The Town of Windermere, which at last count had spent $637,000 asserting its disputed claim to five century-old wooden boathouses, will add to its hefty legal bill by asking an appellate panel to review an emphatic lower court decision siding with the structures’ private owners.
Daniel Langley, co-counsel for the owners of the boathouses, which perch in a lagoon adjacent to popular Lake Butler, said the move will only cost taxpayers more. His clients plan to seek reimbursement for attorney fees and costs.
He did not say what they have spent to hold onto the private properties, but he said it was much more than the town has paid.
Circuit Court Judge John E. Jordan signed an order in November in favor of those titled owners, finalizing a decision in which he declared they “cannot be evicted or ejected from the boathouses for which they own and have the right of possession…”
His blistering conclusion found “nothing equitable or fair” about the town’s effort to take the boathouses from the owners.
The town’s lawyer, Nick Dancaescu of GrayRobinson, unsuccessfully petitioned Jordan for a rehearing, alleging the judge’s conclusions were based on disputed issues of fact, a fundamental fallacy and witness declarations filled with speculation and hearsay.
Now the Sixth District Court of Appeals, headquartered in Lakeland, is reviewing the west Orange town’s challenge to determine if the issues in conflict “appropriate for appellate mediation.”
The boathouses have been in legal limbo since 2022 when the town sought to evict the owners from the structures.
It’s unclear what the town wants with the structures, which provide coveted access to Lake Butler, a space for boating, fishing and other water recreation and the largest of 13 interconnected lakes in southwest Orange County.
Langley, in defense of the boathouse owners, said he posed the question of why in a deposition of Town Manager Robert Smith.
“He said they had no plans” for the boathouses, Langley said of Smith’s answer under oath.
Judge’s ruling sinks Windermere’s claim to boathouses
All but one of the structures, which squat over the lagoon on wooden pilings, were built before the town was incorporated in 1925 and the town has never held title to any of them, though a former mayor and a descendant of a founding family, John Palmer Luff Sr., once owned at least one.
Nonetheless, the town insisted the owners pay nominal rent, and for years they obliged. Then the town moved to take them.
Town Council met in October in an hour-long closed-door session with their lawyers to discuss “settlement negotiations and strategy” in the long-running legal dispute with the private property owners who gained use of the aging boathouses when they bought their homes. The town did not disclose its intentions at the time but filed the appeal subsequently.
Bozena Siemian, a co-owner of one of the boathouses with her husband Trevor, posted a sign in protest alerting Windermere residents and boaters of the rising cost to taxpayers in the legal battle over the structures, for which the town holds no titles or deeds.
She texted the Orlando Sentinel after learning of the latest appeal.
“More taxpayer money wasted,” she wrote.
Smith emailed the newspaper Monday saying the town was quoted a cost of “$20k” for the appeal.
shudak@orlandosentinel.com
