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Beacon Meadows residents complain about two home businesses that bring noise and traffic to their community. The business owners say they want to be good neighbors.
By TIM GRANT
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 17, 2001
CARROLLWOOD -- Debbie Gum was concerned about a group home for mentally disabled children that opened next door to her house in Beacon Meadows, but the owner assured her there was nothing to fear.
It wasn't long before Mrs. Gum said one of the children wandered into her kitchen. And on another occasion, she said the same child was found near someone else's backyard swimming pool.
Around the corner from Mrs. Gum's house, other neighbors are complaining about another house.
A family child-care home that opened in March has generated traffic, screaming and honking horns at all hours of the day and night.
"Every night, there are cars driving up blowing horns," said John Novack. "Early in the morning, there's all the horns and all the traffic. I had to change bedrooms because of it."
Two homes are generating two sets of complaints in one deed-restricted neighborhood.
Both businesses are licensed to operate in this community just north of Gunn Highway and west of Casey Road. Neither has done anything to violate their licenses, according to government records.
But that fact has not made them any more welcome among these modest single-family homes.
The group home on Country Run Road is owned by American Habilitative Services, a Houston-based provider of residential housing for developmentally disabled people. Records show the house was bought for $109,000 in August 2000.
The Tampa administrator for AHS, Mary Bianchi, declined to speak with a reporter.
According to Diane Dudgeon, a manager at the Department of Children and Family Services, the state agency that regulates group homes, the AHS facility in Beacon Meadows houses four boys ages 10 and under.
She said the children have "mental retardation and other developmental disabilities." They express their wants and needs through sounds instead of words.
Dudgeon said neighbors did not tell her about a child wandering into the nearby house and pool area. But she said her office looked into other complaints from neighbors and found no problems with the safety or care of the children.
Mrs. Gum's husband, Charles, said the screaming and the language he hears at the house are sometimes disturbing.
"Between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. almost every night, there are blood-curdling screams," Gum said. "When (their family members) come, they curse and use profanities. You can hear the screaming over the air conditioner with the windows closed."
Lynn Dean, an officer of the Beacon Meadows Special Tax District, wrote on May 26 that the house is too noisy, too small for the number of residents and that too many cars are parked in the driveway, on the grass and streets. The house is at the intersection of Cypress Tree Drive and Country Run Road.
Dudgeon said an investigation found that the 1,300-square-foot house is adequate and that there was no loud noise at the time of the inspection. She said employees have been told not to park on the lawn or block the view of the intersection on the street.
Under state law, a group home can be established in residential neighborhoods if six or fewer people live there and if the home is more than 1,000 feet from another group home. By integrating the developmentally disabled into the community rather than isolating them, group homes allow those residents to live as a family.
The regulation of family child-care homes is somewhat different, handled by Hillsborough County instead of the state. County guidelines allow these homes in any residential neighborhood.
Linda Mattos, a 33-year-old single mother of three, moved to Twin Maple Place in February, after operating a family child-care home in Town 'N Country. By March, she had won county approval to care for children in the Beacon Meadows home. In addition to her own 3-year-old daughter and 23-month-old son, Mattos cares for four children. Two are 3 years old, one is almost 2, and one is 2 months old. Mattos' third child is a teenager who attends school.
Mattos also watches children at night. County rules allow her to have up to six children, including her own.
Shortly after Mattos opened for business, Novack, her next-door neighbor, asked child-care licensing officials to investigate. Novack was troubled that Mattos was running the business from a home she did not own, and he said Mattos allowed children to play in front of the home and screamed at them.
"She said she was going to change the neighborhood," Novack said. "She said we would have to conform to what she is doing." Novack said he took photographs of bagged yard clippings Mattos had heaped near his property line, as more evidence of her negative impact on the neighborhood.
An investigation on April 10 showed that Mattos has the owner's permission to operate a business and that caring for children there is not against county rules. She allows her own children to play in the front of the house after the others go home in the evenings. And the inspector found that her noise level was not extraordinary.
"These children don't make much noise," Mattos said. "And as for me not being a homeowner, I don't think that's an issue. I live here, and I consider myself as much a part of this community as anyone. Nobody is going to tell me when and where my own children can play. My neighbor doesn't own the cul-de-sac."
Mattos said that when Novack complained about her squeaky garage door, she replaced it. She asked parents to avoid blowing their horns, and she keeps her sliding glass door closed to keep down noise.
The child-care home is her sole source of income, she said.
"The last straw was when he started taking pictures of me outside," Mattos said of Novack. "People from Child Care Licensing were here four times during the first month I was licensed. He (Novack) had me in tears by the time April came."
Records at Child Care Licensing show that Mattos was investigated once before after a toddler wandered outside of her Town 'N Country home while she was helping another child in the bathroom. She was advised to keep all children where she could see them. But other than that one complaint, her record is good, and her inspection reports have been positive.
"We have almost 700 family child-care homes in our county, and it's not very common to get complaints from neighbors," said Linda Stoller, who manages the department.
Novack isn't the only neighbor who resents the traffic at Mattos' house.
"I'm just having a problem with all the cars in the street and people honking horns late at night," said Mark Werner, who also lives on Twin Maple. "We've lived here for many, many years and shouldn't have to put up with this."
Deed restrictions cannot allow subdivisions to prohibit home day-care centers and group homes. But they can force those enterprises to conform to the community's standards for lawn maintenance and home appearance.
In this case, Beacon Meadows can't even do that.
Beacon Meadows does not have a homeowners association. It has a special tax district, which has no authority to enforce deed restrictions.
"We must rely on county code to enforce any restrictions," said Chuck Manning, president of the tax district. "There is nothing we, as homeowners, can do. . .. The county has issued licenses for these folks to be in business."
In the eyes of the law, each of the businesses provides an important service. That is why the Department of Children and Family Services and Child-Care Licensing investigate every complaint, Dudgeon said.
"We take these types of situations seriously," Dudgeon said. "We need to work on being good neighbors, and if the neighbors have issues, they need to share them so we can fix them."
-- To reach Tim Grant call 226-3471