REAL ESTATE

26 THE SUN REAL ESTATE

Home prices, new construction soaring

It seems like new home construction and home renovations are taking over Manatee County. If you dare to take a ride east of the beach, you’ll run into new construction starting on Cortez Road, then on El Conquistador Parkway, and don’t even ask about Lakewood Ranch and Parrish. Even the new construction and major renovation projects on Anna Maria Island are making the traffic out here worse than in recent years.

There is a lot of construction activity not only here in Florida, where it seems everyone wants to move, but also around the country. This demand is adding to a shortage of lumber and an increase in lumber prices. The National Association of Home Builders reported that there has been an unprecedented spike in lumber prices, adding more than $24,000 to the price of the average new single-family home and $9,000 to the price of a multi-family home.

Basically, there is a shortage of domestic lumber since lumber mills have closed because of COVID-19. There is also a shortage of Canadian lumber because of COVID as well, but also because of a recent United States tariff on imports from Canada. In addition, although builders have increased activity in the past year, they are hampered by shortages of labor as well as all materials - not just lumber.

A deficit of new construction, as well as the continuing shortage of resale properties, has made the U.S. housing market 3.8 million short on single-family homes. This figure was determined by Freddie Mac after a recent analysis. This single-family home shortage is especially damaging for entry-level buyers who can’t keep up with the ever-increasing sale prices and competition from cash buyers.

Across the country, housing prices are climbing at the fastest pace in 15 years. The January average national home price grew 11.2% from last year. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Schiller National Home Price index reported the price growth rate in two major cities in Florida. Tampa’s prices increased 11.9% and Miami increased 10.4% for single-family homes since last year.

We’re certainly not immune to any of this, as you can see from the March sales statistics for Manatee County reported by the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee.

March single-family properties closed 37.8% more than last March. The median sale price was $395,000, up 23.6%, and the average sale price was $536,981, up 37.4%. The median time to contract was nine days, 79.5% less than last year, and the month’s supply of properties is 0.7% months, 79.4% less than last year.

March condos closed 63.7% more than last March. The median sale price was $245,000, up 14% above last year, and the average sale price was $299,824, 19.4% higher than last year. The median time to contract was 19 days, 55.8% less than last year, and the month’s supply of properties was 0.8 months, 81.8% less than last year.

Cash sales were up for both single-family homes and condos - 75.4% for single-family homes and 40.3% for condos. Unfortunately, this makes buyers who require financing less competitive, resulting in a serious negotiating disadvantage.

The Manatee County housing market continues to surpass all pre-pandemic levels for March, according to the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee. They go on to say that half of all single-family homes are closing above list price, and lack of inventory continues to be the biggest challenge to our real estate market.

If the amount of new construction and the soaring sales prices bring a little shiver to your spine, you’re not alone. I spend several days a week wondering where exactly we’re headed; as always, be careful what you wish for. Stay safe.

Castles in the Sand

LOUISE BOLGER

AMI Locals is voluntarily limiting its vacation rental guests to no more than four motor vehicles.

BY JOE HENDRICKS

SUN CORRESPONDENT | jhendricks@amisun.com

BRADENTON BEACH – AMI Locals has begun limiting the number of vehicles that can park at the vacation rental properties the company owns and/or manages on Anna Maria Island.

Representing AMI Locals owner Shawn Kaleta, General Manager Eric Pullen appeared before the Bradenton Beach City Commission on April 8.

“We currently manage about 225 properties on the Island. I wanted to tell you about the new process we recently implemented to help alleviate some of the issues we’ve all come to face when it comes to traffic. We try to address the issue by limiting the total number of vehicles to four vehicles per property,” Pullen told the commission.

Pullen provided the commission members with an example of the language AMI Locals now includes in its online rental listings: “Please note: Four cars maximum are able to park at this home. We ask our guests to please plan accordingly and coordinate with your group. There is no overnight parking available for additional vehicles.”

Pullen said AMI Locals currently manages approximately 66 properties on the Island that offer five or more bedrooms.

“By capping the number of cars that are allowed at each of these properties, we potentially reduce the total number of vehicles by about 7,000-plus per year,” he said.

“I appreciate the effort. It’s a positive step,” Mayor John Chappie told Pullen.

“If people do bring more vehicles, what do you guys end up doing?” Chappie asked.

“We would actually have them move them off-site,” Pullen said.

“I met with Shawn Kaleta,” Chappie noted. “I got into discussion with Mr. Kaleta about the noise, the trash cans and cars parked everywhere. He mentioned restricting the number of vehicles they allow on their property. He’s followed through with what he said he would do.”

PARKING ISSUES

Commissioner Marilyn Maro mentioned a rental property AMI Locals manages near her home on the north end of Bradenton Beach.

“There isn’t just four cars there. They’ll come with six, seven, eight cars all over the place. There must be like 30 people in the house at one time,” Maro said.

Maro said there was a recent occasion when five large golf carts were also parked at that same vacation rental property.

“I hope it goes better because people are really mad,” Maro said in regard to that vacation rental.

In reference to the large rental home Maro mentioned, Pullen said, “This is a newer thing for us. People who booked six, eight months ago weren’t under those polices. So it will take a little time to get it going. But all new reservations are signing these new terms.”

City Attorney Ricinda Perry asked Pullen if the four vehicles per property limit includes golf carts. Pullen said AMI Locals’ current language doesn’t address golf carts, but that is something that could be considered.

“That would further the fix you’re trying to create. It’s certainly not something we can force you to do,” Perry noted.

Commissioner Ralph Cole said it’s the vacation rental property managers and owners who have the most control over the behavior that occurs on their properties

“I appreciate you guys doing what you can to minimize the impact,” Commissioner Jake Spooner added.

JOE HENDRICKS | SUN AMI Locals General Manager Eric Pullen recently addressed the Bradenton Beach City Commission.

FROM PAGE 1

The construction agreement calls for one, 11.75-inch “nominal diameter Class I injection well” with a total depth of up to 3,500 feet. The well will be completed with a final carbon steel outer casing cemented to land surface, with a fiberglass reinforced plastic inner casing to land surface. Both the inner and outer casings will extend to the same approximate depth of 1,950 feet. The agreement also calls for one, 6-inch nominal diameter dual zone monitoring well with an anticipated depth of about 950 feet.

According to a summary document included in the meeting packet, “Youngquist Brothers, as recommended by ASRus, is the appropriately qualified party to construct the well. The construction cost is $8.5 million; however, a 10% contingency is incorporated to account for any unforeseen circumstances and shall be used with the approval of the county. The substantial completion time is 330 calendar days from the issuance of the Notice to Proceed Construction, which allows for the time necessary to obtain the FDEP permit.”

The Piney Point wastewater will be treated before it’s discharged into the earth.

“We manage three deep wells right now. We have three and Tropicana has one. I’ve never gotten a complaint or concern about those three deep wells,” Commissioner Carol Whitmore said.

Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge said the deep well at the county’s 66th Street utilities plant in Bradenton can handle 15 million gallons of wastewater per day.

DRINKING WATER CONCERNS

Skye Gundy provided the commissioners with the perspective of a resident who lives near the Piney Point property.

“I’m here to talk about the ongoing disaster at Piney Point. I am one of the closest residents to the actual breach and leak. I am a lifelong community member of Manatee County, born and raised. After I came home from the University of Florida, I came home to serve the community that raised me. I bought my own slice of heaven. I own three acres of paradise – everything we love about Manatee County right there on three acres. This disaster has broken that tranquility and caused me to be angry and disillusioned at the governing bodies that are supposed to protect me, and quite anxious.”

Grundy also addressed the future safety of those impacted residents and property owners.

“I have three children and no one has tested my well water – or anybody on my street, or anybody in my community. We pay for private well testing and for the tests that we’ll have to do now it will be in the thousands of dollars; and if you’ve got a water treatment system, it will be thousands of dollars. I’m urging you to consider giving us public water or to help pay for our private water testing,” Grundy said.

District 1 Commissioner James Satcher later made a motion for the county to provide emergency well testing for residents living within a certain distance of the Piney Point property.

“We’re not the ones living there drinking that water. If we were, we’d want to get it tested. They didn’t create this issue,” he said.

Hopes said well testing is the responsibility of the Department of Health and he offered to coordinate those efforts with that state agency before spending county resources.

Van Ostenbridge suggested Satcher’s motion be amended as follows: “The board directs the county administrator to expedite the coordination of well testing near Piney Point.”

The amended motion passed by a 7-0 vote.

Satcher also shared his views on the future of phosphate mining in Manatee County.

“I understand the company that put this stack there is out of business, but if any company is doing anything similar to this, we’re going to have to change the rules and put our foot down. I don’t plan on voting for any more permits. I understand people need to eat and farmers need fertilizer, but not at the cost of our citizens; not at the cost of our bays; not at the cost of our beaches. That doesn’t cut it any longer,” he said.

Regarding the Piney Point property, Van Ostenbridge noted: “It was never a mine. It was a phosphorus processing plant that started back in the 60s. The company went bankrupt and here we are. There are no other processing plants in Manatee County.”

County Attorney Bill Clague provided additional clarification and said, “Our local mining ordinance prohibits the construction of any new gyp (phosphogypsum) stacks or phosphorus plants in Manatee County. It has since 2004. Our local regulations do not allow them to ever build one of these again in Manatee County. This is the only one in Manatee County. The other mountains that you see on mines are clay settling areas, they’re not gyp. Are they environmentally great? No, but they’re not the same level of concern as a gyp stack.”

According to the Manatee County website, “There are currently over 17,000 acres of land approved for phosphate mining in Manatee County. Only one company is actively mining phosphate in Manatee County: Mosaic Fertilizer.”

Before the discussion ended, Satcher made another motion proposing access to county water service be extended to those who live near Piney Point who are not currently serviced by county water. This prompted a discussion on the significant costs that the county and the impacted property owners would incur.

As an alternative, Commission Chair Vanessa Baugh suggested the following future action: “We are asking public utilities to give us a report on that particular area by Piney Point – the residences and business there who are on well and what it might take to change that, if possible.”

Satcher accepted Baugh’s suggestion. The commission also extended its local state of emergency declaration regarding Piney Point.

SUBMITTED Resident Skye Grundy asked the county to test the wells of those who live near Piney Point.

TREE HOUSE: More fines added

FROM PAGE 1

out a fine of $125 per day from March 18 until the property can be brought into compliance. This new fine is on top of a longstanding $50 per day code fine that, as of the March 17 special magistrate hearing, topped out at $198,485.17, according to City Treasurer Lori Hill. Now that total is more than $200,000, not including the additional $125 per day along with legal fees.

Though the issue of short-term rental units without VRCs is now a code problem on the property, the primary issue is the beachfront treehouse at Angelinos Sea Lodge, which has been a point of contention between Tran and Hazen and the city for years. City leaders allege the treehouse was built without permits, not in compliance with city building codes and on the erosion control line, which is not allowed without prior authorization from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Tran and Hazen argue that they went to the city building department before constructing the treehouse to ask what permits they needed and were told by an employee at the time that none were needed. Practically since it was built, the fate of the two-story structure has been wrapped up in litigation.

The only way, according to city code compliance officers, to clear up the code issues on the property is to remove the treehouse and pay all outstanding fines and costs against the property. Once that is done, the owners can start the process of having their VRCs renewed by the city to rent the four vacation units.

Before Connolly made his ruling, Minnick appealed to him for leniency for his clients, saying that continuing to fine them without giving them a way to make a living was creating a no-win situation for both parties.

Litigation concerning the treehouse is still ongoing with cases before the 12th Judicial Circuit Court in Manatee County on May 3 and another before the U. S. Supreme Court to deteamine if that body will hear the case.

Speaking on behalf of the city, attorney Erica Augello said the two code issues were separate and have no bearing on each other except that they exist on the same property. She added that the code fines against the treehouse were not a subject of litigation. Minnick argued that they do intermingle because the VRC issues cannot be resolved without first resolving the treehouse issue and that by not allowing his clients to rent the units the city is taking away their ability to generate income.

While he said he could convince his clients to pay the special magistrate hearing costs of $127.24, they would be unable to pay for the hefty fines attached to their property due to the ongoing code issues and would be unable to even sell the property because the code fines would be transferred to a new owner. Minnick said that if the special magistrate chose to assess additional fines and city leaders were not willing to work on a settlement agreement with his clients that litigation would continue between the two parties.

“Let my people go,” Minnick pleaded. “I’m on bended knee. Let my people go.”

In an email to The Sun after the hearing, Tran said that if the petition to the Supreme Court failed that the couple will continue to pursue all other available legal recourse.

“The city is giving us no choice, taking away our basic rights and liberty and treating us like criminals,” she said in the email.

If all legal options fail, Tran said the couple would remove all of the trees and the treehouse on their property, seek out investors, build a “monster luxury three-story multi-family wedding cake place” and sell to someone else to pay the fees and fines levied against the property.

During the hearing, Augello said the time for settlement talks was over.

Center’s Go Green 2 campaign is well underway

ANNA MARIA – The Center of Anna Maria Island’s Go Green campaign officially launched its phase two in November 2020 and four months later, it’s still going strong with a new matching fundraiser and the launch of a collaborative research study with Eckerd College and Mote Marine Laboratory.

A $50,000 matching challenge launched on April 9 and continues through May 31. Throughout the challenge, monetary donations made to The Center are matched up to $50,000 for a total potential donation to the nonprofit of $100,000.

More mini reefs are being installed throughout the waters in and around Anna Maria Island as a part of The Center’s campaign. Not only does the purchase of a mini reef help The Center financially, they also provide a place for sea life to grow with the potential to help filter thousands of gallons of water over the lifespan of the reef.

The mini reefs from Ocean Habitats and installed as a part of the Go Green campaign also are the subject of a collaborative research study with students from Eckerd College. Students come out to Anna Maria Island to take water samples and photographs of the reefs and investigate what sea life takes to the reefs to use it as a nursery or make their home there. They take samples back to an onsite space at The Center for analysis.

As more research opportunities arise for the mini reefs, The Center’s staff is poised to lend a helping hand and work with other community organizations to help study the current water quality and effects of the reefs on the environment.

To find out more about The Center’s environmental and fundraising efforts, visit www. centerami.org.

SUBMITTED | JIM MCDANIEL Two mini reefs from Ocean Habitats are installed underneath the dock at the Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Bradenton Beach.

FROM PAGE 3

Hopes said in the past week more than 20 million gallons of water were removed from the southern containment pond and placed in another retention pond on the Piney Point property.

“Nclear is beginning to process the water to make it suitable for further disposal or discharge in a safe way. Everything is staying onsite to this point,” Hopes said.

Hopes referenced an algae boom near Port Manatee and Piney Point that has recently appeared on satellite imagery provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“There has been an algae bloom. We’ve been fortunate to date that it hasn’t been a substantial algae bloom. Over a week ago, the discharge ceased and it’s our hope that the environment can handle it,” Hopes said.

WATER QUALITY MONITORING

On Thursday, April 22, Manatee County Information Outreach Manager Nick Azzara distributed an email to numerous county and city officials that contained the header: “Water monitoring in Tampa Bay.”

“The discharged release of process water from Piney Point earlier this month has prompted what is probably the most thorough water quality monitoring operation in Tampa Bay history. Routine water quality monitoring in and around Port Manatee waters periodically performed by the county environmental protection staff is now occurring on a daily basis. In addition to our own water sampling, a host of other local, regional and state agencies are doing the same, including Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP) and Sarasota Bay Estuary Program (SBEP). The combined effort from these agencies is being tracked and updated daily on the TBEP website created specifically for the Piney response” Azzara wrote.

In his correspondence to city and county officials, Azzara included an email he received from Rob Brown. Brown is the manager of the Environmental Protection Division, which is part of the county’s Parks and Natural Resources Department.

“All of the regional partners are getting questioned about the extent of water quality, benthic, seagrass, fish, etc., monitoring in local waterways moving forward. I can assure you that all of the bay managers are just as concerned as the citizens are about where the effluent is going and what kind of environmental responses we expect to see,” Brown stated in his email.

“Manatee County maintains a rigorous ambient monitoring program that we developed 25-plus years ago based on EPA’s stratified random approach for large open water bodies. These local monitoring programs are designed to match with similarly designed programs in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Sarasota counties so we have a seamless monitoring grid for both Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay,” Brown wrote in his email

“I wanted to assure the commissioners and administration that Parks and Natural Resources Department Environmental Protection Division staff is prepared for this type of situation and is flexible to changes as they arise as we have dealt with similar releases in 2001 and 2011,” Brown noted in conclusion.

Sarasota Bay Estuary Program Executive Director Dave Tomasko is among those who are out on the water monitoring the water and algae conditions.

When contacted Saturday, Tomasko said, “It’s too early to be drawing too many conclusions, but so far we’re not seeing evidence of a huge impact. There has been, on and off, algal blooms in the water off of the port. There does appear to be elevated macroalgae at the mouth of Piney Point Creek, but no evidence, yet, of a widespread catastrophe. Maybe that changes. Hopefully not. Our monitoring efforts are designed to detect either outcome.”

KRISTIN SWAIN | SUN

Friends hold library book sale

Above, patrons peruse the selection of books at the annual Friends of the Island Library Book Sale April 10. This year’s event was held outside in the parking lot of the library to allow for COVID-19 precautions. Right, two patrons look over a selection of novels available for purchase.

1014 Ibis Ct I 2BR/2BA I $360,000 Everything’s Included!!

Give me a call today if yo oGive me a call today if you’u re looking ge lookine re to Buy or Sell on Anna Maria Island dyBuy or Sell on Anna M Maria IslaMaria anIsla or the surrounding area! a!ounding aounding areag ng ea Lynn Zemmer 94141-730 30-0 1294 94 9

You Can’t Miss THIS One! The Salvation Army of Manatee County hosted its first Kids 2 Kamp golf tournament fundraiser on April 10 at Rosedale Golf and Country Club in Bradenton, and Holmes Beach Commissioner Jayne Christenson and her husband, Joe, were on hand all day to help with the event. With a turnout of 108 golfers, more than $20,000 was raised for the summer camp program to help provide low- and no-cost camp services to local families in need. Though the tournament is over, 941.209.1542 I Lynn@Edgewaterami.com donations are still welcome and can www.EdgewaterRealEstateInc.com be made by calling 941-757-5775 or mailing them to the Salvation Army at 1204 14th St. W., Bradenton, FL 34205. To learn more about the Kids 2 Kamp program, visit www.salvationarmyflorida.org/manatee-county/#kids-2-kampgolf-tournament.

SUBMITTED | JAYNE CHRISTENSON Holmes Beach Commissioner Jayne Christenson volunteers April 10 at the Kids 2 Kamp golf tournament fundraiser benefitting local families in need by providing low- or no-cost summer camp services through the Salvation Army.