i assume I am not alone in noting that at the very least I expect some pics of the wall taken with your phone.
Fascinating! If I were a kid in the area, the place would be legendary in my mind. And I’d be trying to get in. Heck, even as an adult, I’d probably try to get in.
Looks like lots of cars and trucks there now. Is that a cage in the back of the lot? Sure looks like it.
I am not sure how Florida handles tax records so I am not sure what it means. He has a homestead exemption of $25K which in many states would mean he has to be living there. On the other hand, the value of the improvements is only $33,000. A two bedroom 858-SF home on a 9+ acre parcel is very odd indeed.
There are at least three or four notices of commencement related to some construction at the property. They don’t say what the construction is, but any one of them could be for the house or the wall.
There has to be some entrance somewhere. The only way you could get entitled and permitted to build a residential structure with no street entrance is to live in a county with a incredibly stupid or easily bribed code enforcement officer. I doubt you could even get away with that sort of thing in Houston.
Please, God, don’t let our Dopers become so complacent that they abandon this mystery.
And when the mystery is solved, let the revelation be so shocking it literally knocks the socks off of the OP and all posters to this thread.
Amen
It’s fairly common for building permits to have an expiration date; here I think it is 3 years. And it’s also common to reach that 3rd year, and not have completed (or even started) the construction.
So you go to the Inspector, and tell them you aren’t finished yet, that it’s taking longer than you planned. Some places they will give you an extension; some places they just write up a new building permit.
That may be what’s happening here – he just keeps renewing/extending the building permits without yet getting to actually doing the construction.
I hope this thread isn’t too zombified to bring back to life, but looking at the property in question with google street view, there actually is an entrance gate. It’s just about at the mid-point of the south side of the property, across the street from 1088 SW 28th St.
A little East, almost to the corner, there’s a second opening, and the gate is even open. About 1054 SW 28th St, per Google. It says “BARRETT 1991” on the wall there, although I’m guessing a little at the year.
So how could the OP miss that if he said he’s driven around the block? It seems like a pretty big gate. And it’s hard to tell, but it seems that the fence that backs up to the church’s property is just chain link…though that is looking all the way from the front of the church property, so maybe I’m not seeing it right…but I don’t see white wall in front of the trees. Good view of what I mean at 1038…
It seems that all the trees in the neighborhood are located inside the wall…
So the mystery is how the OP missed the entrance.
Thanks Pal.
I am guessing the proximity of the Church is a factor. Even before I read of the adjacent Church, I guessed there was one.
The property may have been a monastery or covenant at some time, no longer used. There is a similarly sized and walled property still in use in Santa Clara California.
Zoom in on the northwest corner of Homestead and Lincoln: Google Maps
This one is still in use, only a few blocks from Santa Clara University and Santa Clara Mission. I used to live between there, and would (very!) occasionally see nuns headed to the campus. Other then that, nothing, just a walled compound. A local neighbor told me at some point the property was larger, and the houses up against it were built on former Convent land. But for the most part it seems to exist out of time, walled off all around, surrounded by a bustling neighborhood.
My other initial guess was a Superfund or similar site - those are scattered around Silicon Valley too, but I don’t really recall the ones I knew of being walled off like that.
ETA - the proximity to the Mission means that this is one of the oldest neighborhoods in California - some houses in the area date to the Mexican era.
You can walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and go where the chalk white arrows go
for the children they mark and the children they know…
Ahem.
I say toxic site, an specifically, an abandoned junkyard. All kinds of thing leach out of old cars and boats. Chromium, oil, gasoline, coolants, etc etc etc. It probably can’t be built on, and an open air toxic site is an "attractive nuisance, " hence the fence.
What do ya know, you’re right. I found the first gate and didn’t bother continuing down the rest of the way.
Also I see the OP has been to the forum since September, so we may not hear back from him.