A developer and Cortez residents are fighting over control of the Cortez canal which residents argue is public property and they have been using it for over 30 years.
The Cortez Canal is a man-made inland canal and it is the only waterway connection to the Intracoastal Waterway for people with docs, lifts and boats.
Cortez Road Investments and Finance Inc. purchased the majority of the canal in 2016 when it bought the Hunters Point property from the Cipriani Family Trust.
The environmental resource permit allows CRIF to build 32 new docks and replace 17 existing ones in the Hunters Point surroundings, according to the Anna Maria Island Sun.
These docks are part of the CRIF and Hunters Point project to develop 86 net-zero homes in the land part of the canal.
Marshall Gobuty is the president of CRIF and said they have already built the docks.
“They were approved by the DEP and SWIFTMUD, and they were finished a few months ago,” Gobuty said. “So we’re done now. We’re just building our homes and going on with life.”
However, the project has faced multiple roadblocks — including two lawsuits.
CRIF filed a civil lawsuit in May 2022 against the owners and operators of the Cortez Village Marina, which is a marina business with 19 harbors across Florida.
In 2024, Cortez Village Marina appealed CRIF’s permit to build the docks arguing the plan would restrict their clients navigation.
As a result of the appeal, Judge Morris stated that the canal would be sufficient to sustain the docks and he noted that CRIF owns the majority of the canal.
Simultaneously to the permit litigation, CRIF is still in a legal battle with five residents of the Cortez Canal over ownership of the canal.
Originally there were seven defendants but Gobuty settled with two of them.
Most of the litigation is about trespassing and they were first filed in June 2022 — a process that has been ongoing for four years.
Gobuty said his main goal in compliance is to have the residents reduce their docks to fit within their 25% portion of the canal.
“We are saying to them, ‘We’ll give you an easement. We’ll let you use the canal. We’ll give you, you know, an easement like a driveway. You know, use the canal. Have your dock. Just make it compliant with county rules that you have to be 25% in the waterway,’ and they refuse to do it,” Gobuty said.
The easement would allow the residents to use the canal for specific purposes but only under CRIF’s ownership.
A prescriptive easement grants the right to use the canal for a specific purpose without transferring full title to the user.
It is unclear if they will have to pay maintenance costs or rent.
Kim Ibasfalean is a resident at the canal whose dock was built in 1970 with her house.
She said all residents have state permits to have their docks on the canal and they have never had any issues with it before CRIF purchased it in 2016.
“We are going to fight like heck on this. This is our property. We’ve been here for a very long time,” Ibasfalean said. “We went to mediation, and we’re like, ‘Look, you take your half of the canal. We’ll take our half of the canal.’ We’re not trying to stop him from building. We just want to keep what’s ours.”
Ibasfalean claims she spent over 160 thousand dollars in lawyers and fees with costs mounting.
She also started a GoFundMe page to cover the litigation costs, and has gathered over $1,200 at the moment.
The case was supposed to go to court in May, but Gobuty parted ways with his attorneys, citing “irreconcilable differences,” according to the Florida Phoenix.
The judge postponed the trial until September.
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