Letter to The Editor: Life in Holiday Lake Estates

Editor's Note: A Holiday Lake Estates residents who had expressed concerns about traffic issues at the the development's exit onto Alt. U.S. 19 wrote to give us an update.

The writer also expressed some ongoing concerns about conditions at the subdivision.  Patch is withholding the writer’s name. The photos accompanying this story were taken by a different person.

Someone, Pasco?, did come out and change the traffic arrows that were painted on the road.  This option, although not ideal, has appeared to have helped the traffic situation.  The left lane was changed from being a left turn and straight through lane to being a designated left turn lane only.  The right lane is now for traffic going straight through or making the right turn.

I'm glad that at least some changes were made.  I would still like to see something done with Lewis because it is still dangerous trying to make turns there onto Alt 19.  There are small, colored flags along Lewis between Alt 19 and US 19.  It looks like utility lines may have been marked by these flags, so I wonder what their up to?

In addition to the changes made at the exit to the development, there was some clean up done near the 7 Eleven.  I have been working on several things and wanted to speak to someone from our civic association to find out what concerns they may have.  I did find out, that like me, there was much dismay by the condition of the entrance/exit to the development here.  Frankly, it just looks junky and unkept.  I was told by an individual from the civic group that Holiday Lake does not own the signs at our entrance.  One side is owned by Time Warner and the other by Family Dollar.  This makes it difficult for anyone at Holiday Lake to try to clean or update these signs because we don't own them and we are at the mercy of the people who do and they don't seem to interested in how they look.  Getting back to what I saying though, there was some clean up done, not so much at the entrance, but further down just past 7 Eleven and so that does look better and this was done about the same time that the road was painted.

I really would like to see our entrance cleaned up and updated.  As I mentioned, I have been working on some things and I had contacted Commissioner Starkey because I am really fed up with the condition of our development and the direction it has been taking.  I know she has been working on some county code issues and she and I have had some discussion on that.  I had mentioned the entrance to the development and I suspect, although I can't say for sure, that she may have had a hand in getting some of that done.

With regard to some of the code issues, I was prompted to do something when over the holidays the investor that bought the property across the street from me decided to run a portable generator to power equipment.  That generator was outside, in front of the garage and was exceptionally loud.  It went on for about 5 weeks, right through the holidays and the reason he did this was because he didn't want to have to pay to have the power turned on or pay an electric bill.  He also went over and paid my 95 year old neighbor $10 to use her water for the same reason.  This same person, whose wife is a real estate agent, replaced one portion of the roof on the house and had some other roof work done.

What's the big deal right?  That section of roof had been leaking for quite some time and was so bad that it collapsed a large portion of the ceiling in the bedroom.  That kind of leak can cause structural damage.  The rotted wood is a great place for ants and termites, in addition to the structural damage caused by the water.  No permit was ever pulled for this.  The roofers came in and replaced the shingles and the membrane under the shingles and that's all that was done on that section.  The plywood roof decking wasn't replaced, the roof truces weren't inspected.  It was all covered up.  Since there was no permit, the county wasn't able to verify that the roof was stable.  Someone buying the house wouldn't know what was done, and now you have someone that thinks the house is safe and the roof could collapse on their heads.  Frankly Alex, I am not ok with that.

Did you know that unless the noise from a generator is above a certain decibel level there is nothing you can do about it?  I would like to see the use of generators restricted.  There are some circumstances were generators are necessary like during an emergency or when the power in a house can not be turned on because of an electrical issue, but to use a generator because you don't want to pay a bill is not a good reason.

I am also fed up with the abandoned properties that kids are using for hangouts and setting fires and these properties just look bad in general and don't speak well for our development.  If our development looks like people don't care, then people are going to think they can do what they want.  I want to send the message to investors and criminals and everyone else that it is not ok to come into our development do whatever you want.  We do care about happens here.

This is not a deed restricted property area, nor do I want a deed restricted environment, however something does need to change.  I don't want to make things harder for homeowners and I don't want to make things harder for county employees.  I would like to see more of a cooperative environment and perhaps some education and also some changes to some of the codes.  It is a huge issue that will take time to get figured out, but to me, it's worth it.

I am working on some other stuff too.  It gets a bit tiring, but I am hoping that once the ball gets rolling, it will pick up some momentum.  It's time to take back our "hood".