Port St. Lucie to auction houses bought before road-plan changes

By Teresa Lane
PORT ST. LUCIE — At least seven times in the past two years, city officials have bought single-family houses they didn't need, paying families to leave only to learn months later the homes didn't stand in the way of a new interchange or a wider roadway.
Displaced families were allowed to strip whatever fixtures they wanted from the homes, leaving most as barren shells as they awaited demolition.

Now, faced with an inventory of seven run-down homes and two vacant lots near Becker Road and Interstate 95, the city is planning an auction to recoup the roughly $1 million it spent on the parcels.

No date has been set, and Assistant City Attorney Lois Nichols said the property list may be whittled if city employees decide they would like to use some of the homes as satellite offices.
Neighbor Diane Tomaselli, who has lived across the street from the homes on Cacao Street and Edinburgh Drive during three hurricanes and countless calls to city hall, is eager to see change in what she considers a blighted neighborhood.

"Those houses are the pits," said Tomaselli, who tried to sell her own house for nearly a year after losing her job. "They were getting flooded even before (Hurricane) Wilma. Those people took everything, including the kitchen sink."

City officials put a building moratorium on 92 lots, including 18 homes, in February 2004 after a preliminary engineering design showed the lots would stand in the way of a new interchange at I-95 and Becker Road.

Although city officials warned residents the design was preliminary and a final route could take two years to decide, several residents accepted the city's offer to sell rather than waiting years to learn their fate.

When a later design pared the number of homes and lots needed, the city resold several to their original owners but were left with six homes and two lots that no one wanted.

A seventh house, on Paley Road, was bought for $285,000 last September when owners claimed it was impossible to find a willing buyer after the city labeled the home a drainage area on a proposed redevelopment map.

Although city officials said their goal is to never buy unneeded property, they said it is inevitable when residents insist on immediate action amid changing design plans.

"This is somewhat disturbing because people want an instant answer," said Councilman Christopher Cooper, who met with Becker-area residents several times to discuss buyouts. "People may have moved unnecessarily, but our original goal was to let people get on with their lives. I hope we can recoup our money."

Nichols said that will be difficult despite appreciation in home prices since 2004.
Because the city ultimately expected to raze the homes, officials allowed sellers to strip practically anything of value.

Some owners, or perhaps burglars, took things they weren't supposed to, leaving some homes exposed to rain, Nichols said.

Tomaselli said other homes had roofs damaged by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne and began to leak long before Wilma paid a visit.

"Many of the homes we inspected were trashed, but we can't say who did it," Nichols said. "This is not the best time to be putting them on the market, either."