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Mistake destroys plan for park

County attorneys realize a lawsuit is legit. The result: Mobile home owners won't get $18,000 apiece but still must leave.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published November 1, 2006

Pinellas County attorneys agreed that a former drug addict and felon with a high school diploma was correct when he alleged in a lawsuit that the county failed to properly advertise a hearing to change the land use for the Golden Lantern Mobile Home Park.

The county attorneys' decision not to contest that portion of Charles Plancon's lawsuit means the developer will have to start over before something other than a mobile home park could be built on the 19.6 acres.

"It kind of puts us at square one," said Paul Cassel, the county's head of development review services.

Although Plancon won his point, his neighbors and others will suffer from the county's admission that it made a mistake. The homeowners who live in the park will lose the approximately $18,000 each that they would have received for their mobile homes under a proposed settlement.

Instead, they will receive the state-mandated $3,000 for a single-wide and $6,000 for a double-wide for homes that can be moved. The owners of single-wides that can't be moved will get $1,375 and double-wide owners $2,750.

The developer, who bought the property Monday for about $4.8-million, planned to send out eviction notices today giving homeowners six months to vacate the park.

And a proposal to build affordable apartments as part of the development will fall by the wayside.

The delay to get the land use change means the company that was helping finance the deal will lose out on state money, said Ed Armstrong, the Clearwater attorney who is representing developer Kevin Voss.

Without the state money, Armstrong said, the company has pulled out. It was the money from the financial company that would have funded both the settlement and the affordable housing. Without it, Voss has no real plans for the park.

"They will decide down the road what the ultimate plan will be for the site," Armstrong said. "They won't be doing anything any time soon, that's for sure."

The saga of the Golden Lantern, 7950 Park Blvd., in unincorporated Pinellas on the edge of Pinellas Park, began in January 2005. That's when then-owners Robert Keathley and his family asked for the land use change.

At first, most residents of the park who owned their mobile homes, but not the land beneath them, fought the change. But later, Voss and his company, Triax, offered to settle with members of the homeowners association for about $18,000 each. Plancon was the only member of the homeowners association who refused the deal.

Plancon, acting as his own attorney, sued the county. Among his claims: The county failed to include the title of the ordinance when it advertised the hearing to change the land use. That's a requirement of state law. Although it sounds like a mere technicality, Armstrong said the courts are "very strict in that regard. You have to have total compliance with the statute."

Once county attorneys realized that Plancon was right and decided that they would not fight him in court, the effect was "as if the hearings never happened, which yields a tough result in this instance," Armstrong said.

"Understandably, my client was very, very upset," Armstrong said. "The consequences to them have been dramatic."

Voss has no plans to sue the county for the mistake.

"We're not looking back. We're looking forward," Armstrong said.

Plancon could not be reached for comment. He has been in the Pinellas County Jail since the summer, where he was awaiting trial on two felony and two misdemeanor charges.

Plancon was arrested Memorial Day after Pinellas Park police accused him of flashing a gun and making rambling threats about killing guys who were giving him trouble. He had been in trouble years before, with felony convictions and an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

[Last modified November 1, 2006, 06:48:19]