Couple discover land for their Florida dream home is landfill

SANTA ROSA COUNTY, Fla. – As Jeff and Abbey Rodamaker began tearing out trees in their newly purchased land near Gulf Breeze to make way for their dream home, the couple heard an unexpected clinking sound as each tree fell.

The roots had pulled up numerous glass bottles and other trash, such as plastic containers, a propane tank and tires that had been buried a few feet underground. The garbage was hidden by dirt, brush and trees.

As the Rodamakers began digging more around the property, they realized it had once been used as a landfill.

“I was never able to really establish a bottom,” Jeff Rodamaker said, even finding a clear glass bottle with the words “dispose properly” scrawled across it. “Basically seeing it as deep as it was, I gave up because it’s past trying to clean up.”

The couple said they purchased the land in February for $ 70,000 with a $ 323,000 mortgage to build their dream home on a lot next door to close family friends. For a while, they believed they might be able salvage the property, but health concerns and the cost of mitigation proved too much. Their dream had turned into a nightmare.

The property on Ocean Breeze Lane has been subdivided and exchanged ownership multiple times since the 1970s, when the trash was thought to have been placed there.

Alta Skinner, owner of 13.02 acres in Santa Rosa County until 1978, is linked to the land through a chain of deeds to the Rodamakers. It appears to have been subdivided into a 6.51- acre parcel in 1978 by Walter and Marie Harris, who bought Skinner’s property that year.

Skinner appeared in minutes from a May 11, 1971, meeting of Santa Rosa’s Board of County Commissioners in which she requested the board build a road to her property. In exchange, she agreed to donate the right of way for the road and permit the county to use property owned by her as a “sanitary landfill” at no cost to the county.

County staff said records in their Geographic Information System as well as the Planning and Zoning Department don’t indicate the property was once used as a landfill.

The Rodamakers said they were not informed of the landfill by either the previous owner or the county.

Jack Lynch, president of the Pensacola Association of Realtors, said when it comes to purchasing a vacant lot or a home, there are disclosure forms the seller must fill out.

“The thing that you have to remember is that you can only disclose what you know,” he said.

“If the person that sold them the property didn’t know that it was a landfill, there would be no way to disclose that information.”

Previous owner Andrew McCreary didn’t respond to a call for comment.

When the Rodamakers discovered the landfill, they informed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and had four ground wells installed for water monitoring.

“I have a child. What happens if she goes out and plays in the dirt?” Abbey Rodamaker said. “I feel like we would always be worried. If we get sick five or 10 years from now, I’d be worried that it was because of this.”

Brandy Smith, external affairs manager with the Northwest District of the DEP, said representatives visited the site and said it didn’t look to be a community landfill but rather a “promiscuous dump.” Those are defined as an “unauthorized site where indiscriminate deposits of solid waste are made,” according to department documents.

Abbey Rodamaker disputes the classification.

“This was not a promiscuous dump,” she said. “This was not a neighborhood dump. This was a county dump. It’s definitely more trash than dirt.”

“There’s not necessarily a lot of environmental concerns,” Smith said, adding that her department suggested the owners talk with a structural engineer if they planned to build.

The Rodamakers said they are unsure of what happens next to the property.

While the family could technically still build on the land, the price of making a house structurally sound and putting it on pilings to handle any shifting trash underneath would require them to restructure their loan.

The couple said they’ve spent all of their savings to get to this point.

Abbey Rodamaker said her family feels like nobody is willing to help them.

The couple said it has also been suggested that they could walk away from the property.

“For me, there’s still the moral question,” Abbey Rodamaker said.

“How do you just walk away?”

TONY GIBERSON/ TGIBERSON@ PNJ. COM Abbey Rodamaker inspects the trash that contaminates her property. She and her husband bought the parcel for their dream home to find it once was a landfill.