It appears that things might soon come to a head between Marion County and the contractor working on a sinkhole-ravaged home in The Villages.
Building and Safety Director Mike Savage told Marion County commissioners on Tuesday that he had initially struggled to get information from the owner of two homes in the Village of Calumet Grove that were severely damaged by sinkholes in February and May of 2018. Savage said he had made multiple unsuccessful attempts to speak with owner Hayden Wrobel of I Buy Sick Homes but eventually spoke with contractors and discovered that one home is far from being completed and the other is almost finished.
Savage said the house at 17092 McLawren Terrace that Villager Doris Morrill had to be rescued from early on the morning of Feb. 15, 2018 is showing little to no progress in being repaired. In July 2018, three reports – two geotechnical and one structural – showed that the lot and structure were unstable. Two reports also made it quite clear that Morrill’s old home wasn’t salvageable and should be demolished.
Savage said the contractor on that house told him he was having an issue with a subcontractor and was searching for someone else to do some work on the property – a reason that didn’t sit well with Marion County’s top building official, who already had given Wrobel’s company one limited extension to complete the work.
“I will not grant any other extensions,” he told commissioners. “They have an April timeframe. That’s what they need to hit and if they can’t hit it, tough on them. We’re going to take a very hard stance with this contractor and make sure they perform where they’re supposed to perform.”
Savage said it’s a different story with the other damaged home, located at 17086 McLawren Terrace and formerly owned by Frank and Jan Neumann. He said the contractor on that job told him they were putting the finishing touches on the home that initially had a 35-foot-deep sinkhole just outside the lanai door, including painting, wallpaper, cabinets and other things that aren’t regulated from a code standpoint.
“So, we’re getting very close to having that property being totally done,” Savage said, while pointing out that he still needs to receive a favorable ground-penetrating-radar report and a sign-off from the engineer on the project.
Savage said he’s planning to attend Friday’s Community Development District 4 meeting to give supervisors the same update he shared with the commissioners. That meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. at the Savannah Center.
Frazzled residents in the Village of Calumet Grove quickly are approaching the two-year anniversary of the sinkhole tragedy. They have battled with Marion County over delays in getting the homes either repaired or demolished and have dealt with the complete relocation of a controversial stormwater pipe that ran between the two homes and was damaged by the sinkholes. And they have spent days and nights worrying about their property values plunging and the possibility of other sinkholes opening up and damaging the neighborhood.
