Ranch conservation questioned

When Gary and Sara Crowley searched for their new home in the Lakewood Ranch area in 2007, they looked for something that really took their breath away.

While they found many residences that worked for them, they knew they found the home of their dreams when they arrived at a home for sale along Rosehall Cove in the Lakewood Ranch Country Club. The spacious home was equipped with a screened-in pool and a vista view of protected marshland that proved to be the wow factor for them.

But years later, the vista they’ve come to love is nowhere to be seen. It is now flanked by growth and dead vegetation because the area behind their house is now a conservation zone.

The old landscaping procedure in years past performed by maintenance crews was to come through and chop down everything in the area with machetes. When it became a designated conservation area, though, the protocol changed to only maintain 30 feet within the marsh, due to a Community Development District 5 ruling in 2010.

That meant the contracted landscapers can only spray invasive species within the 30-foot buffer zone, instead of chopping everything down as practiced in the past.

Making matters worse for the Crowleys, the invasive species are to remain after being sprayed and killed due to the parameters of the district’s contract with its landscaping provider for common areas. The practice leaves brown vegetation behind in the marshland for them to look at.

To be removed, dead vegetation must be more than a foot in length. Ryan Heise, director of operations for the Lakewood Ranch Inter-District Authority, said the manpower and time to go beyond that measure would require a much larger landscaping budget for CDD 5 and changes in allowable procedures.

While the Crowleys are aware of the current protocol, they are still unsatisfied with the look of the area behind their house.

“The most imminent concern for me is what they’ve done this year is way worse than doing nothing at all,” said Sara Crowley. “This brown (material) is going to be there for months to come during the nicest weather we have here.”

Gary Crowley has presented the issue to the IDA numerous times, and on Oct. 21, he presented the problem to the CDD 5 board.

“I felt strongly that I had to present my case to the board, because we paid a lot of extra money to have a pristine marsh and a nice view,” he said. “It’s jeopardizing the value of our property.”

Heise said the concerns raised by the Crowleys are not something he has faced with residents in similar areas.

“It’s a mystery to me, because we don’t get many complaints about what you’re hearing from him,” Heise said. “We don’t want to give the impression that these areas are manicured landscape areas. These are conservation areas.”

Nonetheless, the Crowleys have offered to pay extra to have the area landscaped behind their home to how it was for the first five years they lived there.

They’ve been informed by the board that they can’t pay extra, because it would be “unequal services,” meaning that they’d get something through taxpayer money that no one else in the community would get, regardless of their offering to contribute money.

The Crowleys maintain they still love living in Lakewood Ranch but said there’s a maintenance issue that needs to be addressed.

“There’s really nothing like this community,” Sara Crowley said. “For me, it’s worth the price you pay because of the standards. Our only issue is this part of the maintenance, which is not living up to standard.”

Heise said CDD 5 will continue to operate as it does unless a compromise is made.

The issue will be brought up again before the board at its Nov. 18 agenda review meeting at Lakewood Ranch Town Hall. The board will then determine whether to change the language in the landscaping agreement to allow for more landscaping in the conservation area.