You may have seen Bokors Corner on Facebook. The man behind the page is local resident Brian Bokor.
Bokors Corner started as (and still is) a personal hobby for Bokor; a place for him to keep track of all the local community growth taking place. It is for his personal use, but as it is all public record (no confidential information), he graciously shares his finds with the community.
Born in Chicago, IL, Bokor grew up in Charlotte, NC and graduated from North Carolina State University in 1986. He worked for Allstate Insurance as a Financial Analyst for 15 years and then opened up a Real Estate Appraisal firm in 2003 with his wife, Sharon, who is both an appraiser and a real estate broker. With the development boom of the current market, her focus has been specializing in assemblage of vacant land.
Bokor has his reasons for wanting to be in the know. “Being an appraiser by trade, it made sense for me to know what was being built behind my property and how it could impact my future property values. I then visited with my neighbors and asked anyone if they knew that an 81-unit apartment complex had been proposed in our backyard, to which all of them said ‘No.’ That’s when the bell went off in my head.”
Their current home was built by his father-in-law in 1996. “I moved to the area in 1997. Our first home was in Bloomingdale East, so we are very familiar with all the changes that have taken place since then,” Bokor noted.
Bokor feels that that all this new construction is a double-edged sword. “Some really good jobs are coming to the area along with a lot of general employment that is being created by all the new services, restaurants, shops, etc. I’d much rather live in an area where new growth is occurring versus a part of town where shops are closing and strip malls are half full.”
He did note that the flip side is the increased traffic that all these new services bring. “It’s inevitable; it’s despised by 100 percent and it’s dangerous. I feel for those that have to commute to and from Tampa on a daily basis.”
He agrees that the growth is absolutely necessary, but overgrowth can become restrictive on its residents. He added that everyone has access to the information he currently supplies, although it can be daunting trying to find it.
Bokor visits the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser site (www.hcpafl.org), which gives you owner info, property location and current use, size of parcel and more.
“If you can find those little yellow signs on the project site, they will have the rezoning or file or application number for that specific project listed. This is when you would need to go to the Rezoning, Plans and Permit Information (PGM) Store website to do further research at ‘www.hillsboroughcounty.org/en and search ‘PGM.’”
He notes that sometimes you have to dig through several file folders in order to find the information you might be looking for.
Bokor loves the interaction with those who use his Facebook page. If you see something while you are driving around the community, let him know and he will find out what is going on. Like Bokors Corner at www.facebook.com/bokorscorner/.
