And that letter will be phase one to get the island cleaned up. Town Manager Andy Hyatt spent half a day driving down every street, taking notes and pictures of properties that need to be cleaned up. Here’s the plan.
While this letter has been discussed for weeks by Mayor Dan Allers and by Hyatt as recently as last week, it appears it isn’t quite ready to fire off. When we asked for a copy of the letter, Fort Myers Beach Town Clerk Amy Baker told us ” The contents of the letter are still in the discussion stage at this time.”
Eventually the town will have to start cracking down on property owners who are simply ignoring the mess they inherited from Hurricane Ian. Some residents of the island are starting to get frustrated that they are doing everything they can to take care of their plot of land, while others haven’t done a thing.
You don’t have to travel up and down too many side streets on Fort Myers Beach to find homes that still need to be demolished, debris still sitting untouched, and now weeds and high grass being ignored. There are also commercial properties up and down Estero Boulevard that are in the same shape they were in nearly a year ago.
The town council does understand that there are property owners that are mired in insurance hell, or waiting for the state to get to them to demo their homes. Everyone is in a different phase of recovery. The letter will help the town establish an inventory of who’s in what phase of cleaning up. The most pressure will be applied to those who are simply doing nothing.
I agree it’s time to clean up but the town needs needs to help too. Our building permit was submitted in early June. No variances required…still going back and forth on trivial things and each rejection takes 2-3 weeks to address. Figure out how to fast track conforming plans so we can get accelerated construction for personal property.
When is the town going to do it’s part? The streets, sidewalks and tree lawns are a mess. When is the town going to show some pride and lead by example?
The permitting department is terrible. They always have been horrible and now they brought in new people and they are horrible as well. I believe that a huge problem is they are bringing in people that do not live on FMB and they don’t care. It’s not their community. Our mayor/town council could call a meeting and have the permitting dept. face home owners and let them listen to the BS they are pulling on us and explain their actions. The time and money we are wasting is just riduclous. The permitting dept needs to be told to stop with the games they are playing or they will be fired. Fire them and replace them with people that are home owners from FMB. And to the mayor and town council, fix this problem now. We have been patient but enough is enough. No more excuses and don’t be asking us to vote for you again when you can’t fix this.
Clearly there is poor communication from the town, as usual because I knew nothing of this FREE cleanup and I spent $20,000 out of pocket to have the debris removed from my pool, yard and from under my home. I had the cottage behind me, destroyed under my home, yard,etc. It was stacked 8ft tall. The liability is huge for these people that leave these homes untouched. There is no excuse for this. We have code enforcement checking to see if we had a permit for gravel and yet there are houses ready to fall over that are sitting there. It’s 11 months and we are supposed to believe their insurance company is the making them leave the home standing? Not buying that one.
For 3 weeks when asked, Dan Allers said the lawyer was looking over the letter and then last week I “think” Dan said the letters had already been mailed while he was on BTR last Monday.
Janice, I believe the free cleanup referred to removing the debris you piled in front of your home. We all had to clean out our houses, yards and pools at our own expense. I do agree with you, though, that these untouched homes need to be addressed.
Kathy, I thought she was referring to the program like Allers always mentions as one of the excuses why homes are left untouched. He mentions it every time Ed asks why the homes are not being addressed and says people may be signed up for that program??? I know I had 3 neighbors that somehow managed to get theirs removed for free. I’m really tired of the 2 sets of rules. It’s ridiculous the amount of debris still piled up, laying around and even more that is just ignored. Also, the dead trees. After watching the Maui fires, I really think the dead trees and bushes, should have to be removed as well. That is just fuel for fires as well as an eye sore.
Town requires a permit to do the clean up/ demo. Hiring a contractor isn’t cheap, if you can even get one to show up. Then the dumpster rental again a cost to the homeowners. I can attest ti the fact that the insurance companies aren’t paying a damn thing. We haven’t gotten one damn penny for our restaurant mango Rita’s or the house we live in. All of our work at our home we paid out of pocket. Our new restaurant paid for from our savings. We still after hiring two attorneys have no compensation. This is not a cheap and easy fix. Possibly the town council can work a deal with a contractor or two and a dumpster company to help with the demo and cleanup. Start on one street and head to the next until it’s done. Volunteers can possibly assist. I’d be willing to help for sure. There is no easy answer here and fining people isn’t the answer. They’ve lost enough. Where’s our worthless president? Sending money to Ukraine and his family. Not helping you that’s for sure.
I was just down there this week checking on status of our units on the south end of the island. I said the exact same thing about Ukraine and the mess. I feel like everything was at a the entire summer.
Maybe if the city would stop being militant toward the residents thing would go smoother? Waiting 4 months to get a permit for a simple deck is stupid. If we could move forward with the rebuild it would give you a reason to start cleaning the property up and kill the weeds. The city is going to bitch about weeds but sit in their ass when it comes to permits? Give me a break. Bunch of azzholes.
We spent around 6,000 out of pocket, with 2 separate demolition events. First one was to recover usable space for a camper by removing a few block left when the majority of our entire house was taken away by the storm. Second demo event was to remove the slab that was left. Regardless, it needed done, so we did it. It’s time to clean up. It’s been time. Now weeds, that’s a tough one. The entire island is a weed. Even with a cleaned up lot, the weeds are hard to keep up with. Then once the builder starts, then that will be an additional deterrent to keep weeds at bay.
Everyone could have been in the Ian Debris Clean up with many months of opportunities to sign up…. For FREE with no strings attached.