Hearing set to oversee treehouse demo
By Ryan Paice
Islander Reporter
A Holmes Beach treehouse remains standing almost two months after a judge called for its demolition.
Now, the court is calling for a status check.
Judge Edward Nicholas of the 12th Circuit Court issued an April 11 notice of hearing for an 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 26, compliance status conference over Zoom.
Nicholas ruled Feb. 28 that the unpermitted treehouse at the Angelinos Sea Lodge, 2818 Ave. E, must be removed within 90 days of his order.
That leaves property owners Richard Hazen and his wife, Lynn Tran-Hazen, until July 3 to demolish the structure.
If they fail to remove the treehouse by then, the city can remove it at the expense of the owners after providing at least 72 hours’ notice.
Nothing has changed since Nicholas’ ruling.
The city had not received a permit application for the treehouse’s demolition as of May 1, according to Holmes Beach planning and zoning administrator Chad Minor.
The property owners wrote in a May 1 email to The Islander that they had “retained a contractor to work on the demolition permits.”
“We’ll carefully remove each part of the tree by hand,” the Hazens wrote.
They also noted that they had filed a notice of appeal.
However, their only active appeal as of May 2 regards a different treehouse case and was filed Feb. 16, before Nicholas’ ruling on demolition, according to the Manatee County Clerk of Circuit Court’s website, manateeclerk.com.
Judge orders demo of Cortez stilt house
By Robert Anderson
Islander Reporter
A structure built on pilings over the water off the Cortez coastline must come down within 120 days.
Twelfth Circuit Judge Edward Nicholas said May 1 that the man who built up the structure, Raymond Guthrie Jr., must remove it within 120 days, according to Karen Bell, a Cortez business owner who’s supported Guthrie in his legal tangle to protect the structure. Bell attended a Zoom hearing in the court case involving Guthrie, the defendant, and, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the plaintiff.
The DEP has been seeking enforcement of a 2019 ruling, also by Nicholas, against Guthrie with the aim of demolishing the structure.
The DEP said Guthrie built the stilt house without permission on sovereign state submerged lands.
Guthrie maintains it is an old net camp.
The legal battle dates to 2018.
A judgment Feb. 25, 2019, went in the DEP’s favor and instructed Guthrie to dismantle the structure.
However, from Feb. 21, 2021, to Aug. 2, 2023, the DEP failed to prosecute, according to court records.
On May 4, 2023, Nicholas granted a defense motion and dismissed the case, citing the DEP’s failure to prosecute.
But the DEP continued pursuing Nicholas’ order to remove the stilt house, and, in November 2023, the case was reopened based on the DEP’s claim it did not receive proper notification of court deadlines.
Bell has worked with Guthrie to prevent the removal of the structure, which she and others in the Cortez community have said is historic and worth preservation.
Net camps were used to clean, dry and store cotton nets but their usage declined with the availability of synthetic net materials that are more resistant to rot.
The Islander reached out to the DEP by email April 23 and April 25 but the DEP did not fulfill The Islander’s information request.
The Islander reached out to Guthrie, who declined comment April 25.