residents along the road. He encouraged them to become a part of the board of directors.

“I would indicate to everyone one of those folks to run for the board, and run for the interests and the reasons they have,” Althoff said.

 

No common ground

The way Althoff, the River Haven president, sees it, the county doesn’t need to buy any land from the park.

Just across the street, unused land is available. But Althoff said he was informed by county officials that concrete poles located there, owned by Florida Power & Light, could not be moved. Instead, people would be relocated.

“Do the county people even consider the issues and the impacts on these people’s lives when they do something like this? We’re not arguing that there’s not a need for a four-lane road,” Althoff said. “We’re just saying, let’s just have some consideration, some compassion.”

County officials say they’ve done everything they can to accommodate both the residents and the board of directors.

“We’re going about it a very methodical, careful manner,” said Paul Payette, Real Estate Services director for Charlotte County.

The problem, Payette said, is that River Haven Inc. — namely, its board of directors — has been unwilling to negotiate.

He said county officials approached the corporation to inform them they would like to purchase the land at a fair price and attempt to relocate property owners within the existing park.

“We put that in writing to them,” Payette said. “We got back from the association... saying ‘No, we don’t want to do this, and you’ll be hearing from our attorney shortly.’”

The attorney then told the county that River Haven Inc. is not interested in relocating the residents within the park.

“We tried,” Payette said.

From Althoff’s perspective, the county was uncooperative and would not answer questions from residents or the board of directors. In response, they instructed the county to talk to their attorney.

“We got nowhere,” Althoff said. “And quite frankly we didn’t know if we were getting to a point where we were being put into a box if we answered a question.”

For Charlotte County officials, this is rare territory. Years ago, when the county began to purchase 1,000 acres of land from private owners for a commercial and residential project known as Murdock Village, all of the occupied homes were successfully negotiated for purchase without legal interference.

“The homes were all negotiated,” Payette said. “I don’t recall of one instance where we were required to force somebody out through an order of take.”

But in this case, things are at a standstill between the park owners and Charlotte County.

“There are absolutely zero negotiations going on between the county and River Haven Inc.,” Althoff said.

If a willing seller agreement cannot be reached, county officials may be forced to consider legal action, or forcefully take the land through eminent domain, which can be a lengthy and costly court process.

Payette said he’s hopeful the impasse can be broken in terms that all sides can agree to.

“What we try to do, to the best of our ability, is to work with the property owners,” Payette said.

 

No end in sight

In the eyes of River Haven residents Marjorie Barnes and Ralph Miller, no one is working with them.

Both have hoped for over a year to make improvements to their homes. But there’s no sense in making an investment if they have to move out in a few months.

Miller said he had contracts in place to build a car port and a lanai. He canceled the contracts when he received a notice that his home would be bought by the county. Since then, the county sent a note saying it would no longer buy his home.

“It impacted our lifestyles,” Miller said. “I’m not doing anything to that house. As soon as I do something, I know what’s going to happen: they’ll come and take it.”

Right now, they don’t know when, if ever, they’ll have to move out.

“I’m tired of it,” Miller said, “mentally.”