Swimming down IV4 Roads

Its Monday.. Time for a new week of Citrus County politics and happenings.

The first thing today... I want to mention that Wednesday we will have a special meeting where the BOCC will discuss the Pine Ridge decision and decide if they want to appeal it.

There are a few options here:

1) Appeal it and spend tax dollars on crafting the appeal (via our attorneys)

2) Let Dicks appeal it and sign onto their appeal.

3) Let Dicks appeal it and accept whatever comes of that decision.

4) Let it go and change the Comp Plan and Land Development Code to adapt what the judge decided. I am told it takes one or two sentences.

5) Or a combination of things from above.

Hopefully the BOCC decides to let Dicks do the appeal and then address the LDC/Comp Plan, make the changes and move along. No tax dollars are spent on further litigation and if Dicks wins, it applies to the decision and the county can use that.

Seems like that is the best route to go in my opinion.

The next thing I want to take a look at is the Inverness Villages IV issue. You can read a bit about it with my previous articles. It is a long and complicated story going back to the 70s.... multiple bankruptcies... finger pointing... and so on in the last 50 years... and they still have no roads on the southern portion.

An email was sent out to Steve Howard and commissioners yesterday afternoon showing a portion of the roads from the weekend's rains.

It had some pictures attached as well.

Then this video was shared with me last night.

With the rains over the last week and more to come this week, I expect things to get A LOT worse. There have been some social media posts over the weekend showing vehicles stuck in the crumbling "roads" near Independence. It is almost a river going down those roads now.

It is a mess and it is not getting any better. Residents are telling me that their vehicles are getting damaged due to all of this and many are getting stuck in their homes because their vehicles cannot access the roads.

It is only a matter of time before emergency vehicles cant make it and someone dies when they are having a medical emergency. A firetruck already got stuck out there a year or so ago.

Commissioners have taken the approach of "the residents there should not have purchased their homes knowing there were no roads... Too bad, so sad"... I added that last part, but that is the sentiment. It is true, the residents made a decision to buy there... in part based on promises by a developer that never delivered, but also due to the fact the county claims they do not own the rights of way in the subdivision... despite the original developer dedicating them in the 80s and the county accepting them.

In the email, you see a reference to a court case, Jordan v. St Johns County. This case is very similar to what we are seeing here with IV4, except that it was regarding a built road (old A1A) and not rights of ways, which is what IV4 is.

And that is the key here. The county says it is their decision when to build roads and how to pay for them... if they desire to do so in IV4. So far, they have declined to do it.

In the Jordan case, the court ruled:

We hold that the County has a duty to reasonably maintain Old A1A as long as it is a public road dedicated to the public use. We do not hold that the County has the duty to maintain the road in a particular manner or at a particular level of accessibility. However, the County's discretion is not absolute. The County must provide a reasonable level of maintenance that affords meaningful access, unless or until the County formally abandons the road.¹ The summary judgment was premature because disputed issues of material fact remain regarding the level of road maintenance the County has provided and the level of maintenance it should have provided.

Now, there are no roads to maintain, but I assume since the county accepted the dedication of the rights of ways and allowed building permits to be issued, that access has to be provided unless.

Further the court says:

"In sum, we conclude that a governmental entity has a duty to reasonably maintain its public roads. Material issues of disputed fact remain in this case regarding whether the County has fulfilled that duty or abandoned it. "

Now, can it be argued that the county has abandoned the "roads" because they have said they will not accept them for maintenance? That is likely what the county would say.

In fact, the county has told the court that they may not even own the rights of way there in the SWFWMD lawsuit. They filed a request to dismiss them from the case. SWFWMD is suing because no one has been issued an Environment Resource Permit (ERP) despite construction activities going on.

The question no becomes does the county have to provide safe access to the properties that have built homes since they accepted the dedication of those roads... or has the county abandoned the roads completely?

In any case, the rains are making things worse out there and frustrations are continuing. The county likely will do nothing until the SWFWMD lawsuit is finished because if they lose, they can be cited for working without an ERP.

And if they win... well they do not want to set the precedent of fixing the roads.

It is a disaster and the longer the county waits to fix it, the more expensive it will get for everyone involved.