Though the city backs a rental development, residents who live in neighborhoods surrounding the property are fighting it.
By SUZANNAH GONZALES
Published March 15, 2004
[Times photos: Stephen Coddington]
Jeloni Sammy, 9, hangs upside down while playing with his 4-year old brother Jerell, background, on the playground set in the back yard of his family's home in Heron Woods on Friday. Inverness is reviewing plans to develop a low-and moderate-income rental complex on wooded land overlooking the Sammy's back yard.
Heron Woods homeowner Jenell Sammy is fighting to keep a low-and moderate-income rental complex out of her back yard. After living in a series of rentals over a period of 12 years, Sammy built a three-bedroom, two-bath home in Heron Woods in 2002. It is the first home she's owned.
INVERNESS - Over a dozen years, Jenell Sammy rented apartments. She was 25 when she rented her first. Five total in New York, then one in Inverness.
Throughout the renting years, her personal goal was to own her own home. A couple years ago, Sammy, now 39, achieved it, building one in Heron Woods. Three bedrooms, a garage, a back yard she considers beautiful and secluded.
Her two young boys can go there and play without problems.
In the future, she's not so sure.
On the wooded, 10-acre piece of land directly behind Sammy's house on Stately Oaks Drive, a Miami-based development company has proposed building rental apartments for low- and moderate-income residents. In exchange for offering the apartments at affordable rents, the developer and investors will receive tax credits, said Inverness development services director Ken Koch. The development is not a public or subsidized housing project.
The development - called "Pinnacle Run" - would include 74 housing units, no more than eight in each building. A lake sits in the middle of the plan and the two-story buildings are situated around it. A swimming pool, volleyball court, picnic areas and a walking trail through a preserve also are included.
More than half of the apartments have two bedrooms and two baths at $499 a month, but one- and three-bedroom apartments also would be rented for $429 to $569 a month, respectively.
The entrance would be at what is now the dead-end on Howard Street, off East Turner Camp Road.
Earlier this month, the Inverness planning and zoning commission recommended the city zoning board of adjustment approve the plan. On March 17, the panel will consider it.
The private development company, Pinnacle Housing Group, has not closed on the property yet, though they have an agreement with the Bradshaw family to buy it, said Pinnacle Housing Group vice president Tim Wheat. The property's assessed value is $30,000, according to Koch, but neither Wheat nor Wes Bradshaw would disclose the purchase price on Friday.
The county receives $666 in taxes from the undeveloped property, Koch said, and about $200 of it goes to Inverness. If the complex is built, Wheat estimated paying $40,000 to $50,000 in property taxes to the county each year.
Koch supports the proposal: It would comply with the city's comprehensive plan, which calls for a variety of housing types to fulfill different needs, and the city would generate revenue from the taxes paid by the developer, which Koch says will help keep taxes down for everybody.
But residents who live in neighborhoods surrounding the property - Heron Woods to the north, White Lake to the east and Windermere to the south - are against the plan.
Among Sammy's main concerns are who her new neighbors would be.
Though half of Heron Woods, of whose homeowners association Sammy is vice president, consists of rental houses for low-income residents, the renters in the proposed apartments would be closer to Sammy's home. When it comes to rentals, Sammy said, "You never know who you're living next to, around. You always have to be on your guard."
Will the development be well-maintained? Will the value of her home go down? Will the two-story structures enable renters to look into her property? Will kids from the apartments cut through her property? Will the development cause drainage problems when heavy rains fall?
Why can't they build single family homes instead, like the homes immediately surrounding the property?
"I've seen rentals. I've been around town," Sammy said. "If you don't have good maintenance 24 hours, around the clock, it's going to look like a slum.
"It's all going to start looking like it's going downhill.'
Homeowners take better care of their homes, she said. "The difference between home owners and renters is the issue."
Residents of Windermere and White Lake share Sammy's concerns - and then some.
When Gene Mason, president of the Windermere Garden Villas Home Owners Association, thinks of the proposed apartments, the Tampa "projects" he saw when he worked years ago as a detective in the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office come to mind. Those were two-storied structures, too, he recalled, and there was drug activity, violence and gangs in and around them.
"I have visions of this being like that," he said.
Is he discriminating against a class of people? "Well, yeah. Maybe I am," Mason said. "And that's politically incorrect, but I'm just thinking of the fallout. Possible. Probable."
Windermere now is a place where Mason said he can enjoy his retirement. It's nice, quiet and serene. His wife can walk at night and he's not worried.
"She's safe," he said, "and I'm just afraid we'll lose some of it."
Harry Kratzer, treasurer of the Windermere homeowners group, wonders about the chosen location for the rental apartments. "They're saturating one area," he said, referring to the already existing rental homes of Heron Woods. ". . .By saturating the area, you make it a low-income area."
Some on Howard Street, which is part of the White Lake neighborhood and the road which would lead into the development, see the plan's potential good and potential bad.
"I'm sure it's good for a lot of people," said Patrick Facey, of 609 Howard Street, "but it attracts the wrong people."
While the apartments could give people opportunities, Paul Eaton, who lives a few houses down from Facey, worries about increased traffic on his short street.
"I like it quiet," he said.
Maybe the area wouldn't be as safe as it is now, Eaton said. "But I think that's the whole world. . . .Things change. Sad, but true."
According to Koch and Wheat, should changes occur, they won't be bad.
The development will not drain property values, safety and security, said Wheat in an e-mail attachment to Koch addressing frequently asked questions about his company's proposal.
"This is a myth," Wheat wrote. "Numerous case studies and property value analyses have all indicated that there is not a negative impact on the property values of surrounding neighborhoods by developments of this type and in most cases there is a positive impact consistent with other types of development."
Koch said he has seen no evidence that Heron Woods, which he called "a success," has negatively affected property values in the area. He added that the city has received more code-enforcement complaints in White Lake than in Heron Woods.
The key, Koch said, would be to maintain the proposed development well, and he is confident it would be.
There will be a member of the management staff living on-site, Wheat said, and someone available 24 hours a day.
Further, Koch said the development, which would feature "Georgian"-designed buildings, would be architecturally better than Heron Woods.
"You wouldn't think, "Oh, this is low to moderate housing," he said. "You would think it was an apartment complex."
Prospective residents of the apartments would be screened before moving in, a process that includes credit reports and criminal background checks, according to Koch and Wheat.
"Any evidence of prior eviction or serious criminal offenses leads to rejection," Wheat wrote in his e-mail to Koch.
But an on-site manager and criminal background checks are an industry standard, said Dan Wilson a development consultant working at Heron Woods. And even after conducting criminal background checks, "You still get the bad ones," said Pat Kenney, of Florida Low Income Housing Associates, who also works at Heron Woods. Though they are a small minority, she said, "You always have the ones who want to ruin a good thing."
In an interview, Wheat acknowledged that the screening process is not 100-percent effective. But he said evictions will be made "without delay" if necessary. "That's what we do at our communities."
Koch disagreed that the development of rental apartments would not match the surrounding neighborhoods of single-family homes, saying that the proposed site of the development, Heron Woods and Windermere are zoned the same, "urban low density residential." In fact, Koch said, after development, the property would have more open space than Windermere.
Officials picked this location for the development because the property's zoning and population density fit with the development plans, Koch said.
Koch dismissed concerns of possible increased traffic on Howard Street, noting the road has the capacity for 7,500 vehicle trips a day and while it currently handles probably 100 trips, even after the development there will be less than 1,000.
The development also would not overcrowd area schools, Koch and Wheat said. At the most, there would be an additional 75 children in the schools, if you consider that the average family size consists of 3 to 4 members, Koch said. And the city school system has room to accommodate them.
To address residents' concerns about children wandering through their neighborhoods on their way to the middle school, Koch said a six-foot-high aluminum fence will be put around the property. In addition, the trash bins will be placed farther away from the border.
Will the residents' fears come true? "None of us know," Mason, of Windermere, said.
But when everything is done, when the job is complete and financial gains are had, he said, "We're still here. And the uncertainty of that future, that's kind of what's unnerving."
