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A family's imminent fight

When you live in the cross hairs of commuter progress, why not just settle on a price and move on? Because it's not always nearly that simple.

By SHERRI DAY
Published August 19, 2005

PALMETTO BEACH - Justo Garcia built his house with his own hands.

An Ybor City cigarmaker, he bought 12 concrete blocks a week and spent weekends working on the project. It took him four years, but in 1949 he finished the family's Spanish-style house.

The house outlasted Garcia, who died of skin cancer in 1971. It is now the center of a compound that is home to four generations of Garcias, including his sister.

But soon, with a few swings of a wrecking ball, the houses will be wiped out. They stand in the path of a planned road to connect Interstate 4 with the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway.

In all, the state Department of Transportation plans to demolish 12 homes and three businesses, converting the Garcia homestead into retention ponds.

Facing almost certain defeat because of eminent domain laws, the Garcias pledge a fight.

"I've been here 56 years," said Charles J. Garcia, 70, a retired certified public accountant. "My father and my older brother built this house. It has a lot of sentimental value to me. It's historical, but the DOT doesn't care about that. I'm dead set against selling."

The family narrowly escaped a similar fate in the early 1970s, watching as neighboring homes and businesses gave way to the Lee Roy Selmon.

Carmen Borbolla, Justo Garcia's sister, remembers her neighbors, mostly elderly women, whose homes did not escape the bulldozer's path. They received what she thought were paltry sums for the land.

Now, it's her turn.

"I don't like it at all," said Borbolla, 83. "I worked all my life to pay for my house, and when I thought I was comfortable, now they come with all this baloney. I'm retired. I'm sick. I don't think this is fair."

The Garcias don't want to move. But if they have to go - and DOT officials say they do - they would like to live together, mortgage free in Palmetto Beach. Rising home prices in the neighborhood will likely make that difficult. Together, they have three homes that sit on about 2 acres. The only plot that size in Palmetto Beach is listed at $1-million.

Mark Amos, the DOT's deputy right of way manager, said Charles Garcia and his family might have to try Brandon or New Tampa.

"He won't be moving from his existing house into Windsor Castle at our expense," Amos said.

For decades, transportation planners envisioned a highway that would stretch from the fast-growing suburbs of Brandon to Pinellas County using Gandy Boulevard.

From its infancy, the project was beset by problems ranging from neighborhood discontent to financing issues.

Construction began in 1974, stretching from Gandy Boulevard to Willow Street in Hyde Park.

Originally called the South Crosstown Expressway, the highway opened in 1976. A second portion, from Morgan Street to U.S. 301, opened in 1981, Expressway Authority officials said. The last phase of the road, from Falkenburg Road to Interstate 75, opened in 1996.

For at least 20 years, transportation planners have talked about connecting the toll road to I-4.

The Garcias hoped they would be spared displacement. After all, plans called for the connector to soar as high as 92 feet above ground along 31st Street and the old CSX rail line.

But in 2003, planners proposed adding a new truck-only lane to relieve Ybor City of the heavy industrial traffic that flows from I-4 to the Port of Tampa. The DOT would have to acquire a wider swath of land.

Residents learned of the new plans last fall.

One woman, the Garcias remember, stood in her carport and cried as she read a letter from the DOT urging her to sell. Charles Garcia alerted the Palmetto Beach Homeowners' Association, which began lobbying for a route that would bypass Long Street.

Margaret Smith, the DOT's interstate program manager, said the agency considered alternate routes but found Long Street most feasible. The agency plans to purchase the land by early 2008, Smith said, and work is scheduled to begin on the $418.3-million connector in 2009.

"As far as the people that we're impacting, I think we go quite a bit out of our way to make sure that we're not going to harm anybody," she said.

Agency officials now go door to door asking property owners to sell. Eventually everyone will have to give in or take the agency to court for more money.

Arturo Macia expects to close his deal with the DOT in early September. He bought his house in 2001 for $33,000. He plans to sell to the DOT for $135,000 and buy a larger house in Palm River.

"I went from a Yugo to a Toyota Camry," said Macia, a 39-year-old HARTline driver. "I can't complain on the deal. I have the ability to work, but a lot of these old people are retired, and that's the main issue."

For Gerry and Eleanor Wehle, retired print shop owners, a new mortgage is the rub. They're scouting for houses in Lutz but anticipate higher bills.

"Now, I'll proably have to go back to work to be able to afford the taxes," said Gerry Wehle, 67.

Across the street from the Garcias, Elsa Edwards hopes the road project will just go away.

Edwards, 64, has no mortgage. She lives on a Social Security check and money she earns recycling cans.

"I only get $350," she said. "I'm struggling, and they're going to take my house?"

Richard Perez, president and chief executive of the Brisk Coffee Co. at 22nd and Long streets, accepts the inevitable.

"If it were losing a child or something like that, I'd fight," he said. "I'm not losing anything. I'm just relocating. It's bricks and sand. I'm not going to become emotionally involved."

Garcia and his family are emotionally involved, though. They don't talk about what they will pack, how much their homes will eventually fetch or what they will have to leave behind.

They are not totally oblivious to the coming wrecking ball. They joke about staging a protest fast or living under a bridge.

More realistically, they have started looking in Brandon and Seffner. Still, each harbors hope that the DOT's plans will change.

At the state's expense, the Garcias also hired an eminent domain lawyer to make sure they're treated fairly.

"We're hoping that if we have to move, if they put a gun to our heads, that he would find us enough money," said Justo Garcia's granddaughter, 62-year-old Tanya Garcia.

"We need to be together."

Information from the Times archives was used in this report, which includes contributions from Times news researchers Cathy Wos and Mary Mellstrom. Sherri Day can be reached at 226-3405 or sday@sptimes.com

For a DOT video that shows the connector's projected path, visit www.mytbi.com/urs/content/Design/I4-CrosstownConnector/index.asp

[Last modified August 18, 2005, 11:46:08]