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Palm Lakes condominium begs city to cut grass
• Once a place for recreation now a toxic wasteland
Tuesday,
July 21, 2009
What used to be a 16-acre nine-hole golf course in the back yard of the Palm Lakes Condominiums just west of the Publix on Atlantic Boulevard is unusable in many respects. The property is plagued with arsenic, the weeds are a foot high and the current owner refuses to maintain it.
“I’m really coming to beg, borrow and steal,” said Palm Lakes representative, Judy McKeone. “I need to bring some answers back to the people [residents].”
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At Wednesday’s city commission meeting, McKeone asked the city to step in and cut the grass because of numerous rodent sightings by residents. She says a milky-white substance has surfaced in the pond and the place is overrun with snakes. The city agreed to use Margate taxpayer dollars to fund cutting the grass.
Margate Commissioner, Arthur Bross, said that given the unfortunate circumstance, cutting the grass would be the right thing to do for Palm Lake’s residents - all of whom overlook the property from their homes - as well as businesses in the area and neighbors across the street on who have to wake up to the eyesore daily.
Since being sold to developer Eric Nathanson and Palm Lakes LLC circa 2005, the Palm Lakes golf course has been closed and neglected. Like other abandoned golf courses across the state, the former Palm Lakes Golf Course contains high levels of arsenic, an ingredient common to pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers used to maintain golf courses.
Due to his own financial troubles, Nathanson offered the 16 acres to the City of Margate last year in exchange for cleaning up the arsenic and turning the property into a passive park. The city refused, citing the costly remediation of arsenic and the expense of adding another park to an already stressed-out budget.
Because Nathanson hasn’t paid taxes on the land and continues to be fined for code violations ($2,000 a day), the city will begin foreclosing on the property come September, provided Nathanson doesn’t pay, said Margate City Attorney, Eugene Steinfeld.
Once foreclosed, the property most likely will be auctioned off to the highest bidder, Bross said, who will then be challenged with remediating the arsenic, a very expensive proposition.
According to experts at Environmental Health Perspectives, the cost for effectively remediating soil poisoned with arsenic can run up to $1 million an acre.
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