INVERNESS, Fla. — The Southwest Florida Water Management District is threatening legal action against Citrus County and various companies that played a role in developing Inverness Village 4 (IV4).
The Citrus County neighborhood, located just outside Inverness city limits, was somehow built without a drainage system. As a result, years of erosion made the neighborhood’s streets, which were never paved, almost impossible to traverse in some areas.
WATCH: Water Management District threatens to sue Citrus County, home builders over botched Inverness neighborhood
For years, relentless finger-pointing between the Citrus County government, a home builder, and the person who sold many of the lots to the home builder has led to a stalemate and no solutions for the neighbors, who feel that the neighborhood’s lack of infrastructure poses a public safety threat.
In late February, an on-duty Citrus County Fire Rescue truck got stuck in a sandy intersection in Inverness Village 4.
“There’s going to be a major problem — a major lawsuit — if somebody dies or something happens,” Ray Barreto, an IV4 homeowner said at the time.
Although the neighborhood’s roads were dedicated to the public, Citrus County has refused to perform maintenance on the right-of-ways, claiming that no roads were ever constructed.
However, a recent court filing by the Southwest Florida Water Management District lists both the county and home builders as defendants.
According to the filing, “[SWFWMD] is prepared to bring an action … to enjoin further development and require the parties to obtain all required permits prior to continued construction.”
SWFWMD said homes and roadways were constructed in IV4 without the proper Environmental Resource Permits. Meanwhile, Citrus County continued to issue building permits to the home builders.
“The failure to construct any surface water management system to serve the development has resulted in flooding, erosion, and other off-site environmental impacts, and will continue to do so until the violations are corrected,” an attorney for SWFWMD writes in the proposed legal action.
The legal action has yet to be formally filed. First, SWFWMD is asking a federal bankruptcy court to rule Van Der Valk Construction, one of the IV4 home builders, is not exempt from the agency’s proposed enforcement action.
Van Der Valk recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“The filing of this voluntary petition cannot impair the [SWFWMD’s] ability to enforce those laws and enjoin [Van Der Valk Construction’s] illegal conduct,” the SWFWMD attorney writes in the filing. “To hold otherwise would be to allow [Van Der Valk Construction] to continue to cause harm to the public.”
In the motion, the attorney writes that SWFWMD’s intent “is not pecuniary or even punitive.”
“Rather, the [SWFWMD’s] only goal is compliance,” the attorney clarifies. “The development of IVU4 must have a surface water management system; not only to be compliant with Florida law, but for the health and safety of the public.”
IV4 homeowners are cautiously optimistic about SWFWMD’s proposed enforcement action against Citrus County and the home builders. They hope the action will get all parties to the same table where a solution can hopefully be brokered after years of delay.
Since the matter is currently being litigated in court, SWFWMD would not offer additional comments to ABC Action News.
ABC Action News has also reached out to Citrus County government and Van Der Valk Construction and is awaiting any comments they provide.
Anton Van Usen, who sold many of the lots in IV4, and whose companies are named as co-defendants in the proposed enforcement action, sees SWFWMD’s involvement as a positive development toward a future solution.
“There’s only one entity that should install the run-off system,” said Van Usen, who maintains that installation of the drainage system is the county’s responsibility. “The real question is who’s to pay.”
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