On Monday, the Fort Myers Beach Town Council voiced frustration with town staff over the progress to demolish unsafe structures on the island. For several months the council has been told that building inspector Joe Specht would be red-tagging unsafe structures. To date, he hasn’t red-tagged any.
Several months ago the Town Council was told getting Specht out into the field to red-tag the structures would speed up the process to get the unsafe structures taken care of. It was back in February when Operations Manager Frankie Kropacek reported to the council that there were 52 unsafe structures on Fort Myers Beach. And, that the town was working through the process of getting those structures taken down, one way or the other. On Monday, Kropacek reported that not a single structure has been red-tagged as of yet.
Mayor Dan Allers said he’s a little frustrated. “We were told the same thing three months ago. It appears like we are doing nothing. We’ve given clear direction. When are those buildings going to come down?”
Residents who’ve cleaned up their lots, demo’d their structure, and have begun the process of rebuilding are starting to voice their frustration with Town Council members about those property owners ignoring their mess.
The town was expected to put out a Request For Proposals for a contractor to demolish the structures. The plan was for the town to first engage the property owners, which they
did by letter in late 2023. It was believed the plan would then be for the town to take action against the property owners that were not making any effort to make their property safe and clean it up. The Town Council was told buildings would start coming down this month.
It was not totally clear why the process has stalled. It could just be there are too many balls in the air trying to rebuild a town after a Category 5 Hurricane with no rule book. There seemed to be a hint that perhaps town staff is not 100% sure how quickly they can legally tear down structures. That doesn’t really explain why no structures have been red-tagged. There are many unsafe structures on Estero Boulevard alone that are obvious.
Allers asked the question, “When are we going to get to a point where we say your building is coming down, like it or not?” He even asked Kropacek if the town needed to hire another building official to get this moving. Kropacek said another hire was not needed.
Kropacek then said Specht has made some progress the last two weeks and is putting together his own list of unsafe structures and once that list is complete staff will work with legal council to write a letter to the property owners and “those properties will come down.” Mayor Allers said he was under the impression that part of the process started several months ago, not two weeks ago.
Town Manager Andy Hyatt told the council, “We will make a better effort to get these underway.”
If the town must knock down an unsafe or abandoned structure a lien will then be put on the property to attempt to recoup the money it cost town taxpayers to knock the structure down. An additional step could be for the town to foreclose on the property.
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