Josh Cassidy This is Me

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 Web References

1. 1. County grants Abaco Bay condo owners homestead exemptions | naplesnews.com | Naples Daily News

   www.naplesnews.com/news/2006/j - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/2/2006   Last Visited: 7/2/2006

   The place is spanking clean and all 886 square feet belong to Josh Cassidy, a 29-year-old Naples High School teacher and defensive football coach.
   
   "This is lots of hours of coaching, lots of hours of teaching," Cassidy said of his $214,000 condominium, a 26-year-old converted apartment off Bayshore Drive. It's the first place of his own.
   
   Since November, the pride of ownership has soured and Cassidy is among an uncertain number of Abaco Bay residents now caught in a zoning glitch that they believe could damage the future value of their properties.
   ...
   Josh Cassidy says he was not told when bought his Abaco Bay condo in East Naples that rental provisions would prevent him from getting the homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap, which translates to thousands of dollars in tax savings.
   ...
   Josh Cassidy says he was not told when bought his Abaco Bay condo in East Naples that rental provisions would prevent him from getting the homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap, which translates to thousands of dollars in tax savings.
   
   Skinner's office had earlier turned Cassidy and others down when they applied for the homestead exemption, saying they didn't qualify.
   ...
   To get around the rental requirement, Cassidy says he was told all he had to do is lease his unit back to himself to comply with the law. Cassidy said Abaco's employees provided him with a boilerplate lease when he bought. He's leasing his unit back to himself for $1.
   
   The 1-inch-thick book of condominium documents does include a disclosure about the rental zoning. But Cassidy says the developer said the zoning change was on its way.
   
   "The developer will always be able to fall back on this, even though we were led to believe, ‘Hey, it's not going to be a big deal,'¤" Cassidy said of changing the zoning.
   ...
   Cassidy said investors mostly bought in Abaco because other buyers â€" particularly many first-time buyers â€" couldn't get financing.
   ...
   Cassidy is a vice president of the Abaco condo board. He said the developer turned over the complex to residents this past week. He referred questions about the turnover to President Jim Zimmerman, who said he didn't want to comment except to say, "I'm very satisfied," following the property appraiser's decision to grant homesteads.
   
   Cassidy said he's worried the complex will stay a mostly rental community and eventually get run down. It's not that Cassidy has anything against renters, he added, saying he's been a renter almost all of his adult life.
   
   "They will not take care of it as good as you would because it's yours," Cassidy said.
   
   And he's disappointed and worried because in the future he will be able to sell only to investors. But there are owners in the complex like him, he said.
   
   As any first-time buyer, he's been learning as he goes. He worked hard to save 10 percent down. He rents out the second bedroom to a roommate for $450 a month to make ends meet.
   
   Cassidy is a pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps kind of guy. He spent four years in a group home for at-risk teens and went on to get his bachelor's degree from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He received his master's degree from Virginia Tech.
   ...
   So it's not surprising that Cassidy said he's not going to give up trying to persuade Collier commissioners to change their minds. He has a meeting with Commissioner Jim Coletta in July.
   
   The people who live at Abaco are the same people commissioners are trying to help with affordable housing, Cassidy said.
   
   "I just want an equal opportunity to prosper," Cassidy said.