COURTESY : St. Petersburg Times
BY JAMES THORNER
Posted on May 01, 2004

After 10 years of flabbily enforcing deed restrictions, the oldest sections of Meadow Pointe are finally getting some muscle.

A bill that unanimously cleared the state House and Senate will let the neighborhood's two Community Development District boards enforce deed restrictions and scrutinize architectural plans when a person builds or alters a house.

When Meadow Pointe was founded in the early 1990s, developers assumed its CDD boards could act as homeowners associations and enforce deed restrictions. It wasn't so. The bill, which supporters expect Gov. Jeb Bush to sign, corrects that omission in Meadow Pointe and Meadow Pointe 2. A few villages of townhomes and villas in Meadow Pointe 2 were established with homeowners associations, as are newer sections of Meadow Pointe.

Neighborhood CDD supervisor Dennis Smith expects the bill to take effect this year. First comes the work of writing architectural standards and other rules. Residents will have their say at public hearings.

Smith described deed restrictions as a necessary evil. Out-of- compliance homeowners - Smith expects them to be a tiny percentage - could face fines.

"It's a thankless job. All you tend to do is make people mad," Smith said of rules to make residents keep up their homes.

Meadow Pointe has had to make do with voluntary homeowners associations, but less than 15 percent of its roughly 3,000 property owners belong.

The bill, which cleared its last legislative hurdle with approval by the Senate on Wednesday, is sponsored by state Rep. Ken Littlefield, R-Wesley Chapel.