Key Points
- The Apopka City Commission denied a $30,000 settlement for code violations totaling $5,617,500 at 718 S. Park Ave. due to concerns about neglect and enforcement.
- Smart Services LLC accrued $5,617,500 in fines for code violations including illegal business use, inoperable vehicles, and building disrepair before compliance in August 2023.
- The property was found compliant nearly three years after a foreclosure lawsuit, but residents and officials dispute its current compliance and value assessment.
The Apopka City Commission denied a $30,000 code enforcement settlement agreement for the residential multifamily property at 718 S. Park Ave. on Wednesday, citing concerns about prolonged neglect, property evaluation and enforcement procedures.
“There’s some dissatisfaction with settling at $30,000 for a code enforcement that totaled $5,617,500 of accumulated violations,” said Vice Mayor Diane Velazquez.
According to the staff report, the city rendered an order on July 17, 2018, that found the property owner, Smart Services LLC, “in violation of IPMC,” or the International Property Maintenance Code. Violations listed in the commission meeting packet’s code enforcement case include “operating a vehicle detail business from a residence & using a public street to conduct business that is not allowed in C-1 zoning,” “inoperable vehicle,” “rotted wood on eaves,” “broken windows,” and more.
Smart Services accrued daily fines of $500 per violation, totaling $5,617,500 when the property was found compliant on Aug. 19, according to the case and affidavit of compliance. The property’s compliance came almost three years after the city filed a lawsuit “to foreclose its lien on the property” on Dec. 22, 2023, according to the settlement agreement and the Orange County Clerk of Courts.
Alexcia DeCaul, code enforcement administrative specialist, said settlements cannot be made until a property has been found to be compliant and that the $30,000 number was based on the property’s value.
“Throughout this settlement, we did recently do a resolution regarding fine guidelines,” DeCaul said. “In those guidelines, residential properties settle for 5% of either the total fine amount or the total property value, whichever is lesser. The property value for this is $437,780, so the percentage would be on that amount. So this is actually closer to 7% of that total property value, and this is a residential multifamily property.”
Apopka resident Phyllis Olmstead said she was “totally astounded” and said that “if [the property] were in compliance, it wouldn’t be in that condition, and therefore the value would be higher.”
“It may be zoned residential, but it is a money-making business that is living off the backs of people that they are permitting to live in squalor — leaking roofs for seven-and-a-half years, doors that don’t work, windows that don’t work, and many other things. Now, if it were an apartment complex in north Apopka, it would be in compliance. It would be taken care of,” she said. “To allow these citizens to have lived like that for all those years and paid their rent every month — they had the legal right not to pay their rent under those conditions.”
Resident Leroy Bell also discussed the property’s commercial use while questioning the property’s current compliance.
“Go across the railroad track, look to your right, and look at all the windows boarded up. Look at all the trim. Look at the top of the roof. To say that it’s in compliance — it’s not. It’s still not in compliance,” he said. “The city needs to extract whatever they can from this property. If not, foreclose on it.”
Commissioner Yesenia Baron made the motion to decline the settlement, after which Mayor Nick Nesta said the city would “need to go back to the owner in some capacity” and determine the actual instead of assessed property value.