Besieged by luxury buildings, a man who refuses to sell his house ended up. Too bad he has no neighbours. For about 20 years he has been living in disputes and despite the disagreements he stated to the press that “he is more determined than ever not to leave”.

His name is Orlando Capote, born in a house of Cuban immigrants who settled in Florida. In 1989, reports BBC Mundo, “this man moved with his parents to a house on a quiet and sunny street in southwest Miami.”

Capote says that years later the house turned into a sort of discord’s Apple– “The three of us bought it, my mother, my father and me.” It’s located, he explains, “down the street from Coconut Grove Dr, a few blocks from the center of Coral Gables, a city in Miami-Dade County.”

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Over the years, a construction company arrived in the area and built “another world”: luxurious buildings in The Plaza, a $600 million real estate project, the BBC points out, “including a 242-room hotel, restaurants and shops.” exclusive, high-end residential offices and apartments”.

Capote was flanked in his house by towers… Some buildings as high as 10 stories, which, according to what he stated to the British media, make it impossible for him to receive sunlight and even feel the breeze.

not an american dream

Orlando Capote, a 64-year-old engineer by profession, cannot sit in front of his house. It has no view other than “some large flowerpots from the real estate development that Capote calls ‘the coffins’,” the BBC publishes.

Capote refused to give his home to the construction company. His story is reminiscent of Carl Fredricksen, the grandfather of the movie Up.

How has luxury construction in the area progressed so much? It points out that “the Coral Gables government has given every facility to a real estate company at the expense of their rights and their access to public services that every resident of the city has.”

When that started, the meetings came, the proposals. “In 2004,” he recalls, “land acquisition began on the block where the Capotes lived.” There they began to say goodbye to their neighbors.

They took the American dream from us and gave it to the developer.

Orlando Capote

The movement of machines to tear down the houses began, says the BBC, “a year later and in 2007 there was only one building left on the block to be demolished, an old building of the town protected for its historic value, and the home of the family of Cuban immigrants”.

Representatives of the construction company approached him with an offer to acquire the property while Capote’s father was in poor health and in a hospital.

They rejected everything. His father died and some time later the real estate project came into the hands of another company, to which he also said no; though her mother hesitated. He says he consulted lawyers and they told him that “the proposal was legally inadequate”.

And it wasn’t so much an offer as a trap so the city would see we were negotiating.

Orlando Capote

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not sell the house

In 2019, the area has undergone its changes. From his home, he began to see “the massive construction of The Plaza Coral Gables and the other Agave Holdings developments.”

That year his mother died. What happened brought him to justice. He said that when his mother fell in the kitchen, medical help did not arrive in time because of the blockage caused in front of his house by neighboring buildings.

According to the BBC, this engineer “denounces that his right to access emergency services was violated when his street was cordoned off. Also that there were unnecessary adjustments in the rear service corridor that prevented his mother from being rescued. Warns that fire regulations have been violated.

Their proposals failed. They sent them away, he says painfully. Without his parents and with a house that only gets sunlight in the afternoon, Orlando says he’s not losing faith.

He is having trouble getting into his house, he regrets that his mango bush is no longer giving him fruit and he has heard, he told BBC Mundo, that he is “inches from the border of his property about to open a bar which, by law, is allowed to stay open until 2 a.m. at night.

They took away our right in a process that was not legal. Our right to light, air and visibility has been taken away from us.

Orlando Capote

The house that refuses to give up, let alone leave, took them two decades to get to, he reiterates.

Today, as years ago, despite the fact that the other side obtained the permits to reach the point that changed Capote’s life, this engineer remembers how he reacted to those who were surprised by his situation: “I make rather a deal with the devil than with a real estate developer, because the devil is going to honor his contract and you’ll never know about the developer.”