Old maps, new dispute: Man is losing his land access battle with On Top of the World

Andy Fillmore
·6 min read
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Robbie Delli-Veneri stands on what he believes to be an easement road near his property on March 11. He claims he has been land locked due to a chain-link fence put up by developer On Top of the World. “I’ve just been thrown into a 10-acre prison cell,” Delli-Veneri said. His property is located at 10495 SW 105th St in Ocala. On Top of the World installed the fence on its property, closing off access to his driveway. According to the Marion County Property Appraiser's Office, OTOW did nothing wrong and the driveway that he’s been using since 2018, when he bought the property, was a dirt road created by other people and was located on OTOW property. Delli-Veneri does have access to his property from SW 105th Avenue and SW 100th Street, but those passages are heavily wooded and will cost him thousands of dollars to clear, according to Delli-Veneri.

Robbie Delli-Veneri feels like a prisoner on his own property in southwest Marion County, but officials say he has a path out.

There is a dirt path that runs from the pavement of Southwest 105th Street along the west side of his 9.48-acre parcel at 10495 SW 105th St in Ocala. Dellli-Veneri, 41, has used that path for six years to get to an entry gate that opened onto his property.

But use of the dirt path ended March 8. That's when On Top of the World had a chain-link fence installed an estimated 3,400 feet parallel to the western border of Delli-Veneri’s property.

The parcel immediately adjacent to the west of Delli-Veneri’s property is owned by OTOW Communities LLC and is the site of OTOW’s Longleaf Ridge Phase VIII, where pre-construction site work is ongoing.

According to mapping on the Marion County Property Appraiser’s Office website, upwards of 74 individual sites are shown in the vicinity of Southwest 106th Circle, which is within the OTOW parcel under development.

“I have a gut feeling (the developer) wants to run me off my property,” he said.

Delli-Veneri said a crew removed an entry gate to his property as it installed the chain-link fence.

The Star Banner wrote about this dispute in October 2022, but a resolution still has not been reached.

Steve Vancore, with VancoreJones Communications, LLC of Tallahassee, representing OTOW, confirmed in a text message that OTOW installed the new fence and Delli-Veneri’s former entry gate “was taken down but put onto his property, as it was improperly placed on property that is not his.”

Delli-Veneri’s property is surrounded by privately owned parcels on the south and east sides. There’s an apparent access road to the north, and farther north is another OTOW development.

To clear a path from Delli-Veneri’s property on the north side to the access road would require land clearing.

Don't call it an easement

OTOW Director of Land Development Robert Stepp provided a statement to the Star Banner. He stated the dirt path Delli-Veneri had been using up to now is not an easement.

On Top of the World erected this chain-link fence on the border with Robbie Delli-Veneri's land.
On Top of the World erected this chain-link fence on the border with Robbie Delli-Veneri's land.

“To be clear, the land he has been using is privately owned and not an easement,” Stepp stated.

“During the past two years, we have repeatedly attempted to accommodate this neighbor, even offering to clear land for him at our expense to facilitate his access to his property,” Stepp stated.

“He has repeatedly refused and has insisted on only wanting to use our land to drive across. We have also given him repeated notices that we will be building on the property, so he wasn’t caught off guard,” Stepp wrote.

Delli-Veneri believes the dirt path, now on the OTOW Communities, Inc. property side of the chain-link fence, is actually a 15-foot-wide easement as indicated on property maps dating back decades. But public records on file with the Marion County Property Appraiser's Office indicate otherwise.

Parcel records at that office indicate that the chain-link fence actually is on OTOW property.

The dirt path Delli-Veneri was using was a right-of-way path in the 1930s per Plat Book D Page 72 of the Plat of Southeastern Tung Land Company. But after a replat that occurred in 1977, the west 15 feet of the 30-foot right-of-way where the dirt path was located was added to the parcel now owned by OTOW.

The dirt path is located on the west side of Delli-Veneri’s property, which he purchased 2018. That path has been on the property now owned by OTOW for 47 years, the public records reflect, and was simply a convenient way to get to adjoining properties.

Robbie Delli-Veneri uses a ladder on March 11 to access his property. He said clearing a path north to Southwest 100th Street or south to 105th Street would be prohibitively expensive.
Robbie Delli-Veneri uses a ladder on March 11 to access his property. He said clearing a path north to Southwest 100th Street or south to 105th Street would be prohibitively expensive.

Diana Cauthen, director of ownership with the Marion County Property Appraiser's Office, explained the property change made in 1977 as shown in public records.

Marion County public records indicate the west 15 feet of the 30-foot easement was “vacated in Official Records Book 851 Page 28, Nov. 15, 1977 to add the west 15 feet to the Circle Square Ranch.”

The parcel is now the OTOW property adjacent to Delli-Veneri’s property.

The property owner has two choices

Delli-Veneri evidently has two choices on an easement.

Delli-Veneri contends he will need to pay land clearers to cut a 15-foot swatch through wooded property, perhaps half the length of the chain-link fence line, so he can have access to Southwest 105th Street to the south or cut a heavily wooded path to the north to get access to Southwest 100th Street.

Delli-Veneri said there have been meetings with representatives of family owned Colen Built Development, the umbrella corporation for projects including OTOW, Calesa Township, The Lodge and Circle Square Commons. The corporation says it is is the “oldest, privately owned” developer in Florida.

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences website, edis.ifas.ufl.edu, discusses easements in its “Handbook of Florida Fence and Property Law: Easement and Rights of Way.”

The website lists prescriptive and conservation easements as some of the types seen. One aspect of a prescriptive easement involves “actual, continuous, and uninterrupted use (not possession) for twenty years,” and a conservation easement is “an express easement created to limit further development of property.”

Delli-Veneri contends other property owners in the vicinity have used the dirt path for over 20 years.

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“(OTOW) never blocked or stopped use of easement, and per Florida statutes any easement that has stayed open for a period of 20 years or longer may not be closed off or blocked,” Delli-Veneri contends.

The Star Banner did not seek independent legal opinions regarding easement guidelines or Delli-Veneri’s specific claim.

A significant expense

“The way (out to) Southwest 100th Street (will take) way too much money and trees to be moved,” Delli-Veneri wrote in a text.

The description of Delli-Veneri’s property on public property records includes “Southeastern Tungland Co.” and the land data refers in part to “Southeastern Tung Oil.”

A Jan. 4, 2014 Star Banner article by Marion County historian David Cook discusses the start of tung tree farming here in the early 1930s. He said “Midwest speculators” purchased 5,000 acres, for roughly a “$1.5 million investment,“ in southwest Marion County to be broken up and offered for sale as 10-acre tung tree farms.

Tung tree nuts produce oil used in certain paints and the product was once touted as “The South’s liquid gold,” according to the article. UF IFAS warns parts of the tree’s blooms are poisonous to humans.

The area would be dubbed "Tung City” but the article indicates the overall industry had declined by the 1960s.

Meanwhile, Delli-Ventri made improvements to the property in the last six years including a shed. He was issued a Marion County building permit in May 2023 for family/residential construction. It expires in August.

The slab for the house is completed and ready for construction. As the access matter gets resolved, Delli-Ventri is getting on and off his property the best he can.

This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: On Top of the World prevailing in odd land dispute with Ocala man