Turf war: The ugly battle between Auburndale residents and an ever-expanding lawn business

AUBURNDALE — The Google Street View images for Pine Street in Auburndale depict a vanished era.

Captured in May 2011, the photos show a typically sedate residential street. Though businesses occupy the northernmost lots on both sides of the road, where it meets U.S. 92, the remainder of Pine Street contains rows of modest houses, some dating to the 1930s.

The scene is much different 13 years later. Three of the houses are gone, creating open lots now filled by piles of dirt and mulch, stacks of boards, parked trucks, trailers and other equipment. A landscape business and nursery, 4 Leaf Lawn Care, occupies combined lots on the east side of Pine Street.

It is not unusual for a street to evolve from residential to commercial over time, as changes in zoning allow businesses to overtake or replace former dwellings. In the case of Pine Street, though, the business activities have spread between remaining single-family homes and on lots zoned for residential rather than commercial use.

Since it opened in 2014, 4 Leaf Lawn Care and an affiliated business, More Than Mulch, both owned by Nicholos “Dee” Cole, have expanded to dominate the stretch of Pine Street between U.S. 92 and Melton Avenue. The operations cover four lots (including combined parcels) on both sides of Pine Street, mixed among the small houses. Cole lives beside the lawn business.

Patricia Shrimplin, a resident of Pine Street for two decades, resides with her daughter in a circa-1930 house on the west side of the road. Cole bought the property next to hers in 2017 and demolished the small house on it. The lot is now a storage yard that Cole’s business uses to hold dirt, plants and other material.

Shrimplin, 86, and her daughter, Brenda Dukes, say that Cole’s operations have drastically altered the character of Pine Street. They complain of noise that often continues deep into the night, harsh lighting that penetrates their windows and water from sprinklers splashing into their vehicles. The women say they often find Cole’s heavy equipment parked in front of their property, sometimes blocking entry or exit.

Tina Murray, who lives adjacent to Cole, regularly appears at Auburndale City Commission meetings to complain about his commercial activities. Among her other complaints, Murray said that Cole’s “excessive watering” has flooded neighboring yards and the street, causing a buildup of mud that requires regular removal.

“Nicholos Cole has taken a quiet, peaceful residential neighborhood and turned it into a war zone,” Murray said by email. “He runs his business all hours of the day and night with no respect for the surrounding neighbors, and at night is when he does things against code when there’s no one to watch him. He’s turned the street into an airport runway with the lighting that lights up not just the streets but the neighbor’s houses and yards, so there’s no privacy.”

Murray and some Pine Street neighbors question why Auburndale has allowed Cole to expand his business activities onto residential lots. For its part, the city has cited Cole for code-enforcement violations going back at least nine years, and in June a special magistrate gave the city permission to pursue foreclosure on his home to recover liens of $1.8 million.

Auburndale City Attorney Frederick J. Murphy Jr. filed documents July 12 in Polk County Circuit Court to start the process of foreclosure on three properties owned by Cole.

The foreclosure action is intended to spur a violator into compliance with city regulations rather than to take away properties, Auburndale City Manager Jeff Tillman said. If the defendant refuses to pay the pending liens, though, the city can seek to have a property sold and collect the proceeds.

Cole vows to fight the city over the foreclosures.

Business keeps spreading

Cole and his partner, Jessica Hall, purchased their three-bedroom home on Pine Street in 2007. The following year, Cole received a Polk County business license for 4 Leaf Lawn Care, listing his home address as the office. He filed papers with the state to incorporate the business in 2014.

He added a second business, More Than Mulch, in 2019, listing its principal address as 511 Pine St.

Since 2014, Cole has acquired four more properties on Pine Street. Two years ago, he received permits from the city to demolish small houses on two of the lots he had purchased for a combined $13,500. A third house, a Cracker-style cottage dating to 1938 and formerly at 512 Pine St., is also gone, and another next door has been gutted to serve as a storage building.

On the west side of the street, Cole has converted adjacent lots into storage and staging areas. An occupied house, not owned by Cole and Hall, is sandwiched between that parcel and another to the south at 516 Pine St. On a recent day, that single lot bore a trailer, along with other equipment and mounds of dirt.

Of the five properties Cole owns on the road, only the double lot at 511-513 Pine St. is zoned commercial highway. Commercial highway zoning allows uses ranging from restaurants and retail shops to banks and retail alcohol sales.

The two tracts that Cole uses for his business on the west side of Pine Street, one of them a double lot, are zoned single-family residential. The city’s land-use code offers detailed descriptions of what activities are permitted on such properties, prohibiting any retail business and allowing “only minor and incidental retail sales,” with no roadside stands or signs permitted.

Any uses of such properties may not attract visitors in larger numbers than would normally be expected in a residential neighborhood. The city code forbids operations or structures “not in keeping with the character of a single-family detached residential neighborhood.” The regulations also prohibit the storage or long-term parking of commercial or industrial vehicles.

Cole said that he received oral approval from the “previous regime” in the Auburndale building inspection and planning departments for everything he has done on his properties. He said he regularly consulted with Mickey Matison, a building official who retired in 2019.

“We're not doing anything that wasn't allowed or in their coding,” Cole said. “Prior to doing said things, all of those codes were discussed prior to the purchases of those particular properties.”

The code enforcement fines against Cole, however, began in 2015, well before the hiring of the current staff.

Pine Street, a zoning oddity

Despite being in conflict, Cole and Murray agree on one point: Pine Street is a zoning oddity. Some lots that hold small homes, just north of Cole’s business, are zoned as commercial highway. To the east of Pine Street, separated by a service road, lie a self-storage business and a residential treatment center.

Records show that the Auburndale City Commission adopted an ordinance in 2003 changing the zoning on three parcels, including the one now occupied by 4 Leaf Lawn Care, from single-family residential to commercial highway. According to Cole, the city revised the zoning because Publix Super Markets sought to build a store on the south side of U.S. 92. Publix wound up opening a store instead at a former Kash ‘n Karry site on Havendale Boulevard, and the zoning on Pine Street remained unchanged.

Auburndale Community Development Director Julie Womble said that she could not confirm that history, as the rezoning took place well before her tenure with the city.

While Cole says he is merely operating under zoning regulations the city set for his property, Murray accuses city officials of losing control of Pine Street and allowing Cole to transform it into a de facto commercial street.

“We definitely hear the residents’ concerns, and we are aware and we have a duty to enforce the code,” Tillman said. “There’s the issue there to where code enforcement is intended to correct property rights, and it's not intended to take people's property.”

Tillman said there is no other location in Auburndale that has such a conflict between residents and a nearby business.

Neighbors share grievances

Murray’s adult son, John Murray, has lived in the house since 2004, and Tina has resided with him since 2022. Tina Murray regularly appears at City Commission, using the public comment period to remind commissioners of the apparent violations and implore them to take action.

The dispute between the Murrays and their neighbors, Cole and Hall, contains personal dimensions that go beyond complaints about Cole’s business activities, dating to early 2023. At one point last year, Tina Murray petitioned for a restraining order against Cole, citing alleged verbal threats from Hall, among other complaints. A judge denied the injunction.

John Murray, who has chronic mental illness, now spends much of his time away from his home to avoid the noise and harsh lights from Cole’s adjacent property. Tina Murray is recovering from surgery and said that the commotion has affected her health.

Shrimplin’s daughter, Dukes, said that Cole or his employees drive loud machinery up and down the street as late as 1 a.m. At a May 7 meeting, Dukes told city commissioners that Cole “has no consideration for the other neighbors that live around him.”

Auburndale’s noise ordinance bars the emission of sounds “of such duration, volume or intensity as to unreasonably interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life, property or the conduct of business.”

Cole said that he has asked the city to come and measure the decibel level of his operations but was told that Auburndale does not own a decibel meter. The ordinance, though, does not specify decibel levels.

The city code permits citrus groves, plant nurseries and other agricultural uses on single-family residential lots, provided that only “minor and incidental retail sales” occur. Cole said it is no more of a violation for him to use heavy machinery on his small lots as it would be for someone to employ it in a large citrus grove or nursery.

The city regulations do not mention such activities, though, and prohibit “operations or structures not in keeping with the character of a single-family detached residential neighborhood.” Womble, the community development director, said that Cole is misinterpreting the zoning rules.

Murray said that most neighbors are not willing to speak publicly about Cole's activities. Other than Shrimplin and Dukes, no residents agreed to be interviewed.

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“Everybody seems to be afraid of him or something,” Shrimplin said.

Cole insisted that he has never sought to create a disturbance or to inconvenience other residents of Pine Street.

“I have no ill will or plan to have any malicious intent or anything (for a) disturbance or bother or pester for them or any other neighbor on my street, for that matter,” he said.

More cop calls from Pine Street than from Walmart

According to Murray, an Auburndale Police officer told her that the agency responds more often to calls from Pine Street than from Walmart. She said an officer told her the agency will now only respond to 911 calls from the street, though Police Chief Terry Storie said that is not true.

Records requested by The Ledger show that the Auburndale Police Department has responded to more than 300 calls from addresses on Pine Street since the start of 2023, though those are not limited to the stretch where Cole has his businesses. The agency has received more than 30 calls this year from addresses on that strip.

As his business has expanded, Cole has often parked trucks, trailers and other equipment on the right-of-way along both sides of Pine Street. Last year, the city erected “No parking any time” signs on the grassy strips along the street.

Cole cited the signs as an example of what he considers Auburndale’s “retaliation” against him. He said parking on the right-of-way is not illegal and questions why the city installed the signs on Pine Street.

Murray, though, accuses the Auburndale Police Department of failing to ticket Cole for regularly parking vehicles in the no-parking zones.

Some residents have filed criminal complaints against Cole. He faces charges of harassment, disorderly conduct and stalking. In the latter case, from last year, a Pine Street resident (not Tina Murray) claimed that Cole stalked and harassed her and her 10-year-old daughter after the woman complained to code enforcement and Auburndale police about Cole deliberately parking vehicles in front of their home. That practice prevented mail delivery and trash pickup, the police affidavit said.

The resident accused Cole vowing to make her life miserable, saying he would “beat her ass” if she called the police again and directed racial slurs at her.

In the disorderly conduct case, Murray and two other residents attested in August 2023 to being bothered by the mechanical chime at Cole’s business. The noise had been occurring at the time for six months, according to an affidavit from the Auburndale Police Department.

A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 20 on all three cases before Polk County Judge Bob Grode.

City considers foreclosure

Though it is uncommon, Auburndale sought foreclosure in 2021 on a property at 113 McKean St. The house had accrued a lien of $1.6 million for code-enforcement violations, and the owner died without a will in 2019.

A court ordered a foreclosure sale, and the neglected house has been replaced by one now on the tax rolls, said Tillman, the city manager.

Auburndale officials presented four foreclosure cases involving Cole’s properties during a Code Compliance Special Magistrate Hearing on June 20. Special Magistrate Elle Slattery ruled that the city was authorized to move forward with the foreclosure actions.

The fines derive from a variety of violations, starting with the installation of a pool without a permit in 2015. Other citations are for high grass and weeds; junk, trash and debris; prohibited structures; and off-street parking. The fines have been upheld in previous magistrate hearings. The fines have accumulated into liens totaling more than $1.8 million.

At the same hearing, Slattery ruled that Auburndale could impose fines of about $120,000 for the ongoing violations, including the presence of an unpermitted structure. Cole’s lawyer, Brent Geohagan, argued that Auburndale was engaging in selective enforcement of codes that amounted to harassment of Cole.

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Citing both Cole and Hall’s residence and the lot occupied by the lawn business, the city's foreclosure complaint states: “The failure to maintain the Property has eroded the Property's condition and, more importantly, due to the historical pattern of continuous property maintenance violation(s) and lack of required prompt code-compliant remediation, has led to the imposition of multiple municipal code enforcement liens.”

The complaint includes four counts — two seeking to foreclose liens and two seeking the recovery of the city’s costs for code-enforcement actions and legal fees. The filing asks the judge to order the sale of Cole’s property if the liens are not paid.

Murray said she has no confidence that the potential foreclosure action will solve the problem. She predicted that if Cole loses one his other properties, he will concentrate his commercial activity on his remaining lots.

'I guess maybe I don't confine to their ideal'

The citation for installing a pool without a permit makes no sense, Cole said, claiming he has a permit issued by the city. He said he completed construction of the in-ground pool after a contractor abandoned the job.

Cole suggested that city officials have singled him out for aggressive code enforcement and seem determined to shut down his business.

“I guess maybe I don't confine to their ideal,” he said. “I have no idea. That would be a them question, not a me question.”

Tillman denied that Auburndale officials have singled out Cole for tougher enforcement. He said the city’s staff has a responsibility to act upon the complaints it receives.

Neither Cole nor Murray foresees a positive resolution to the clash on Pine Street.

“Unfortunately, there's no positive that's going to come out of this,” Cole said. “This is just (the city) taken and stolen my children's inheritance. That's what the city is trying to do.”

Murray said she believes that Cole is seeking to make life so miserable for Pine Street residents that they will sell their properties to him for a fraction of what they are worth.

“I will gladly sell him this house,” she said. “But it won’t be a steal; it’ll be at market price.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.