A Holmes Beach house unoccupied for nearly a decade is creating concerns for neighbors.
And the city’s hands are tied — for now.
The property in the 2900 block of Gulf Drive has had no residents and no electrical service since the owner died in 2011 and a family member inherited the property, according to neighbors Tom and Lois Huntington.
“They could have rented it all these years,” Tom Huntington said Dec. 16. “But apparently they have no interest in doing that.”
Instead, the house has deteriorated, with plants growing in the rain gutters, overgrown fruit trees in the backyard and rodents scurrying along the fence separating the residence from the Huntingtons’ home on 30th Street.
While the house has no working power, the lawn is maintained and there is running water. Additionally, the current owner recently paid the back property taxes since 2011, which kept it from being auctioned by Manatee County.
“Is she going to play this game for the next 10 years?” Lois Huntington rhetorically asked of the property owner. “The fact that we do not have homeless people in there is nothing short of a miracle.”
Lois Huntington said she contacted the city code department, which said that since the lawn is mowed and the utilities are being paid, there is nothing the city could do to rectify the situation.
JT Thomas, Holmes Beach code compliance director, said Dec. 17 that the current use does not constitute abandonment, but the building department is setting up a program in 2020 to deal with neglected properties.
“We’ve had that house on our radar,” he said. “We check it to ensure it is secure, has running water and the lawn is maintained, which means it meets the minimal standards for compliance with our department. For now that is all we can do.”
The building and code departments, pending commission approval, plan in 2020 to enact a program for “minimum property maintenance standards,” which Thomas said will tighten requirements for properties to be considered compliant, including checking windows, seawalls and driveways.
He said the new program would allow his department to work with building official Neal Schwartz to assess the structure and determine safety hazards.
He said the proposed program would ensure houses in Holmes Beach are “livable,” and that they do not depreciate the value of neighboring properties.
“We know where there is smoke, there is fire,” Thomas said. “We want to be able to step in and fix these gray-area situations.”