If you’re in Florida and hope to live a more sustainable lifestyle free from the influence of energy companies and massive agricultural conglomerates by adding solar panels to your home, harvesting rainwater, and planting an organic garden on your property- watch out. Citing the International Property Maintenance Code, city officials in Cape Coral, FL are now forcing Ms. Robin Speronis to use city utilities instead of private solar panels and rainwater, or risk being booted from the property!
Special Magistrate Harold S. Eski ruled in 2014 that Robin Speronis was in violation of city codes when she refused to connect to the Cape Coral city water supply. Eskin ordered Speronis to pay for water service, regardless of her need for it, and added that her sewer access (the costs of which, it should be noted, would be covered under her property tax) would be capped until she did.
This news comes just three months after a Miami Shores, FL couple was forced to remove an organic garden from their private property in December. In that instance, the Florida city claimed the couple was in violation of zoning laws, despite the fact that the garden- which the couple had maintained for some 17 years– pre-dated the zoning. “We are already feeling the impact of shopping for overpriced organic food,” said Hermine Ricketts, who dug up the garden in the face of $50/day citations for non-compliance.
News of people losing their homes and governments violating their citizens’ rights regarding their own property- which, you know, they sort of exist to defend- is all too familiar to people who’ve followed the troubles of Sean Law and Julie Bass. Bass, you may recall, was facing prison time in Michigan for planting a vegetable garden in her yard.
Sources | Images: RT, via Real Farmacy and Collective Evolution.
I love living in Florida. There are municipal and county cases, not an indictment of the state.
I lived in Florida for thirty years, and my only regret is not leaving earlier. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to love about Florida, but almost none of it has to do with the people and governments there. I’ll un-indict the State of Florida when its courts overturn these verdicts.
And they call it the Land of the Free??? Never met a more brainwashed set of folks than most of thew Americans I’ve encountered in my 57 yrs
Once you get away from the big cities, Florida is a beautiful place. Some parts of the cities are not bad, but overall… I prefer rural Florida. Lots of cattle, horses, bears, bobcats, gators if you’re out in the swamps.. and all sorts of birds to watch all year round. I’m a native, was born in south Florida, live in central Florida now and have been all over the state… It’s a Huge, beautiful state. Yeah, there are some crazy people around, but I can go on youtube and find crazy people, just about anywhere. We get a lot of press, just because of the quantity of visitors and it’s sunny all year round here 🙂
I like the rural life and yes the county has rules but, I will say with some explanation and conversation there has been nothing different than the other 6 states I have lived in. I worked with the county and not against it getting what I wanted and needed.
What I find most disturbing is the people that move here and do not change… or understand they are not in NY anymore…why did you come?
Another encroachment on civil liberties. The right o the pursuit of happiness and doing what you want on your own property is gone faded into the past.
I understand laws that protect your neighbor’s rights, nobody should be allowed to devalue another’s property value by growing weeds on their front lawn or having junk and garbage piling up, but to make growing a garden illegal or forcing someone to hook up to city or county utilities is nuts and should be outlawed especially in a country aware of limited resources like energy use which is causing climate change.