The treehouse saga continues in Holmes Beach with yet another lawsuit.
Owners Lynn Tran and Richard Hazen opened a new case Dec. 10 with a sworn petition asking the 12th Circuit Court to end the daily fines against them and prevent the treehouse’s demolition.
The petition for a temporary injunction names the city of Holmes Beach and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as respondents.
The city in 2016 ordered Tran and Hazen to remove the treehouse and comply with the land-development code, imposing a fine of $50 a day, beginning July 22, 2015.
The new lawsuit calls the $65,000 in fines that have accumulated “illegally excessive and unfounded.”
In support of the injunction, the petition states the couple is likely to be irreparably harmed because, once the treehouse is destroyed, it can’t be rebuilt and that money alone won’t resolve the issue.
The suit also claims the dispute threatens the owners’ property rights and no public interest or public policy outweighs their rights. According to the petition, the city and DEP have not brought forth evidence of any environmental impact.
The filing also states more than 5,000 people, including 330 Holmes Beach residents, signed petitions urging the city to save the treehouse from destruction.
Without environmental permits as required by the city and state, the couple built the treehouse in 2011 in a towering Australian pine 20 feet west of 103 29th St., where they live and operate Angelinos Sea Lodge. Tran says city officials advised them no permit was needed before the construction.
An anonymous tip led the city to investigate and refer the matter to the DEP, which closed its case in 2014 after the city refused to waive its 50-foot setback.
The city was served with the latest suit Dec. 18 and, as of Dec. 19, the DEP had not yet been served. Responses were due 20 days from the date of service, according to the court papers.
Tran and Hazen have litigated a variety of cases through attorney David Levin of Icard Merrill of Sarasota, but this one they’re trying on their own.
Prior litigation — including appeals of the code enforcement decisions and a bid to allow a citywide vote on the fate of the treehouse to the U.S. Supreme Court that ended with court siding with city. The Supreme Court declined to review the case, allowing a 12th Circuit Court decision to stand.
Beside the case initiated in December, there are two pending treehouse actions, one filed by the city to enforce code orders and the other in which the owners are challenging the constitutionality of the city’s setback rule.
Tran estimates the treehouse cost $28,000 to build, but says other costs, such as surveys and engineering, pushed the treehouse expenses to $50,000.
“Petitioners have exhausted their savings and spent approximately $180,000 to defend coercive code enforcement to remove their treehouse” since 2012, according to the Hazen-Tran’s latest petition.
In a Dec. 20 email, Tran wrote about the couple’s decision to take the case pro se: “Since it is said that ignorance of the laws is not an excuse, for the last seven years I have diligently learned from the involved attorneys, read numerous regulations, taking a course via ‘Jurisdictionary How to Win in Court’ and using the online resources from various legal sites as my legal assistants.
“Now I’m practicing what I have learned to seek justice and to save our treehouse, our property and our liberty.”
Attorney Jim Dye, who has handled the treehouse case for the city and is a partner with city attorney Patricia Petruff at Dye, Harrison, Kirkland, Petruff, Pratt & St. Paul, said he expects to respond to the petition by Jan. 8 and he is confident the city will prevail in the end.
Dye said proving there is a “substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits” — one of the criteria that must be met for an injunction — is a high standard for the owners to meet.
In November, Mayor Judy Titsworth said she’d like to see the litigation come to an end. In a text Dec. 20, she noted the owners didn’t appeal the fine when it was imposed, but now are seeking to dismiss it.
As of Dec. 19, the city had paid $151,135.42 in costs, special magistrate and attorneys’ fees related to the case.