ONE YEAR LATER: Former Crestview pond is now a meadow

This gentle stream was once Grandview Pond until a dam collapsed after the April 30, 2014 flooding.

CRESTVIEW — Okaloosa County crews repaired a serious washout in Grandview Drive within two months of the April 29-30, 2014, storm.

But discussion within the Grandview Heights homeowners' association has yet to produce a decision to repair the dam that failed that morning, draining the lake.

Today, the former Grandview Pond, known as Lake Fred on some maps, is a green wetland and meadow with a stream trickling through it. A gaping hole remains on the dam's south end.

Some former lakefront homes now overlook the meadow, while neighbors a few doors down still have lakefront property, being on the opposite side of the failed dam and facing neighboring Stafford Lake.

With no solution yet in sight, Mapquest.com removed Grandview Pond from its online map.

Not all residents are happy with a January assessment made throughout the development to raise funds to repair the dam. Some are withholding payment until all residents are granted access to the pond.

"They assessed us nearly $400 per lot," resident Nancy Sparagowski said. "The bad part of it is, only the people who live on the lake have access. The HOA tried to feed us the line that the lake will improve everyone's property values."

Although a peninsula reached into the pond, a lack of parking made access problematic for residents who wanted to fish from it.

Sparagowski, who, with her husband Kevin and son Ethan, don't have lakefront property, said her family paid the fee, but not willingly.

"Many of us are upset over the fee and the fact that we're fixing a lake just for the people that live on it," she said. "We were under the impression that a portion of our homeowner dues were going toward dam maintenance."

HOA officers contacted for this story did not return calls.

Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at brianh@crestviewbulletin.com, follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ONE YEAR LATER: Former Crestview pond is now a meadow