An 83-year-old Villager is fighting to keep a two-decade-old sidewalk at her home after a neighbor’s complaint.
The home owned by Mary Conrad at 1218 Palmetto Drive in the Village of Silver Lake was the subject of a public hearing Wednesday afternoon before the Village Center Community Development District Board of Supervisors at Savannah Center.
Conrad retired from General Motors and moved more than 20 years ago from Ohio to The Villages. She has enjoyed many happy years in The Villages, tending to her prize-winning landscaping, which has been featured in The Villages Daily Sun.
Conrad, who has lived in the house for more than two decades, said the sidewalk next to her home was in place when she purchased the property. The problem is that the concrete sidewalk was put down without the approval of the Architectural Review Committee.
A complaint about the sidewalk was received in December by Community Standards.
Though the source of the complaint was not revealed by Community Standards or the VCCDD, Conrad and her neighbors believe the complaint was lodged by a relatively new neighbor who only spends about five months a year in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.
“He is trying to show me he is the boss. He’s trying to show me he is in charge. It’s harassment,” she told the VCCDD board.
Conrad’s neighbors took to the podium to defend her and blamed sales representatives who do not disclose violations at the time of purchase.
“There is not a day that goes by that The Villages sales people don’t sell property that they know is not in compliance. It should be on them to disclose the violations,” said neighbor Jim Smith.
“If Mr. Schwartz was still alive he would have stopped this nonsense. It seems no one has any common sense any more,” Smith said, invoking the name of The Villages’ founder.
Glenn Thompson, who lives on Rainbow Boulevard in the Village of Silver Lake, said the real estate sales representatives should be required to “inform a purchaser of any violation, to keep these things from happening.”
However, VCCDD attorney Kevin Stone said that responsibility falls on the person buying the home.
“It is incumbent on the person making the purchase to make that determination,” Stone said.
VCCDD Supervisor Doug Tharp, a former chairman of the ARC, encouraged Conrad to appear before that committee, even though testimony presented at the hearing strongly suggested that a retroactive application for approval would probably be turned down.
“The committee might offer suggestions about how to remedy the situation,” Tharp said.
The VCCDD board voted unanimously to find Conrad in violation of deed compliance. She has 45 days to bring the property into compliance. If she doesn’t bring it into compliance, she will be fined $150 to be followed by $50 daily fines for each day the property is not in compliance. She can also submit an application for approval by the ARC.
