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Unapproved parts of fence must come down
By MELIA BOWIE, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA PALMS -- In late October, 61 Westover homeowners won an eight-year battle to privatize their roads and gate their community. A six-foot high black metal gate and fences went up. Now taxing district supervisors have ordered that parts of the fence must come down. Westover homeowners went too far -- literally -- and put up fences on the district's public property. Now they have two weeks to remove the offending portions, which total between 50 to 80 feet and extend past the private community to the waterline of public ponds. Mowing crews were unable to get into the pond area last week until part of the fence was removed. "We were clearly in the wrong," said Westover resident Kacy McClelland at a taxing district last week. "I don't know how we missed it. We spent $127,000 to help improve Westover and we messed up." The City Council, Tampa Palms CDD, Tampa Palms Owners Association and the Re-Modification Committee all signed off on Westover's request last year to install a gate at the entrance to Derry Way. But no such request was made for gating at the community's other entrance, Londonderry Drive, said district field consultant Maggie Wilson. Nor was there a request made for the fences. "It was like that part in Top Gun . . . where the guy says to Tom Cruise, 'That was some of the best flying I've seen -- all the way up to the part where you got shot down,' " said Randy Marlowe, president of Westover's homeowners association. "I think we were always under the impression that a gate would include fences for security." Several homes in Westover have been burglarized, homeowners said, making a case for the fencing. Westover needs more than a good reason to fence off public property, supervisors said. "The Patskos were here," chairman Gene Field said of a Cambridge III family who went to court seeking to save a fence they erected near their corner home. Parts of it infringed on CDD land. "They had a very good reason," he said. "They wanted to protect their child. We moved it. "I find it hard to say your purpose is any more noble," Field said. District staff said several calls came in from homeowners inquiring about the fence. After seeing it, a property owner at Bristol Place apartments installed metal fencing on CDD land but removed it days later. Marlowe said he and other Westover board members will meet to discuss options. Then talks will take place with the taxing district to find a balance between safety and maintenance and preserving Tampa Palms' open space feel. "This is not insurmountable," he said.
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