deadline and will continue to work through the appeals process with affected residents.<\/a><\/p>\nWhat You Need To Know<\/p>\n
118 residents at Gateway Mobile Home Community still have substantial damage determination
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Pinellas County says they will still take appeals after initial October 31 deadline
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Approximately 70% of block or wood frame homes that filed a reassessment were reversed to\u00a0not substantially damaged
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Depreciated value of older mobile homes makes appeal harder\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOctober 31 is not a hard deadline,\u201d Carkeet wrote. \u201cSome earlier letters referenced that date, but current and future communications no longer do. The County continues to accept and review appeals, and it will keep working with affected residents and mobile home park communities. We strongly encourage residents to submit appeals and supporting documents as soon as practical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerry Rumple has owned her home at the Gateway Mobile Home Park off 4th Street in Pinellas County for the last 8 years. She says during the hurricanes, there was puddling on her floors but none of her appliances, furniture, cabinets or electrical system was affected.<\/p>\n
She thought at the time that she was one of the lucky ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even have water lines on my walls or my baseboards,\u201d she said. \u201cSo there\u2019s no reason that my home would be unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rumple says a remediation company came after she dried out the floors and they replaced the vapor barrier and damaged pieces. Months after making the floor repairs, she said she received the substantial damage letter starting that her home did not meet the 49% cost-to-value ratio threshold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a 1963, so they say it has no value,\u201d Rumple said. \u201cBut my home is not damaged, it\u2019s safe. It\u2019s my home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rumple has been working through the appeals process and stated her case before a special magistrate. She\u2019s waiting for the final ruling.<\/p>\n
If the county does not honor the appeal, Rumple will need to tear down or leave her home by June of next year.<\/p>\n
In all, Carkeet says approximately 1,000 homes have a determination of substantial damage in\u00a0unincorporated\u00a0Pinellas County.\u00a0About 80% of them are manufactured\/mobile homes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reassessment process has shown to be an effective step for a homeowner to pursue the reversal of the initial SD determination.\u00a0\u00a0Approximately 70% of SF homes (block or wood frame) that filed a reassessment were reversed to\u00a0not substantially damaged.\u00a0\u00a0Manufactured and mobile homes face greater challenges because their values are typically low, largely due to age-related depreciation,\u201d Carkeet said in a written statement. \u201cThere were mobile homes that took on water in the living space that were not deemed substantially damaged.\u00a0 The age of the structure is typically the key determining factor. \u00a0Pinellas County has a large percentage of mobile homes from the 1960\u2019s and 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 The depreciated value for older (50+ years) mobile homes will have a market value where a limited scope of work to repair damages can result in exceeding the 49% threshold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darna Lopez, who manages Gateway Mobile Home Park, says she feels the county is using understated home values with high-cost repair expenses in their projections. She hopes they will take another look at the homes that received minimal damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to work with the county to see if there are maybe inspections they can do to see that they\u2019re viable, to see how many people we can help through this process so they can live stress-free,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Carkeet encourages anyone wishing to appeal their substantial damage designation to begin the process through the county.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 The deadline to appeal substantial damage designations is quickly approaching for residents who had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1564,274,3125,1802,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,12166,135,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-27960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-angie-angers","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-hurricane-helene","11":"tag-hurricane-milton","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pinellas-county","14":"tag-st-pete","15":"tag-st-pete-headlines","16":"tag-st-pete-news","17":"tag-st-petersburg","18":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","19":"tag-st-petersburg-news","20":"tag-storm-season","21":"tag-tampa","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}