[dddave]

do apologize for using the term "darker realities".However, I am constantly amazed at the color blindness of many Villagers - everything is either black or white - all or nothing - if you don't like one thing about The Villages, leave. Don't you see the beautiful shades of gray in between? Perhaps I should have said, "The less than lily white realities".

You might not believe this but I think There is no better place in Florida for retirees to live and play. However, like all human endeavors, The Villages is not perfect. (I personally hope that i will see real perfection a few seconds after my last breath). But in our current, imperfect world, if we see something that can be done or made better, I think we have a responsibility to, at least point it out to others. If they see it as we do, great. If they don't that is okay too. At least we know their position and solution, and they know ours.

However, the solution is not to ask your antagonist (me), "Please leave because I don't agree with you."

I would like to respond paragraph by paragraph:

Paragraphs 1 and 2 - Many of us who have lived in communities with deed restrictions before, sought a similar place to live.

I too have lived in many deed restricted places. However, in my view, it is not restrictions that make the community a nice place to live; It's how they are interpreted and applied. In my experience, it's the communities where the restrictions are poorly enforced, that your see "plywood bend over ladies."

Paragraph 3: I challenge this posters use of the words "darker realities". Many of us want to live where there is control of plywood bend over ladies and rather enjoy having the sameness in architecture as opposed to someone whose creativity is waaaaaaaaay out there living next door in a failed Frank Lloyd Wright Falling Water attempt.

I have already apologized for my "reality" jab. What I have said in my critique, is based on personal experience. And I will admit that a reasonable amount of these experiences was due to my own lack of pre-planning. That being said, of the 10s of thousands of people who are going to move into the expanding Villages in the future, many will be doing so with the same lack of diligence and planning as I did. I would have welcomed the advice I have given here. Not that it would have been a deal breaker - I still would have bought. But I would have dealt with the "realities' much better. This thread began with the idea of r thread began with the idea of advising pre-buyers of things to know about before they bought. My input as valid as recommending not to waste time with water softener salespeople.

As far as your enjoyment of the sameness of Village architecture, that is a qualitative and esthetical call on your part. Yes. there are folks who do like it and folks that don't. Neither one is wrong. But it feels to me that your position is not based on esthetics, but the fear of the morbidly creative "rabble" trying to burst "The Bubble" and create a dystopia where we now live.

Paragraph 4. If there were a someone or a band of someones who policed deed restriction infringements that would cost the CDD. Maybe not much, but the very beauty of how this place is run includes not wasting money on thousands of things and salaries that add up to a lot of taxes and fees.


Point well taken, but the reality is that the current deed violation inspector(s) is an anonymous and volunteer committee of "one." In every deed-restricted community I have lived, the "Inspectors" were a sub-committee of the HOA board. They did the inspecting; they wrote violation notifications and they advised the board on non-compliances, and recommended legal action, if and only if numerous attempts to reason had failed. Every community member knew who was on this sub-committee. If the violator wanted to appeal their ruling he or she could do so in front of the board and, with the deed compliance committee present to support their case. Like all human developed system it had its flaws. Yes, violators would on rare occasions get physical with committee members. However, the community usually got behind the committee and, for fear of being socially ostracized, the offender would removed his car with the cinderblock tires.

Paragraph Last: If a person finds out that the deed restrictions are unbearable, that person can easily sell his/her home and move where there is freedom to embellish his/her property. The movers are cheaper here in Florida and the opportunities to live in an area without deed restrictions are endless. Look for a neighborhood with numerous outbuildings and rusting vehicles.

I addressed part of this in my first paragraph. Let me end by saying, I bought a house in The Villages. I like it here. I choose not to move. I have the freedom, like every American to live here and to express my views about "here". Ths is my community as well as yours. I will submit to you, Mam, that, if you do not like neighbors who loudly voice displeasure at some of the "realities" in The Villages, that you move. Move to a community of silence and peace and sameness and harmony, As a matter of fact I know of at least five such communities in Florida. And the cost of living would be infinitely less than The Villages. They are all called nunneries.