ELIZABETH BONIN/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
Five White Horse Park cases will go to the Worcester County Board of Zoning Appeals in hopes to eliminate the fines for staying in the park full-time.

By Elizabeth Bonin, Staff Writer

(Oct. 17, 2019) The conflict at White Horse Park continues as local attorney Hugh Cropper will take five cases to the Worcester County’s Board of Zoning Appeals in an effort to overturn a decision by the Worcester County Commissioners.

 After County Commissioner Jim Bunting at a June 18 meeting told full-time residents at the seasonal-occupancy-only White Horse Park that they had to leave the park to comply with zoning regulations, the full-time residents replied with a proposed zoning code amendment.

The amendment, which would have allowed full-time residents as of June 2018 to remain in the park until they die, sell the unit or change residency, was rejected by the county commissioners. The county then implemented an enforcement plan in which all residents received letters reminding them of the seasonal policy.

Full-time residents received a warning on Oct. 1 that they would begin to receive fines of up to $1,000 a day if they continued to live at the park beyond what the regulations allow. According to the county administration, residents may only occupy the property for up to 30 consecutive days between Sept. 30 and April 1, or an aggregate of 60 days.

Cropper said he hopes to stop those fines on the basis that the county exceeded the statute of limitations. In other words, the county has waited too long to enforce the seasonal policy for the fines to be valid. Cropper hopes that if the five cases win the appeal, it will be applied to all who live in the park year-round, although the county is not required to extend that to those who did not file an appeal.

“That would be patently unfair,” Cropper said. “But I think the county’s been patently unfair thus far. I’d like to say again, for the record, these people are being asked to leave their homes after five, 10, 20 and 30 years of occupancy. They have mortgages. In many cases, their homes are built to year-round standards. It was required by the county and inspected by the county.”

According to Ginny Wycoff, who has owned property in the park since 1999, it would cost her and her husband Tom $120,000 to stay in the park for four months if the fines are implemented.

“Our homes aren’t worth too much more than that,” Wycoff said. “And of course, there’s so many on the market now that the prices are going down. It makes it impossible to sell at this point. In one season, literally, the county could be taking over the homes if that’s what they choose to do.”

Wycoff also expressed frustration that at one point, the county allowed Section 8 recipients, formally known as Public Housing and Housing Choice Vouchers, to live in White Horse Park.

“That means that the county, or the state, whoever was doing this funding, thought that this was a full-time community and had people living here full time,” Wycoff said.

Both Cropper and his White Horse Park clients claim they should not be forced out of their house because many modified their houses to meet accessibility needs. William Rosenbaum, who has lived in the park full-time for 18 years, said his wife Phyllis is receiving cancer treatment.

“The doctors are very close by, which is convenient,” Rosenbaum said. “It takes us 10 minutes to get to the cancer center here for her chemo. She has other doctors that are very important. She lost one kidney and she has bladder cancer. She’s starting to wear out.”

Another argument Cropper plans to present to the Board of Zoning Appeals is that the county is selective about which regulations it chooses to enforce. For instance, he said he regularly sees homes with sheds in yards, which residents cannot have without a permit.

“Are we going to one day go to everybody in the county and say ‘Permit your sheds or move them’?” Cropper said. “Of course not. And this is the same. I could think of 10 more examples of lack of enforcement of the zoning regulations.”

He added that the park residents were required to build and maintain their houses to year-round living requirements for the county. The Wycoffs built their full-time cottage in 2015 to those requirements.

“We had a fire marshal there,” Tom Wycoff said. “It’s got a sprinkler system. We have to keep an eye on the sprinkler system and make sure the pressure stays up. What’d they think? We’d just have a sprinkler system and just let it go?”

The county staff and administration have expressed worry that the capacity of the sewer and water infrastructure will be exceeded by full-time use and that adjusting the systems to full-time would be costly.

“Fifty-four elderly people in small homes in February using the sewer treatment plant is not going to overburden the infrastructure,” Cropper said. “It hadn’t for 30 years.”

Bob Raymond claimed that they were initially told the county’s only issue with full-timers was making sure that they weren’t overflowing the local public schools with kids. Raymond laughed at this notion, as most of the residents, including himself, are retired, disabled or a veteran.

Stan Gibson, who is mobile with a wheelchair and has lost the use of his vocal cords, said that the federal government and county gave him money to renovate his house to his needs, but he won’t get that funding again for another house.

Gibson said he had spoken with the county social services department, but they only offered food stamp assistance. He has taken matters into his own hands by creating a GoFundMe page to help pay for lawyer fees and any future residential fines. Betty Raymond said she had attended the meeting at the Ocean Pines Library and has a follow-up meeting with an agent, but couldn’t recall many other full-time residents attending.

Worcester County offered the meeting as a way to connect full-time residents to agents from the Department of Social Services, health department and Commission on Aging for relocation assistance.

“It is nothing more than a self-serving, gratuitous gesture,” Cropper said. “My clients went to the first scheduled meeting and a department agent told them ‘There’s nothing we can do for you.’”

Rosenbaum said he noticed guards at the park taking photos to track who has been living there for how many days. At this point in the season, everyone is still living there legally as 30 consecutive days have not yet passed. After Nov. 1, residents may receive fines.

Cropper expects the cases to be on the agenda for the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting next month. In the meantime, clients are preparing presentations to explain why they should remain at the park full time. If the Board of Zoning Appeals denies the appeal, Cropper intends to take the case to the circuit court.

“Let us die here,” Ginny Wycoff said. “We’re all old enough. How long do they think we’re going to be here?”