In just a few days, the Orlando Utilities Commission will turn water off to two-thirds of Tymber Skan because the homeowners associations governing two portions of the complex have failed to make payments on its utility bills. When that happens, people living in the affected units, which include the units where the little girl with the pink bike and the brown pit bull live, will be forced to make some tough decisions: They can try to stay and live without utilities until the county deems their homes unfit for human habitation, or they can voluntarily relocate with financial assistance from the county.
According to Dianne Arnold, administrator for Orange County Family Services, approximately 70 families will lose service when OUC turns the water off. The county has put door hangers and fliers around the community offering them relocation assistance, and 20 of them had contacted the county for help within a week. Arnold says she expects to hear from many more as the turnoff date creeps closer.
According to Bob Spivey, manager of the county's code enforcement division, which has levied more than $20 million worth of liens and fines against property owners here, the county doesn't face anything else quite like Tymber Skan. It is, he says, the worst of the worst.
Orange County is moving forward (slowly) with its plans to demolish as many of the buildings as it can. Over the years, he says, the county has invested money and resources to help Tymber Skan recover, but now its goal is to get people to move out.
"We have condemned the buildings," he says. "The association that's responsible for maintaining them is the party in violation. Now we have to go back and cite each of the individual unit owners. We've gone through that entire process for eight buildings, and those buildings have been torn down. By the end of this calendar year, we anticipate three more should come down, and then for next year, we're hoping to get as many as 10 or 11."
There's still one section of the community, though – Tymber Skan on the Lake Section Two – that has kept up with its bills and isn't affected by the OUC turnoff notice. The people who live in that section are trying hard to hang on. They say that despite the community's deteriorating condition and its horrific reputation, they've invested in it and have nowhere else to go. Tymber Skan is home, and they don't want to leave.
"Everybody out here is not bad," says Malinda McIntosh, who lives in the neighborhood with her kids and is one of two board members who run Tymber Skan Home Owners Association Section Two. "I understand getting rid of squatters, but legitimate people who are paying their rent and bills, you want to get rid of them, too? I don't understand that. And homeowners – what are you going to do? You can't just take people's land."
The story that's always told about Tymber Skan is that it started out as a pristine lakefront community when it was built in the early 1970s. It had a boathouse on Lake Catherine, tennis courts and a pool. According to a 1973 story in the Lakeland Ledger, the project was developed by a company called Diversified Communities, which built similar Tymber Skan communities in Lakeland and Ohio. The wood-sided buildings were styled after "contemporary California" architecture, the story says, with an emphasis on a "natural" look.
The community was organized into three separate sections, each of which had its own governing board – Tymber Skan on the Lake Homeowners Association sections one, two and three – as well as a master organization for all three to tend to common areas and amenities.
