Photo: CBC News Nova Scotia
“People driving on the south shore of Nova Scotia might feel a little lost after seeing a bewildering road sign near Port Mouton…
The sign — on Highway 103 a few kilometres before exit 21 — appeared in late August when, according to the Department of Transportation, a local Best Western took down its billboard, revealing the patchwork underneath…”
— CBC News, Nova Scotia
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Photo: Google Maps, Art: The Real Deal
“The owner of a commercial building in the Miami Design District is suing the city for approving a billboard ban that allegedly sunk the value of the property by nearly $5 million.
Karenza Apartments LLP, which owns the building at 100 Northeast 38th Street, alleges it also lost a lucrative contract with a billboard advertiser after city commissioners passed the measure that prohibits billboards north of I-95, at the behest of Miami Design District developer Craig Robins of Dacra…
According to the complaint, the city commission passed the ban on second reading on July 27, 2017, about a year after it was introduced by Commissioner Keon Hardemon at Robins’ request. At the time, Karenza had an agreement with Becker Boards Miami to place a large mural above its one-story property, which is currently occupied by the offices of architecture firm Shulman + Associates. Karenza’s building was one of three properties in the Design District with billboard permits, the lawsuit states.
Karenza claims the city commission ignored a planning and zoning appeals board recommendation that its building be grandfathered in because the proposed measure included an exemption for one of the other neighboring billboard properties, at 3704 Northeast Second Avenue…
On Aug. 26, 2017, when the ban took effect, Becker Boards Miami relocated its mural to a property south of I-195 since Karenza’s property was no longer allowed to have billboards. Karenza is suing the city for $4.8 million in damages, which represents the dollar amount of the property’s diminished value, the suit states…”
— Francisco Alvarado, Research Haru Coryne, The Real Deal South Florida Real Estate News
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Photo: Tampa Electric
“Tampa Electric’s solar panel project is facing pushback from residents in Pasco County, as homeowners have filed lawsuits against the installation of the facility.
The project, ‘Mountain View Solar,’ would be constructed on 350 acres of land and would include 470,000 solar panels. It is part of Tampa Electric’s plan to add six million solar panels in ten new locations by 2021.
The solar facility would be built alongside Blanton Road in Dade City. Nearby residents have expressed their opposition to the project with concerns that the plant would negatively affect the surrounding area, including animal habitats.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that Pasco homeowner Sandra Noble has filed two legal claims against Tampa Electric. The planned location of the solar field borders her property.
Noble ‘will be significantly and adversely affected’ by the county decision ‘based on her interest in her property, in maintaining and protecting existing nature, use density and intensity of use of the rural property, health and safety, densities and intensities of development and compatibility of adjacent land uses,’ her claim stated…”
— Jessica Barron, WUSF
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Photo: Douglas R. Clifford, Tampa Bay Times
“Residents have complained that the 800-acre project will be ugly and hurt property values.”
“The sky catches fire out near Daly Road, above the open fields east of the yellow house Acy and Christine Akridge bought nearly a decade ago. They’d almost given up looking for a quiet place for their retirement years when they found it: a shell that had spent years in foreclosure and as a party house for local kids. But the barn was good, Christine thought, and the view was great.
They reshaped it into a home, washing their dishes in the laundry room sink while they built a kitchen. The horses moved into the barn. And Christine flooded her Facebook wall with pictures of the fiery skies at sunrise and sunset.
Now change may come to the fields in pursuit of that sun, and the Akridges and their neighbors fear it will intrude on the quiet lives they’ve built in this pastoral pocket of northeast Hernando County. Trustees of Florida A&M University will vote Thursday on whether to approve a proposed deal to let Duke Energy build an 800-acre solar energy farm across the road from the Akridges’ home.
The deal would make money for the university, which got the land in a 2015 transfer from the federal government. And proponents see it as a small, but necessary push in the battle to slow climate change.
But like other projects in rural central Florida, it’s drawing ire from residents, who see it as encroaching on their lives. People who live near the Brooksville site said they haven’t been contacted by the university; they found out about the solar farm idea through a newspaper report.
They fear it will drive down their property values, lead to disruptive glare and noise in their neighborhood and spoil their futures.
‘What was this all for?’ Christine, 62, wondered aloud as she stood in a neighbor’s yard recently, surveying her home and the fields across. ‘We can’t start over again…’
The cattle were still there 20 years ago, when Dan Kavouras and his wife moved onto the hill across the road, and a decade later, when the Akridges moved in. Florida A&M owned it by the time Josh Anderson, a 36-year-old real estate broker, moved onto the property next to the Akridges last year. But he read up on the land transfer and had the same good feeling his neighbors did.
The promise Florida A&M had made to keep it agricultural seemed to guarantee that industry or development wouldn’t intrude on them.
‘It’s almost like it was a safe haven around this property over here,’ Acy Akridge said.
They didn’t expect the federal government to define solar energy production as an agricultural use. That designation, granted by the Department of Agriculture, opened the door for Florida A&M to look for bidders for a solar farm…
…the residents of Daly Road fear the repercussions already have started.
Anderson bought his home just months ago. His wife is pregnant, the baby due in April, and he sees the house as an investment in his family’s future. But the possibility of the solar farm has made his property worth less than when he bought it, he said, and the value will continue to drop if the deal goes through.
He has a real estate term for this: ‘External obsolescence.’ It refers to something that’s outside a property, but makes the property worth less.
Or, as he put it: ‘I’m losing. I’m losing real, hard, green money.’
…Other residents will consider legal action to block the solar farm, just as residents in rural Pasco County have sued to stop a similar project by Tampa Electric Company.
One morning recently, the Akridges and Josh Anderson stood under the sprawling branches of the live oaks in Anderson’s front yard. Acy Akridge looked past two of the Andersons’ horses wandering across a field, to the open land across the road.
‘People paint pictures just for that right there,’ he said. ‘You tell me when someone painted a famous picture with panels in the background.'”
— Jack Evans,Tampa Bay Times
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Photo: Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times
“The county’s Board of Supervisors is slated to vote Thursday on a policy that would prohibit large renewable energy projects on much of the unincorporated private land governed by the county. The new restrictions would add to existing regulations that solar and wind developers say have made it difficult to build on federal land, which makes up the vast majority of the county’s 20,000 square miles.
As local residents have told the supervisors in public comments, the restrictions would protect their quality of life. Many locals say California should shift its focus from land-intensive solar farms to smaller installations on rooftops and parking lots. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that rooftop solar could meet 74% of California’s energy needs.”
— Sammy Roth, LA Times
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