Dream living: free rent, open spaces

But there's a catch. You'd provide security for New Port Richey's Grey Preserve.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 13, 2007

City officials are planning to let someone live at the James E. Grey Preserve as a way to deter would-be vandals from trashing the 80-acre park where taxpayers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in improvements. Kayak trips could be had in your own backyard.
	[Lance Aram Rothstein | Times (2006)]

ADVERTISEMENT [Lance Aram Rothstein | Times (2006)] A kayak is docked at the James E. Grey Preserve after a paddle on the Pithlachascotee River in New Port Richey.

NEW PORT RICHEY - Been looking for a place where the rent is free, the neighbors keep to themselves and the back yard is 80 acres of wilderness?

The city might let you live at the James E. Grey Preserve - so long as you bring your own mobile home and agree to keep an eye on the place.

City officials are planning to let someone live at the preserve as a way to deter would-be vandals from trashing the 80-acre park where taxpayers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in improvements.

Next year's budget includes a $20,000 expenditure to clear a lot and provide septic and electric to the site where a mobile home could go.

Current city employees will get first dibs on the deal.

Parks and Recreation Director Elaine Smith said the security person wouldn't be expected to put his or her life in danger to confront suspicious people. "They would just call if they saw anything," she said. "They're there just to patrol."

Pasco County has had sheriff's deputies living in some of its parks for more than 20 years, said county parks and recreation director Rick Buckman.

There are about five deputies who live in mobile homes at some of the county's 34 parks, including Anclote Gulf Park in Holiday and Veterans Memorial Park in Hudson, he said. The county also pays for the initial site setup.

In the early days of the program, written agreements pushed the deputies to act as officers all the time, he said, though the county has since backed off on that because it implied they should be paid.

"Our agreements with the deputies pretty much say, 'Treat it like you would your own backyard and do some level of security patrol,' " Buckman said.

The success of the live-in security has mostly depended on how visible the deputies' homes are and how much they have to drive to get to them, he said. Maintenance buildings close to the homes have generally been free of vandalism. And the more the deputies have to drive around in their patrol cars, the more people notice that somebody's watching.

At the Grey Preserve in New Port Richey, a security presence can't come soon enough: The first week that part of the preserve opened this summer after being closed for construction, Smith said, someone stole all the copper piping out of the bathrooms.

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247.

[Last modified September 12, 2007, 21:45:46]