Deltona city leaders want to help lakefront homeowners save their lakes by creating taxing districts to clean up some of them.
Homeowners living near Lake McGarity and Big Lake say they want to save what's left of their lakes and are asking the city to clean up aquatic plants.
"It's bad enough residents are asking, ‘Hey we need help to get this cleaned up,’" said Deltona spokesman Lee Lopez.
Most, if not all, Deltona residents living in front of a lake pay lakefront property taxes.
City leaders want to create taxing districts to help homeowners who want to save their lakes.
The cost to clean up those plants is an additional $1,000 per property owner.
But Barbara Ash says she has very little lake left, that it's mostly overgrown brush, weeds and trees.
Ash says it’s too late to clean up aquatic plants around Lake Teresa, where she and others live.
"We're being charged for lakefront property and we do not have lakefront property. We've asked to have lakes cleared so that we would continue to have water here, and the city refuses to do that," said Ash.
Deltona has several lakes and Lopez says 14 other communities are standing by to see how the cleanup of aquatic plants works out before they too sign up for the city's help aimed at saving lakefront properties.
Ash says she will not be one of the lakefront property homeowners signing up for that help.