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Article Courtesy of The Tampa
Tribune
By Keith Morelli
Published
October 10, 2011
TAMPA
-- It's been 15 months since a 25-foot
wide, 40-foot deep sinkhole collapsed at the front door of a Bordeaux
Village condominium building.
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Since
then, the gaping crater has been filled, leaving what now
is a pitcher-size mound of sand that is sprouting weeds.
A six-foot chain link
fence surrounds the building and parking lot to the east
of it. A sign warns trespassers that they will be
arrested. The building's days are numbered, as an
insurance settlement has been reached which will call for
the demolition of the structure and new building to take
its place.
On each door of the
building is a fluorescent green sign saying the building
is off limits.
It used to be home to a
dozen families who worked, went to school and otherwise
had normal lives in this small complex that borders |
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A
fence surrounds a building at Bordeaux Village, where a sinkhole
opened up 15 months ago
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the
University of South Florida's east side. But that was before July 11, 2010.
That's when those families became
refugees of Mother Nature, getting the boot from their homes for safety
reasons. Now victims of a smothering bureaucracy rather than the collapsing
earth, the residents never came back.
Now, they're out because of a legal
squabble between the homeowner's association and its insurance company that
covers sinkhole damage.
Among the displaced are Sean and Sandy
Burnham who had just moved in a month before the ground opened up. It was
their Toyota Camry that was swallowed by the hole. The car remains buried
there, along with some personal items the Burnhams had not even unpacked.
After the hole opened, Bordeaux Village
allowed the Burnhams out of their lease.
"The building had been
condemned," Sandy Burnham said, "and they didn't know how long it
would take to stabilize."
Their plight over the lost car was
answered by an anonymous donation of a 2001 Volvo, she said, a car the
Burnhams still drive. Both currently are out of work, looking for jobs and
living in Carrollwood.
She said a recent rainstorm caused a
small sinkhole in a neighborhood street, causing them to think craters were
following them around.
"The road just started
sinking," she said.
Marielle Westerman is an attorney who
represents the Bordeaux Village Homeowners Association. She's filed a
lawsuit against the insurance company last year and in April the suit was
settled.
The issue centered on stabilizing the
ground beneath the building and who should foot the bill for it. The hole at
Bordeaux Village had been filled with tons of rocks and sand.
The insurer argued that was sufficient to
fix the problem, but Westerman countered that more must be done to make the
building safe for the residents. She said the insurance company had refused
to perform more tests even though association-hired engineers said more
comprehensive, costly tests were needed.
The association could have done the
testing itself, but it was too expensive, Westerman said, and that was
something the insurance company was required to perform and pay for.
Vanguard Management, which oversees the
property, posted on its website in April that the case had been settled, and
that the court had ordered the insurance company to pay for sinkhole tests
and that structural repairs were in the works.
By August, bids were being taken for
geological engineering work, the website said.
Still, the building next to the sinkhole
remains off limits to residents. Whether the building will be torn down or
rebuilt is uncertain.
Meanwhile, some former residents had to
pay for temporary lodging along with mortgages for their condominiums, which
they were prohibited from living in.
Many gave up and were foreclosed upon,
Westerman said.
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