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18 Rue Chateaux homes added to Seminole limits
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN SEMINOLE -- Eighteen of the 21 homes in the Rue Chateaux subdivision joined the city Tuesday through voluntary annexation agreements. All that was required of the homeowners was that their property be contiguous to the city and that they sign on the dotted line. So what happened to Bridlewood, a 24-home subdivision just blocks from Rue Chateaux? An annexation referendum failed there in January, with only about half of the area's 37 registered voters showing up at the polls. The vote was 14-4. "It was just a lack of voters," said Mitch Bobowski, Seminole's general services director. Both Bridlewood and Rue Chateaux are small neighborhoods north of 86th Avenue between Starkey Road and 98th Street. Bobowski said a petition circulated early last year showed that the majority of homeowners on Bridlewood Way and 90th Way N were in favor of joining the city. But the city agreed not to schedule any annexation referendums until after the Pinellas Assembly was held last May. The three-day gathering brought together 150 local people from a variety of backgrounds and organizations to talk about problems ranging from transportation to annexation and how to solve them. The annexation referendum finally took place in January. "A lot of time went by," Bobowski said. John Sipos, a homeowner in the Rue Chateaux subdivision, didn't want to wait months before he could annex into the city. So he decided to join voluntarily because his property was contiguous to Timberwoods, a condominium complex that annexed into the city in January. Sipos convinced nearly all of his neighbors to do the same. By voluntarily joining the city, they could bypass a referendum, saving themselves unwanted visits from annexation opponents and saving the city the expense of a referendum. Yet city officials say they will continue to hold annexation referendums, even for small areas such as Bridlewood and Rue Chateaux. That's because referendums get the job done, Bobowski said. "They're cleaner. They straighten your borders. They take in all of your infrastructure and roadways," Bobowski said. Because three of the 21 homes in Rue Chateaux remain in unincorporated Pinellas County, Seminole can't annex Rue Chateaux Drive, the only access in and out of the neighborhood. Doing so would create an enclave, which is prohibited. "I think once they see the benefits of it, they'll join," Sipos said of his neighbors who remain outside of the city.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks | ||||||||||||||||||
