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Neighborhood woes go beyond cosmetic

Leaders trying to improve Heather Lakes are working on both its appearance and residents' attitudes.

BRANDON - Scott Laugherty drives through his Heather Lakes neighborhood and sees a daunting array of challenges.

Aging cars with homemade "For Sale" signs in the windows are parked on brown lawns. Bedsheets, not curtains, cover windows.

On one street, a single home has five vehicles crammed into the driveway and surrounding lawn - including a hulking Chevrolet truck that blocks the road.

Two FedEx trucks - one of them propped up on a tire jack - fill another driveway.

The pattern is repeated in Heather Lakes, where neatly manicured lawns compete with neighboring properties' overgrown grass, and walls surrounding the community cry out for a new paint job.

When Laugherty became president of the Heather Lakes Homeowners Association in January, he just wanted to clean up all the eyesores in the community of 1,250 homes.

But six months into his tenure, Laugherty and his four neighbors on the newly formed board of directors are learning how difficult it can be to revitalize an aging community.

The task is especially difficult in Heather Lakes, where a mishmash of long-ignored deed restrictions have taken their toll. Estrangement and apathy among many neighbors make it even more difficult to get consensus about needed improvements.

"It's such a nightmare," Laugherty said. "We had no idea there were all these problems. It's like every time you turn around, there's something else."

Builder U.S. Home, now part of the Miami-based Lennar Corp., turned control of the homeowners association over to residents in January. For 14 years the builder ran the homeowners association and controlled the nearly $136,000 annual budget.

Laugherty said U.S. Home was good about collecting the dues ($60 per home each quarter), so the board of directors has money to make immediate improvements - including $18,000 to paint and pressure clean the perimeter walls, more than $30,000 for new landscaping, and about $4,000 to repair the sprinkler system that broke several months ago.

But as new residents moved in over the years, U.S. Home allowed residents to craft deed restrictions to their liking, even if it meant they could maintain their homes according to different rules than the family next door.

The result: 22 different sets of deed restrictions govern the 566 homes that are in the Heather Lakes Homeowners Association.

At one house, residents can park in the driveway; next door, the homeowners have to park inside the garage.

One home's deed restriction say the fence has to be made of wood; homeowners down the street have no limitations.

U.S. Home was so lax in enforcing the restrictions, according to the board of directors, that some residents - and real estate agents - assumed Heather Lakes had no deed restrictions.

Whitney Gaztambide, 26, moved into Heather Lakes a year and a half ago, and said she never got a copy of the restrictions governing her home.

Gaztambide said her neighbor repeatedly faxed University Properties, the Temple Terrace company hired by U.S. Home to manage Heather Lakes, with complaints about cars parking in the lawn on their street.

"We never heard back from anybody," said Gaztambide.

Betty Valenti, a community manager with Lennar, said she could not comment on U.S. Home's involvement in Heather Lakes because she only worked with the community for about a year before it was handed over to residents.

Glen Rushing of University Properties, which manages Heather Lakes, said his company can't do any repairs or improvements without approval from the board of directors. Until January that was U.S. Home.

"We do what the board tells us," Rushing said. "The board that's on right now is one of the best I've ever worked with, as far as being proactive. I'm highly encouraged. They have taken the bull by the horns."

Gaztambide said she's looking forward to changes, "now that there's people in charge who actually live here, and really care."

"Because I think this could really be a premiere place to live."

The transition from overgrown lawns and rusty cars to "premiere" won't be easy.

The board of directors has made progress, much of it reported in their newsletter and Web site, www.heatherlakes.org

Cosmetic fixes are planned. The county will start repaving streets in Heather Lakes in the fall, and workers began painting the perimeter wall along Lumsden Road last week.

But enforcing the deed restrictions after so many years of confusion and misinformation is "almost impossible," Laugherty said. In part because the restrictions, which fill a 2-inch binder, only describe homes by county parcel numbers.

The board of directors has to pore over county property maps to figure out exactly which homes are governed by which rules.

The board wants to merge the various restrictions into one consistent set of rules. But Heather Lakes' declaration of covenants, which defines the deed restrictions, states they cannot be changed through 2009 without approval from 90 percent of residents.

Getting 30 percent of residents to elect the board of directors earlier this year was hard enough; getting another 60 percent to participate seems impossible, board members said.

A committee of volunteers plans to go door to door to collect all those votes. It's a slow-going, arduous approach, "but we don't have much choice," Laugherty said.

In the meantime, the board is trying to enforce the community's master set of rules, which forbid things like sheds and commercial vehicles in the front yard, and sheets covering windows.

Of the 1,250 homes in Heather Lakes, just 566 are part of the homeowners association. The other 684 homes, mostly in the northwest section, aren't included in the association because they were built in the '80s by a different developer.

The homes bear the Heather Lakes name, but a drive through the streets makes clear there are no deed restrictions here. Cars park everywhere, homes are painted in bright pink and loud yellow.

It's likely to stay this way, because the board of directors has no control over the length of their grass, the color of their fence or the cars parked on sidewalks.

Residents in the better-maintained areas of Heather Lakes roll their eyes and shake their heads in disgust at the mention of their neighbors.

Heather Lakes was troubled from the start.

Within several years of initial home construction in the early '80s, residents complained about drainage problems, poorly maintained yards, and the lack of lighting in Heather Lakes Park.

The county recently made improvements to the park at Windingwood Avenue and Heather Lakes Boulevard, but for years it's been a hangout for gang members and drug dealers.

A group of residents formed the Heather Lakes Community Association in 1989, and worked to keep crime in check. By 2000, resident participation was so low, the group disbanded.

Laugherty and the rest of the board is trying to reawaken residents' interest, through activities like the picnic Saturday at Heather Lakes Park.

More than 80 residents came for hamburgers, hot dogs, ice cream and hospitality.

Children played with Hula-Hoops and Nerf footballs, and bounced off their lunch in a rainbow-colored bounce house. Their parents - a diverse mix of young, old, Hispanic, black and white - mingled and discussed ways to make their neighborhood better.

"A community is only as nice as the people living here are willing to make it," said Tony Wooten, secretary of the board of directors. "Picnics like these help people meet each other, and feel a sense of community and responsibility."

Wooten moved to Heather Lakes with his wife Carlita almost four years ago, when he was assigned to MacDill Air Force Base. He knows he'll be transferred to another Air Force base after his stint at MacDill is up next year, but says his efforts on the board of directors are worth it.

Saturday, as his 2-year-old daughter Jasmine showed off her Hula-Hoop, Wooten pointed to her and said: "That's the main reason I'm doing this."

"I want this to be a safe, clean, friendly place for her. And for the rest of the children here."

- Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 661-2443 or svansickler@sptimes.com