Condo owner lobbies for reforms
State legislature expected to tackle issues

 
By: MICHAEL PARNELL
Article Courtesy of The News-Leader
Posted November 13, 2003

An Amelia Island condominium owner is fervently pressing for new state laws to make condo associations more accountable to their members.

A Florida Legislature task force is traveling the state, hearing complaints from Steve Comley and hundreds of other condo owners. New laws regulating condos may result.

State Rep. Aaron Bean has told constituents he plans to file legislation "which would protect the existing rights of condominium owners," and state Sen. Jim King has promised to consider legislative remedies after hearing Comley's case.

Comley said his association changed the rules regarding short-term condo rentals and unfairly deprived him of income he was counting on to allow him and his wife to live most of the year in their condo in Amelia Island Plantation.

"We don't want to have to sell our unit. . . . I don't think forcing someone to sell their home is fair and reasonable," Comley said.

Rather than "grandfather" his unit from its new rules, Comley's condo board has resisted him for more than three years. But he is not your usual adversary.

Comley, whose family operates a nursing home, cut his teeth in Washington, D.C., and across the country battling the nuclear power industry over safety issues, and he has turned his unstinting political organization efforts on state legislators, the press and public. He attracted the attention of Bean, King and other legislators, garnered stories on his plight in the Boston Globe, St. Petersburg Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspapers and has prompted dozens of letters supporting his cause from local real estate agents, business owners and others.

There are 2,812 condos on Amelia Island, according to the Nassau County Property Appraiser's Office. About half of those are in Amelia Island Plantation.

Comley and his wife Judy, now Florida residents, live part of the year in Maine, the rest in the condo they purchased for $465,000 at Piper Dunes North in 1996. Their plan was to rent the condo during their absence until they retired permanently to Florida, Comley said.

They did this, charging up to $7,200 a month to a group of regular tenants who visited annually for a month each, until new association rules barred short-term rentals.

Only two of the 28 owners at Piper Dunes North rented units by the month, and Comley urged his board to exempt them from the new rules. Jack Healan Jr., president of the Amelia Island Co., which manages the plantation, agrees.

"This has created an unfair situation for those owners who are still nonresidents and wish to continue renting their units to help offset the costs of ownership," Healan wrote in a letter Aug. 27.

"Because of this change to rental policies, many owners will be forced to sell their units before they are able to retire here, which was their goal when they purchased their condominium," he wrote.

The Piper Dunes North condo board proposed to eliminate monthly rentals, ostensibly to protect property values. A rule setting a minimum of six-month rentals was approved by two-thirds of the unit owners.

Comley protested because he and his wife live seven months in their condo and counted on rental income for the other five months to sustain them until they could move here permanently. He said he persuaded a majority of condo owners in his building to support grandfathering his unit, but the association board refused to allow another vote.

The board received advice from its attorney, Jeffrey Tomasetti, that it would be legal to grandfather Comley's unit but didn't inform the membership of that advice when the first vote was taken, Comley said.

When he later informed other unit owners of the legal advice, 21 of them wrote letters to Edwin Johnson, president of the Piper Dunes North association board, supporting his position, Comley said.

But Johnson subsequently shredded those letters, according to documents obtained from the state agency which regulates condos. The Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums and Mobile Homes admonished Johnson a year ago for failing to maintain the records as required by state law. But the division has taken no formal action against the association for that or other complaints filed by Comley.

Comley said he was told the compliance unit's staff had been reduced as part of state budget cuts, leaving insufficient staff to fully investigate all complaints. "There's an attitude of discretionary enforcement as far as I'm concerned," he said.

"The division is supposed to be there to help the consumer," he said, and when they don't, "it places a heavy burden on any members who are in disagreement with their association."

Johnson did not return telephone calls asking for a response to Comley's assertions. But the board has stated in letters that it believes it is on solid legal ground in redefining the rental rules.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled last year that a Clearwater condo association could limit residents to nine-month rentals. The court found that state condominium law allows for such revisions in association rules.

But Justice Peggy Quince, in her concurring opinion, suggested "the legislature should seriously consider placing some restrictions on present and/or future condominium owners' ability to alter" those rules.

Comley, 59, a former nursing home administrator, gained national press over the past two decades as a nuclear power plant safety whistleblower. He founded a grassroots nuclear-safety organization called We the People Inc. of the United States and learned how to work with the press and politicians.

He lobbied for, and got, a meeting in April with King, a Jacksonville Republican who is the Senate president, and statewide condo authority Peter Dunbar. He met with Bean and began a lobbying campaign to persuade the legislature to enact a remedy.

Comley spoke at a Miami meeting in August where the legislative task force heard complaints about condo associations. He is scheduled to speak when another state committee, formed at the behest of Gov. Jeb Bush, appears in Jacksonville.

Comley is urging the legislature to enact tougher requirements for condo boards, stiffen penalties for abuses by board members and beef up the enforcement staff of the compliance unit.

Comley said he may not get a remedy for his case but believes the laws should be changed to protect other condo owners. He is pounding the pavement in Fernandina Beach urging support for his cause.

"Unless we all make our voice heard when there's something wrong in our government, our freedoms and our rights will erode," Comley said. "I want to prove that democracy still works."