By: MICHAEL PARNELL
Article Courtesy of The News-Leader
Posted November 13, 2003
An Amelia Island condominium owner is fervently
pressing for new state laws to make condo associations more accountable
to their members.
A Florida Legislature task force is traveling
the state, hearing complaints from Steve Comley and hundreds of other condo
owners. New laws regulating condos may result.
State Rep. Aaron Bean has told constituents
he plans to file legislation "which would protect the existing rights of
condominium owners," and state Sen. Jim King has promised to consider legislative
remedies after hearing Comley's case.
Comley said his association changed the
rules regarding short-term condo rentals and unfairly deprived him of income
he was counting on to allow him and his wife to live most of the year in
their condo in Amelia Island Plantation.
"We don't want to have to sell our unit.
. . . I don't think forcing someone to sell their home is fair and reasonable,"
Comley said.
Rather than "grandfather" his unit from
its new rules, Comley's condo board has resisted him for more than three
years. But he is not your usual adversary.
Comley, whose family operates a nursing
home, cut his teeth in Washington, D.C., and across the country battling
the nuclear power industry over safety issues, and he has turned his unstinting
political organization efforts on state legislators, the press and public.
He attracted the attention of Bean, King and other legislators, garnered
stories on his plight in the Boston Globe, St. Petersburg Times and South
Florida Sun-Sentinel newspapers and has prompted dozens of letters supporting
his cause from local real estate agents, business owners and others.
There are 2,812 condos on Amelia Island,
according to the Nassau County Property Appraiser's Office. About half
of those are in Amelia Island Plantation.
Comley and his wife Judy, now Florida residents,
live part of the year in Maine, the rest in the condo they purchased for
$465,000 at Piper Dunes North in 1996. Their plan was to rent the condo
during their absence until they retired permanently to Florida, Comley
said.
They did this, charging up to $7,200 a
month to a group of regular tenants who visited annually for a month each,
until new association rules barred short-term rentals.
Only two of the 28 owners at Piper Dunes
North rented units by the month, and Comley urged his board to exempt them
from the new rules. Jack Healan Jr., president of the Amelia Island Co.,
which manages the plantation, agrees.
"This has created an unfair situation for
those owners who are still nonresidents and wish to continue renting their
units to help offset the costs of ownership," Healan wrote in a letter
Aug. 27.
"Because of this change to rental policies,
many owners will be forced to sell their units before they are able to
retire here, which was their goal when they purchased their condominium,"
he wrote.
The Piper Dunes North condo board proposed
to eliminate monthly rentals, ostensibly to protect property values. A
rule setting a minimum of six-month rentals was approved by two-thirds
of the unit owners.
Comley protested because he and his wife
live seven months in their condo and counted on rental income for the other
five months to sustain them until they could move here permanently. He
said he persuaded a majority of condo owners in his building to support
grandfathering his unit, but the association board refused to allow another
vote.
The board received advice from its attorney,
Jeffrey Tomasetti, that it would be legal to grandfather Comley's unit
but didn't inform the membership of that advice when the first vote was
taken, Comley said.
When he later informed other unit owners
of the legal advice, 21 of them wrote letters to Edwin Johnson, president
of the Piper Dunes North association board, supporting his position, Comley
said.
But Johnson subsequently shredded those
letters, according to documents obtained from the state agency which regulates
condos. The Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums and Mobile Homes
admonished Johnson a year ago for failing to maintain the records as required
by state law. But the division has taken no formal action against the association
for that or other complaints filed by Comley.
Comley said he was told the compliance
unit's staff had been reduced as part of state budget cuts, leaving insufficient
staff to fully investigate all complaints. "There's an attitude of discretionary
enforcement as far as I'm concerned," he said.
"The division is supposed to be there to
help the consumer," he said, and when they don't, "it places a heavy burden
on any members who are in disagreement with their association."
Johnson did not return telephone calls
asking for a response to Comley's assertions. But the board has stated
in letters that it believes it is on solid legal ground in redefining the
rental rules.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled last year
that a Clearwater condo association could limit residents to nine-month
rentals. The court found that state condominium law allows for such revisions
in association rules.
But Justice Peggy Quince, in her concurring
opinion, suggested "the legislature should seriously consider placing some
restrictions on present and/or future condominium owners' ability to alter"
those rules.
Comley, 59, a former nursing home administrator,
gained national press over the past two decades as a nuclear power plant
safety whistleblower. He founded a grassroots nuclear-safety organization
called We the People Inc. of the United States and learned how to work
with the press and politicians.
He lobbied for, and got, a meeting in April
with King, a Jacksonville Republican who is the Senate president, and statewide
condo authority Peter Dunbar. He met with Bean and began a lobbying campaign
to persuade the legislature to enact a remedy.
Comley spoke at a Miami meeting in August
where the legislative task force heard complaints about condo associations.
He is scheduled to speak when another state committee, formed at the behest
of Gov. Jeb Bush, appears in Jacksonville.
Comley is urging the legislature to enact
tougher requirements for condo boards, stiffen penalties for abuses by
board members and beef up the enforcement staff of the compliance unit.
Comley said he may not get a remedy for
his case but believes the laws should be changed to protect other condo
owners. He is pounding the pavement in Fernandina Beach urging support
for his cause.
"Unless we all make our voice heard when
there's something wrong in our government, our freedoms and our rights
will erode," Comley said. "I want to prove that democracy still works."
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