As developer seeks final approvals for Sereno Grove, some neighbors say road would be within 10 feet of homes
Laura LaydenStanding on her lanai, Sheri Roberts points to a chain link fence that separates her backyard at Wilshire Lakes from what will become a new housing development in North Naples.
She said she's not against the development, known as Sereno Grove, but she is against plans that will destroy her pristine view and put the new community's road within 10 feet of her property line. The bending road would abut her home on two sides.
Sheri and her husband, James, and their neighbors David and Linda Bankston said they will unnecessarily bear the brunt of the harm from the new residential community planned by WCI, now a part of Lennar Corp.
They hope to convince Collier County Commissioners on Tuesday not to approve the final plat for the new subdivision and to require the developer to make changes that will lessen the impact of the project on their property values — and their quality of life.
"Their development is supposed to be compatible and consistent with existing land uses, and this is not. It's not consistent, and it's not compatible," Sheri said.
The new community is planned on raw land north of Vanderbilt Beach Road and east of Livingston Road.
When the Robertses relocated from Michigan and purchased their home about a year ago in their gated community off Vanderbilt Beach Road, Sheri Roberts said they knew nothing about the plans for the development behind them.
When they learned of the project at the end of last year, they and a few of their closest neighbors reached out to WCI's engineering consultant to request the community's road be moved farther away from their property lines, she said.
The Robertses hired an attorney and an engineering firm, which drew up an alternative plan for the project they say would have little impact on the overall development but benefit them greatly by shifting the road to the west.
Under the alternative plan, backyards would face the Robertses' lanai and the new road would go in front of those new homes, instead of in the back of them. It would mirror the way the Robertses' home sits on Wilshire Lakes Boulevard.
The developer showed no interest in considering the alternative plan, saying they "did not see any benefit to discussing" it, Sheri Roberts said.
"We tried to be extremely reasonable, and they just don't care to be," she said.
Marshall Ames, a spokesman for Lennar, said in an email the company isn't commenting on the dispute.
Originally, plans showed no wall between the road and the backyards most affected by it in Wilshire Lakes. There was a hedge and trees spaced 25 feet apart, with plans to uproot everything green that's already there, Sheri Roberts said.
After a recent complaint to Lennar's corporate office in Miami about the lack of responsiveness to her concerns, Sheri Roberts said she got a meeting with representatives for the developer Friday who said they would be willing to build a wall and to limit the size of the homes closest to the Robertses and their three neighbors to a single story.
But there is nothing in writing, and they haven't budged on the location of the road, which is the most disturbing, she said.
"Everything is designed around the backyard," she said of her home. '"We've got a pool. We have got a lanai. We use our lanai like we used to use our living room up North. We're out there all the time."
The new access road will come from Livingston Road, running a half mile east before coming within feet of the western edge of Wilshire Lakes.
David Bankston, who lives next door to the Robertses, said he fears a car could land in his pool with the road pointed at his backyard.
"If you can't stop, poof you're in the pool. It's really obnoxious," he said.
The Bankstons have lived in the community for about 17 years. When David Bankston built a home there, he said he was told the area behind him would always be a preserve.
He said he doesn't understand why the developer hasn't been more willing to address his concerns.
When the residential development was first proposed in 2015, residents of Marsala at Tiburon in North Naples were outraged.
It would have knocked down trees behind the Tiburon golf course and had a bigger effect on wetlands.
Those residents formed a self-funded nonprofit, Save the Preserves, and hired an attorney to represent their interests and won concessions that calmed their concerns.
Patrick White, a Naples land use attorney, represented Marsala's homeowners and was happy with the outcome, describing it as a "meeting of the minds."
He has worked with the Robertses and their three neighbors, and though he recently retired, he's decided to continue helping them at no cost.
If the developer had chosen to talk with the Robertses in January, White said, the development could already be under construction.
WCI/Lennar, he said, changed the design of the community's water and sewer system so that it would not connect into Wilshire Lakes hookups as a strategy to avoid a meeting about easements with the Wilshire Lakes Homeowners Association because the association would have required a discussion about the road.
The added cost for the water and sewer connections is estimated at $290,000, according to WCI's engineer.
"In my 25-year career in land use, this is the most irrational and stubborn developer decision I've had the misfortune to witness," White said.