A.P. Bell Fish Co. doubled down on 12th Circuit Court pleadings in May, challenging the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in two cases over a house built on stilts in Sarasota Bay.
And in a May 16 response, the DEP fired back, arguing the Cortez fish processing company’s attempt to intervene was based on “unsubstantiated claims.”
Represented by attorney Joseph Beasley of Coral Gables, A.P. Bell filed a complaint May 3 seeking to establish the company as the true owner of the land beneath the “Guthrie Fish Camp” and to halt the DEP’s enforcement action against Raymond Guthrie Jr., who said he built the house with Tom Mora.
They built the 1,211 square-foot structure in 2017 about 350 feet from A.P. Bell docks without a permit from the state environmental regulator. In fact, no permits were obtained for the house.
A day after filing the complaint, the company moved to intervene in the DEP’s enforcement action against Guthrie.
The DEP inspected the site in June 2017, determined the state’s ownership and sought compliance from Guthrie to reduce the footprint or remove the structure.
Guthrie failed to heed DEP’s notice of violation, so in February, the DEP sought the court’s help to enforce its November 2017 “final order” requiring him to remove the house, pay $6,500 in fines and additional assessments “not to exceed $10,000 per day.”
In both the complaint and motion to intervene, Beasley argues on Bell’s behalf that the DEP action is based on “incorrect and mistaken assumptions” that Guthrie owns and constructed the structure. He also contends the DEP is incorrect in claiming the state owns the land in Sarasota Bay and wrong for not applying a Butler Act disclaimer to protect the structure.
The DEP disagrees.
“A.P. Bell seeks to impermissibly expand the scope of this proceeding,” wrote Marianna Sarkisyan, DEP’s senior assistant general counsel, in response to Beasley’s motion.
The company lacks a sufficient interest to join the ongoing DEP suit, she wrote, because the agency’s action isn’t about who owns the structure or submerged land, but whether Guthrie complied with the final order.
Guthrie’s defenders claim a Butler Act disclaimer should grandfather the house because, according to Guthrie and his representative Joanne Semmer of Ostego Bay Foundation of Fort Myers
Beach, a net camp previously existed at the location. The DEP allows private ownership of certain improvements existing before the 1950s with the disclaimer.
Net camps were structures used by commercial fishers to dry or store cotton nets in the 1900s. The practice fell out of use with the advent of monofilament nets and the net houses were destroyed over the years by storms.
As far as the Butler Act disclaimer, Sarkisyan wrote: “Fish camps are not considered improvements under the Butler Act.”
As A.P. Bell’s “complaint makes clear, the structure is not the original house; it is a newly constructed replica,” she added.
She also noted the structure is nearly three times the size of an historical net house.
And even if the structure was constructed on private land, Sarkisyan wrote in the response, it would have required a permit.
Should the court grant the company’s motion to intervene, she asked the court to limit the issues to whether Guthrie violated the DEP’s final order and the DEP’s entitlement to relief.
No hearing has been set in the matter. A DEP response to the Bell complaint is expected in the next month.
Judge Lon Arend is assigned to both cases.
the ‘shame’ is no one was using ‘it’. and then they did, now is gone., my guess is ‘they’ didn’t like the ‘new’ ? view.