Quote:
Originally Posted by friartax
All villages amenities are subject to ID checks. The only place I've seen large numbers of non-Villagers has been at the Tiki Bar at OBH during Karaoke. Of course, the Tiki Bar is open to the public, but the pool is not. As far as the streets--not one street in Lady Lake is maintained by assessment fees, nor is the bridge. All are open to the public. Apparently Morse screwed up years ago and has been trying to make up for it ever since. Why else do we not have golf cart access to 5 Guys, Kohls, Home Depot, Sam's? All we would have to do is cross 35mph streets, which is certainly allowed by the State, but The Developer opposes it! Come to Monday's meeting and get the answers to these question! By the way, the golf cart bridge crosses a Federal/state highway. I'll bet that any access over, under, or across a fed/st highway must be open to the public.
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You are correct about the public access. The Villages was built using tax free bonds. To do that it need to be classified in a way that allowed it to issue those bonds thus making it pretty much like any other city. This means that you cannot restrict access based on residential location. You cannot do this any more then Ocala can but up gates restricting outside access to their residential streets. I'm sorry some of the Villagers are upset about that and what they wrongly perceive as hordes of outsiders using their swimming pools, etc. Its just not happening. There probably is a solution however. Don't know if it would work or can be done. The Villages could call all those bonds, pay back the $400 million plus, reclassify the development and you could built a twenty foot wall around the whole complex. But I will tell you this doing so will not reduce any of the property taxes you pay to the county.
Another suggestion is to issue a trail sticker for any Golf Cart that uses the paths. You will not be able to restrict sale of those sticker to only Village residents but you would gain revenue from people that are not residents that use the paths. I do believe that would be within the authority of The Villages.
I could be wrong on these suggestions for what do I know I'm just a lowly outsider.