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“Green” homes are a major priority for buyers

Yesterday I talked a little bit about some statistics and opinions that the National Association of Realtors gathered during a national survey of 133,000 home buyers and sellers.

Those people surveyed talked a lot about the current economic situation and about the state of the real estate market. But one thing that surprised me was how many people still have strong feelings about environmental considerations when they buy a home.

 A full 90 percent of those surveyed said they want their new home to be environmentally friendly. Those surveyed said they want (in this order) energy-efficient heating, cooling, appliances and lighting.

 So I would say it’s not all about price when people look now for new homes. They still want efficiency and new “green” technology, even in spite of the challenging market. And those green upgrades will still be paying dividends long after the economics of home buying returns to a more normal state.

Tags: green homes, pinellas county

Bay Pines gets award

Bay Pines Veterans Hospital

 Here are some things that you may not know about Bay Pines, our local Veterans Administration medical center:

• It is the fourth-busiest veterans’ hospital in the country.
• It serves almost 100,000 veterans who live in Southwest Florida.Recently, Bay Pines won the the Robert W. Carey Performance of Excellence award, the highest award that can be won from the U.S. Office of Veterans Affairs.

Counters

Tags: pinellas county, veterans hospital

Get ready for baseball!

If you go back just a half-dozen or so blog entries, you’ll see a picture of me at a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. If you live in Tampa Bay, you’ve got to love football and the Bucs — there’s just no getting around it. This is definitely a football town, and Florida is a football state, for that matter.

But the truth is, I’m more of a baseball person. If you grow up in New England as I did, the Red Sox are almost a religion. If it’s summer, you’re following the Red Sox; if it’s winter, you’re talking about them.

But since we’ve been in Florida, we’ve done something of a baseball about-face, and now we follow the Devil Rays. And in just a couple of days (Friday to be exact), the season kicks off with picthers and catchers reporting for the beginning of Spring Training.

We’re excited. Not because the Devil Rays are likely to turn into winners (they have finished last in their division in every one of their nine years of existence), but because they are an exciting young team that is fun to watch.

The Rays are really just a bunch of kids — very few veterans and a whole bunch of young rookies. But they are loads of fun to watch and root for, and Tropicana Field is a comfortable and easy-to-get-to place to watch a baseball game. No, it isn’t Fenway Park — it’s sort of an ugly domed stadium with artificial grass. But the parking is pretty easy and the park is always 70 degrees, no matter what the weather is outside. And it never, ever rains.

(A few years ago I sold a condo to one of the young Rays minor leaguers. That was a real thrill!)

The Rays’ first workout is this Saturday at the Raymond A. Namoli Baseball Complex in St. Pete, starting at 9:30 a.m. The entire team is supposed to be on hand by Feb. 21.

This workout period is a good deal if you love baseball. Admission and parking are both free, and refreshments and souvenirs are available. The actual exhibition season starts March 2 with a game against the Yankees in Tampa, but you have to pay to attend those games.

Amyway, maybe we’ll see you at Tropicana Field this summer. It’s another great benefit to living here in Tampa Bay.

Tags: baseball, pinellas county, rays

Maybe doggie dining wasn’t such a great idea after all

Back a few months ago I posted a blog entry about a new Florida state law that allowed restaurants to let diners bring their dogs along. There were a number of restrictions — the local communities had to sign on to the bill, and the restaurants had to have outside dining facilities, for example — but a number of restaurants signed on.

One of the local restaurants was Moon Under Water in St. Petersburg. Plenty of Moon Under Water patrons started bringing their dogs along for lunch and dinner. (The dogs had to stay on the floor, but still…)

Well, things got a little out of hand at Moon Under Water. Lots and lots (and lots) of dog owners started bringing their dogs. People and their dogs lined up out on the sidewalk, waiting for tables. Dogs urinated (and worse) on the sidewalks. Some dog owners were outraged that their dogs had to stay on the floor, so arguments weren’t unusual.

So on Jan. 11, Moon Under Water changed its mind. No doggies allowed anymore.

Tags: dogs, pinellas county, restaurants

Hooray for Florida stone crabs!

If you like seafood, and you live in Florida (or at least visit on a regular basis), this may be one of your favorite times of the year — stone crab season. Between Oct. 15 and May 15, it is legal to harvest stone crabs from Florida’s waters, and they sure are good.

Actually, to be more accurate, it is legal to take stone crab CLAWS — it is not legal to keep the whole stone crab. You can trap the stone crab, pop off the claws if they are of legal size (”pop off” sounds a whole lot better than “tear off”, doesn’t it?) and then return the crab to the water. Stone crabs can regenerate their claws, and many do so four or five times over the span of their lives.

You can’t take females with eggs, and the claws have to be at least 2 3/4 inches across. It is legal to take both claws if they are of legal size, but many experts believe it is better to take just one, since the crab’s chances for survival are much better if one of the claws remains.

Every year at this time, Frenchy’s restaurants on Clearweater Beach (there are four of them) host a big stone crab festival. Frenchy’s Saltwater Cafe and Rockaway Grill (two of the four Frenchy’s restaurants) will have tents set up outside, and the live music will be throbbing and the beer will be flowing.

This will be Frenchy’s 22nd annual Stone Crab Weekend. It runs between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. today through Sunday. You can learn more at their website, www.frenchysonline.com.

We don’t have a review of any of the Frenchy’s restaurants on our website yet, but I think the stone crab festival will be a good excuse to do one.

Tags: pinellas county, stond crabs

Take a walk on the Pinellas Trail

The Pinellas Trail is one of Pinellas County’s greatest assets. It is a walking and biking trail that runs for more than 30 miles from south Pinellas County to North Pinellas County. It gets lots of use in Dunedin, Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs and throughout the northern part of the county, but South County people love it, as well.

The trail began in the early 1980s, when the CSX Railroad didn’t know what to do with a 34-mile right-of-way that ran north-south through the county. The line was no longer viable for train service.

That led to the Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization and then to the Bicycle Advisory Committee and the Pedestrian Safety Committee, groups which thought the railroad right-of-way would make a great recreational trail.

The Pinellas Trail started out as a five-mile section in Largo and Seminole. It grew rapidly from there.

Now, the trail is hugely popular and is used by about 90,000 people every month, linking parks, coastal areas and residential neighborhoods. There are eight overpasses that allow walkers and bikers to avoid busy intersections. There are refreshment stops and strategically-placed bike racks.

Like most things, there are rules. Here are some of them:

– Alcoholic beverages are prohibited
– Pedestrians and handicapped have the right of way
– Bicyclists must obey all traffic controls and signals, and are not permitted to wear headphones.
– Under 16 bikers must wear helmets
– Motorized vehicles and horses are prohibited
– Pets are allowed, but must be kept on a 6-foot leash.

To learn more, visit http://www.pinellascounty.org/trailgd/about.htm

Tags: pinellas county, pinellas trail

More taxes, this time from Dunedin again

Now, the City Commission has reduced the tax rate even more, in response to angry local taxpayers who are upset (like everyone else) about increasing property taxes.

Throughout Tampa Bay and across Florida (and beyond Florida, as well), taxpayers are getting up in arms about property tax rates. In this area, at least, the culprit is exploding property values. Home valuations have shot up, and that increase in value results in higher property taxes.

Here’s an example of what that means locally; Pinellas County will rake in $148 million more in tax revenue this year without having to increase tax rates one bit — the huge increase in property tax valuations is at fault.

Anyway, back to Dunedin: A few days ago the City Commission voted to drop the millage rate by 5 percent in response to angry taxpayers. Scores of taxpayers showed up at a commission meeting and pleaded with commissioners to provide some relief. And the commissioners said at the meeting that they will consider additional tax rate cuts, even thought the result may be cuts in city services.

Across the region and the state, it is looking more and more like a full-fledged taxpayer revolt in the making. Stay tuned.

Tags: Dunedin, pinellas county, taxes

Take a dog to lunch

I guess Gov. Jeb Bush likes dogs, because late in June he signed Florida’s new “Doggie Dining Law,” which allows dogs to accompany their owners to restaurants that have outdoor dining areas.

Now, there is a lot going on in Florida right now — issues like offshore oil drilling or what to do about skyrocketing homeowners insurance rates — but a lot of public attention has been paid recently to whether people should be able to take their dogs out to dinner.

I have a Golden Retriever, Max, who likes to eat everything in sight (see the accompanying picture of Max begging for a lobster shell), but I guess I don’t have a strong opinion about whether dogs should be allowed in outdoor eating areas. I do believe that I’ll be leaving Max at home when we go out to eat, though.

Here’s more details on the new law: It is a three-year pilot program that lets local governments decide whether to exempt restaurants from rules forbidding dogs from entering restaurants, as long as the restaurants have outdoor eating areas.

Officials in both Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties say they have other work to do that is more important, so they have no immediate plans to adopt the new state law.

Tags: dogs, pinellas county

Pinellas Schools choice program

Sometimes people will look at new homes with me and say something like, “I see there is a nice elementary school right around the corner. Is that where my kids will be going?”

The answer is always, “Well, maybe — or maybe not.”

Here’s why:

Pinellas County has something called the Choice Plan, in which parents have to apply for their childrens’ admission to a particular school. Any student who is a resident of Pinellas County can apply for admission to any school in the county, no matter where it is.

Parents name schools that are their first, second and third choices. If there is room at the first choice school, that’s where the kids go. If not, they go to the second choice, or occasionally the third choice.

This seems like sort of a complex system, but here is why it is in place:

Up until 2000, Pinellas County had forced busing, a program that had been put in place to force the integration of public schools. In 2000, the school board came up with a plan to do away with the forced busing, and the Choice Plan was a major component of that. That plan finally went into effect in August of 2003.

All this is a bit complex, but it is not as bad as it sounds. Students stand a very good chance of getting into the school nearest to them, if that is what they want. If that school is full, chances are still good to get into a nearby school. Also, if you want your child to go to the very best rated school, there’s a good chance of that happening, too, although the best-rated schools are often in great demand, as you might expect.

There are also magnet schools, and you can apply to those as well. I’ll probably talk about the magnet schools in another post.

Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the Choice Plan, you can go to the website at www.pinellaschoice.org.

Tags: pinellas county, real estate, schools

Who took “affordable” out of Affordable Housing?

Many people have benefited very nicely as property values in Pinellas County have moved upward. But higher values also cause problems, and people who live in inexpensive housing often pay the biggest penalty.

One example that we see in Pinellas County is what happens to mobile home parks — and to the people who live in them — as prices move upwards.

Some of the most affordable housing in this part of Florida can be found in mobile home parks. Many of these parks were founded more than 20 years ago, and some of them are considerably older than that. Many of them started operations when the surrounding land was little more than orange groves.

But as development has grown up around them, the land that these parks occupy has become more and more valuable. Many of those park owners come to realize that the most profitable path is to sell the parks to developers, who can turn them into commercial developments or even into enclaves for upscale homes.

Residents of these parks, who may have lived there for 20, 30 or even more years, have little recourse. They usually own their mobile homes, but they rent the land that they sit on. If a park owner decides to sell, there is usually little that the residents can do but move on. If they are lucky, they may be able to find a vacant lot in another park, and pay to have their mobile home moved. But empty lot spaces are rare, and many of the mobile homes are too old to be successfully and safely moved, anyway.

The latest example of all this locally is Lakeside Mobile Home Park, a 28-acre site that sites at the intersection of Gulf-To-Bay and Belcher Road in Clearwater. That is one of the busiest intersections in North Pinellas, with around 80,000 vehicles buzzing by on either of the two roads every day.

The owner of the park has notified its 200-plus residents that they must get out by the end of 2006. The landowners say they are not selling the land to nayone else, but they are also not saying at this point what their plans are for the site.

Whatever happens to Lakeside, the people who live there will have to go elsewhere. And they are not alone. Every year, more mobile home residents in Pinellas County learn that they will have to move. Some end up having to move to less developed (and less expensive) areas of Florida, because they have been pretty much priced out of Pinellas.

It’s a tough reality for residents, many of whom are elderly, retired and living on fixed incomes.

Tags: affordable housing, mobile homes, pinellas county