Holmes Beach commissioners voted 3-2 June 24 to reject a request from Lynn Tran and Richard Hazen, owners of the Angelinos Sea Lodge, 2818 Ave. E., to reduce a $188,621.40 lien against their property, where a beachfront treehouse once stood.
Commissioners Steve Oelfke, Terry Schaefer and Carol Soustek voted “yes.” Commissioners Dan Diggins and Carol Whitmore voted “no.”
In 2011, the property owners built a treehouse that the city and Florida Department of Environmental Protection found in violation of municipal and state law. Litigation began in 2013, when the owners filed a lawsuit against the city to contest the constitutionality of municipal codes that prohibited the treehouse.
Their lawsuit failed, but a handful of others sprung up in its place — with the property owners ending on the losing side of each one. A court order to demolish the treehouse was issued in February 2024 and the task was completed in August 2024.
The property owners still owe more than $383,000 because of their noncompliance. That includes the $188,621.40 lien, which results from a $50 daily fine for an unpermitted treehouse that ran from July 22, 2015, through August 29, 2024. As of June 26, that also included $195,125 in accumulated fines due to a $125 daily fine that began March 18, 2021, for renting units at Angelinos without a city rental certificate.
The property owners submitted a letter requesting a lien reduction in April, but city commissioners unanimously voted to reject it.
Whitmore called for the property owners to resolve the ongoing vacation rental violation, then submit another request for a lien reduction.
At the June 24 meeting, city attorney Erica Augello said they had yet to resolve the violation and had never stopped renting units at the property.
In the property owner’s latest reduction request, they wrote that they stopped accepting new rental reservations on June 12 and had removed an online booking engine from their website a few days later. “However, we have a responsibility to honor future reservations already booked and secured with a deposit before June 12,” the request states.
Whitmore said she did not support what the property owners did in the past but wanted the matter to be “over and done with.” She moved to reduce the lien to $80,000 and required its payment in 90 days.
Diggins seconded the motion, stating he wanted to resolve the matter in a compassionate way, but that was where support for Whitmore’s motion ended.
Oelfke said he has sympathy for the property owners but their decisions resulted in a significant cost to the city.
Soustek said, “I cannot support any reduction whatsoever. This is not anger or punishment, this is upholding the letter of the law.”
“We hope that you can continue being a part of our community, but to capriciously reduce our lien at this point in time — when it’s a direct result of your actions, not the city’s — I think would make a mockery of our system and would set an ugly precedent … For those reasons, I cannot support a reduction,” Schaefer said.
Whitmore’s motion failed on a 2-3 vote, with Oelfke, Schaefer and Soustek voting “no.”
Soustek then moved to deny the lien reduction request.
Oelfke seconded the motion, which passed.