NAPLES (Florida) DAILY NEWS

December 16, 2009

Fines mount to $200,000 as dispute over Immokalee trailer park comes to court

By TRACY X. MIGUEL

NAPLES — Fines of more than $200,000 have accumulated against an Immokalee migrant trailer park, officials said Tuesday as an administrative appeal of the case came to court.

Jerry and Kimberlea Blocker, owners of the trailer park, are being fined $450 per day by Collier County Code Enforcement, a fine that started about three years ago.

“It’s crazy,” Jerry Blocker said.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Blocker’s West Palm Beach attorney, Margaret Cooper, argued that the Blockers hadn’t illegally developed the mobile home park, which is in an area zoned industrial.

Cooper appealed the county’s code enforcement judgment against the Blockers.

They say their rentals -- 31 units, some of which are more than 50 years old -- in an unpaved trailer park aren’t uninhabitable and date back to the 1940s, long before many of Collier’s zoning laws regarding trailer parks were enacted.

The argument is that the homes should be allowed to remain under old laws then in effect, Cooper said.

But county officials dispute that contention, saying the prior approval -- called grandfathering -- doesn’t apply.

“I don’t believe you can grandfather since 1965,” Assistant County Attorney Jacqueline Hubbard said.

By 1986, only five of the 31 structures had permits, Hubbard said.

The Blockers purchased the property, called “Shell Trailer Park” on 1101 Alachua St., in 2001.

They spent money and provided their own labor to correct deficiencies, repair and upgrade all units, which once had been dilapidated mobile homes.

Throughout the years, as improvements to the rentals in the trailer park were made, the county issued several certificates of occupancy on the property to allow a transient lodging facility there. Many of the old records have been lost by county government, Cooper said.

In addition, the units passed state and county health department inspections, requirements for the homes to be used as a migrant labor residential site, the attorney said.

In 2006, the county cited the Blockers’ trailer park as “illegal,” giving the owners two options -- either demolish the park or rezone it, Cooper told Collier Circuit Judge Hugh Hayes.

“The Blockers should be allowed to go through this SIP (county site improvement plan) procedure,” Cooper said.

However, when the property qualified in 2002-03 for a Site Improvement Plan, a county incentive program designed to upgrade and replace illegal or unsafe mobile homes in nonconforming parks, the Blockers refused to take part, Hubbard said.

Hubbard said that by 2006 there were a number of safety problems, including holes in the structures, rat and mice infestation, and broken windows.

Today, the trailers are in an area zoned for commercial and light industrial usage, not a trailer camp.

“They are in an area that is not designated for mobile homes,” Hubbard said.

The Blockers also have a pending civil lawsuit against Collier County government to allow them to continue operating.

Blocker said he has lost business because of the dispute.

“I’m fighting a case that shouldn’t have been fought to begin with,” Blocker said.

Hayes ordered both sides to submit a written proposed order to him by Jan. 15, after which he will rule.

Yet, even that ruling may not be the end because of the Blockers’ pending lawsuit.

Cooper said she has faith the right decision will be made.

“This facility is the home to many migrant workers in an area that affordable housing is desperately needed,” Cooper said.