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Northdale wrestles with enforcing deed restrictions

With no way to enforce subdivision rules,an owners group is not sure of itsoptions or strategies.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published June 9, 2006

NORTHDALE - Nancy Stearns climbs into her cherry-red sport utility vehicle, a small stack of papers clutched in her hand.

Each sheet contains a neighbor's complaint that someone has violated Northdale's deed restrictions.

One wants an overgrown canary date palm trimmed severely, in hopes that the rodents living inside will scurry away. Another seeks the removal of cars parked on the grass for several days.

Stearns, the president of Northdale's civic association, scribbles notes on each paper as she assesses each situation. Once she gets home, she plans to send letters to the violators asking them to comply with the rules, which aim simply to keep the 2,700-home community looking nice.

Often, the letter does the trick. But when it doesn't, Stearns has few other options to persuade homeowners to abide. Unlike tough-minded neighborhoods like Westchase and Tampa Palms, Northdale has no association with full authority over its restrictions.

Some community leaders are looking to fix that situation.

"We are trying to find a way that we can legally enforce the deed restrictions," Stearns says of the civic association.

The issue takes on some urgency because restrictions at each of the community's 11 villages, most of which differ slightly, soon will expire. If someone wants to alter the rules before they automatically renew for another decade, the time has come to prepare.

Change could come in many forms. Neighbors could do anything from making the restrictions tougher to eliminating them altogether. All they need to do is get the agreement of anywhere from a simple majority to three-quarters of homeowners, depending on the village.

First up is Gables I, the oldest part of Northdale, where the rules come due in a year. Shortly after come the Bay Levitt village guidelines.

Frank Giordano, who represents Gables I on the civic association board, has been working for months with a lawyer to assess the options before making a proposal to his neighbors.

"We can't make up our mind if we want to change the deed restrictions per se, or if we want to make the ones we have more enforceable," he says. "The attorney is suggesting that we change the rules now to make them all the same and worry about enforcement later. I don't know if I agree with him."

Giordano hopes to have the same kind of luck as nearby Country Place, where a judge in 2004 allowed neighbors to combine 12 sets of restrictions into one. The court also mandated that all homeowners pay dues to their civic association.

The effect was to put teeth into that community's rules. The new set of unified restrictions does not take force until February 2007.

Even so, the civic association has started to inform neighbors of the changes and to enforce them as much as possible. Already, the community has seen a lot of people clean up their unsightly fences and remove trash from their yards, after nearly six years of nonenforcement, says Neal Pharr, the association's immediate past president.

"We have similar problems," Giordano says of Northdale, which also has a voluntary civic association. "The builders never legally assigned the deed restrictions to an association. The rights are assigned to the individual homeowners. So if you want to fight your neighbor on something, you have to do it on your own."

Not many have been willing to sue their neighbors over overgrown lawns and damaged garage doors, though. As a result, some of the area's most egregious violations have continued for years. Stearns points to a handful - including a corner lot with plants so high that she can't see around the corner and a two-story house where the stucco is disintegrating and the panels are warped - as she cruises through Northdale's intricate system of loops, boulevards and cul-de-sacs.

The county's mediation program used to help, Giordano says. But when the county changed its introductory letter to read more like an invitation than a summons, participation among the more difficult neighbors dropped off.

Northdale leaders tried to help. They produced "arrival packages" to explain the rules to new residents, led workshops on the restrictions and even agreed to police the community. When at their most active, Stearns says, the association got as many as 200 complaints a month.

Now, they use their time more judiciously, dealing only with issues raised by association members.

The numbers have tapered off as a result, allowing the association to focus more intently on tough cases. But the small numbers also hint at a potential snag in any effort to bolster the rules.

Fewer than half of Northdale homeowners and renters belong to the civic association, despite the group's constant attempts to increase membership and a modest annual fee of $35.

If the group can't get support from half the community for things like an annual Easter egg hunt, some wonder how it might muster a vote to toughen neighborhood upkeep mandates.

Longtime Northdale activist Nancy Fleming says she gets the impression that the community supports increased enforcement of what she called "fairly common-sense" deed restrictions. She questions, however, whether the association needs to go through legal backflips to get it.

The civic association has gone after violators in court before, often with positive results. At one point, the association even hired a law firm to pursue the problems.

Maybe it should just look to past practice for future direction, Fleming says. After all, she says, "the association is made up of owners," each of whom has the authority to make sure the rules are followed.

Fred Gabel is one homeowner who wouldn't mind seeing the civic association put more teeth into the deed restrictions.

"A few houses could use more attention," he said, as he watered potted plants in his neatly manicured yard on Northwind Lane. "They could use a little more enforcement, I think, though not the extreme way."

Unfiying the rules would help, too, added Gabel, who recently moved from one end of Northdale to the other.

"One thing is deed restricted in one place but it's not in another. It would be nicer if it were the same everywhere," he said. "It would be easier to deal with, anyway."

Why does it matter? Property values. Gabel paid 60 percent more for his house than the person before him, and he's not alone. Home prices are rising throughout Northdale, and people want to maintain their investment.

Giordano hopes that interest level might play in the association's favor.

"I can see things getting better," he says. "I see a lot of refinancing. That's telling me people are taking loans out and are probably fixing their homes."

Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at (813) 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 9, 2006, 08:47:11]