No.

What is the Difference Between Amenity Fees and Maintenance Fees? Amenity Fees are collected with the
monthly utility bills to fund expenses (including operations, maintenance, new recreation facilities and payment of bonds to purchase the recreation facilities) in the Recreation Amenities Division (RAD) Budget (north of CR 466) and the Sumter Landing Amenities Division (SLAD) Budget (south of CR 466.) These budgets are administered by the VCCDD/AAC and SLCDD/ PWAC. Amenity Fees also pay for such amenity services such as Community Watch (patrols,gates, etc.) Postal facilities, Public Safety facilities (fire stations), and Administration (District staff and facilities.)
Non Ad-valorem Maintenance Assessments are paid annually with the property owners’ county property taxes, and are set annually by each Community Development District (CDD) based on budgetary needs. Annual maintenance budgets are established and managed by each CDD to pay for routine maintenance items such as villa roads (all roads in CDD 4), flowers, landscaping, etc.. The annual maintenance fees vary from CDD to CDD. In addition, a percentage of each CDD’s (5-11) are allocated to PWAC for identified shared infrastructure maintenance, such as multi-modal paths. Each CDD 1-4 pays individually for all maintenance expenses.

I really think the developer is “sandbagging” the number of homes and population. I’ve lived here almost 13 years and the number of residents has supposedly gone up only 10,000? Find that hard to believe with all the building south off 466A, 44, into Fruitland Park and now more discussion of increased building in Lake County.

During the last 10 years, the Developer has built approximately 2500 to 4000 new homes each year. The actual number of homes built each year is easily found. If we assume the lower range then we are talking about 50,000 new residents in the last 10 years. Some of those are obviously not full time residents. The Developer has never been shy about touting the fact that The Villages is one of the fastest growing areas of the country. I don't know where you got a figure of 10,000 from.

I agree. And like many others I find that obtaining tee times, especially during high ‘bird season, to be extremely frustrating at times.

But realistically in my opinion the causes of poor executive course conditions, aside from poor maintenance which seems to be a common issue, are heavy traffic, players not following rules regarding course access, and failure to engage in common-sense actions such as filling divots, raking traps and repairing ball marks. The first issue can only be controlled by limiting access, and stretching tee times a bit seems to be a good, rather innocuous way of accomplishing that. The two latter ones of course can be solved by course personnel if they really decide to do it, which to date they seem extremely reluctant to do.

In essence there is no one answer. Even far more rigorous course upkeep would be negated in part by careless and/or destructive players. In any case it is not going to be an overnight fix and it’s a given that some hackles are going to be raised by whatever measures are taken.

Better Management Will Improve Exec Golf Course Conditions
 

The Village's Executive Golf Course management must do a better job of establishing priorities so that their current budget and personnel maintain better conditions. The golfers have identified the things that must be better cared for, so Villages Management knows what to focus on. I've witnessed that the money that they spend renovating golf courses is spent very frivolously. Rather than shutting down a golf course for many months to completely rebuild Tees and Greens, they should close the course for 1 month to renovate the existing course, plus make limited changes that can be completed within that time span at a very limited budget. This is not a budget issue . . . Throwing more money at something doesn't improve it.

See post #7.
Give then a call……let us know their response.

When I reported some really shocking, deliberate, destruction to a green and to a sand trap, and after watching countless times while people ENTERED and EXITED a trap at the highest level (actually the most awkward way it could be done), and watched people DRAG a metal flag pole over the putting surface, and then STEP on the edge of the hole, I decided to VERY politely, calmly, and respectfully report to the golf offices that I have observed "ambassadors" just sit on their carts and watch destruction of the courses and never issue a single word of warning. People who, if they committed the same "offenses" at their home clubs, would receive a stern warning, and ultimately a 30 day suspension of memberships rights even though a paid member, don't even get a verbal warning here (maybe some do but I've been here a long time now and never seen anyone taken to task.. even when parking a cart ON the green !) Here they do NOT appreciate any reporting, even if done in a very respectful way to be helpful. I was told "THAT is exactly why we have "ambassadors" and NOT "marshals", we want our guests to be welcomed, not monitored." Oh, well, okay, NOW I understand, people are paid, I know, not very well paid, but paid, to be pleasant and hand out water, a VERY nice thing, but not to prevent intention destruction and correct clueless golfers ? How hard would it be to explain to a "golfer", a trap is NOT exited by putting a foot on the ledge and bringing the entire thing down, turf and sand ? How hard is it to explain, "PLEASE, when removing a pin, do NOT step on the edge of the cup" ?

Any yet, you will still have to pay your amenities AND have to pay at the "other place" you find, and (probably) even have to rent a cart there (wherever you decide to go ) since it is probably will not allow you to take your own cart... so it's not a "win-win", it's a "lose-lose". But I guess it is possible, there are thousands who live here and have never played a round of golf, so apparently most feel their amenity fees are a value just for the recreation buildings, pools, flower gardens, pickle-ball courts, etc. etc. etc. Still, I don't see an additional charge coming for access to, or upkeep on, the executive length courses ! I HOPE I am right in this "guess" !

Shame on you... you KNOW that is way too logical, and, if I might add, not nearly as PROFITABLE as building more homes and fewer golf courses. Come to think of it, if someone built a small community, and offered a nice community pool for the residents, would the profit plan include building a second pool when the first became constantly crowded as the community gained more and more residents ? A LOT of people move here just "assuming" a LOT of things, I am one of them, but "assumptions" can be dangerously disappointing !

Is one of the thing's you're assuming is that they're not building any more golf courses?

Watch GoldWing Nut's latest video. He shows the development south of 44 just 2 1/2 years ago compared to today. Southern Oaks was barely started. The Pitch & Putt and Putting course were just a pipe dream.

They are currently farther along on the new Executive and Championship courses on the far side of the Southern Oaks bridge, with more being planned...

Not claiming otherwise, but, according to some websites with statistical data on Florida weather, 2010 was the driest ever recorded. Then in 2011, the 80 year record for driest winter season was finally broken, and still stands today. Don't know who is "right", but certainly agree this winter is at least one of the driest this native Floridian can remember ! And 2010 and 2011, being back to back record droughts, was a killer period, that I do remember well !

I was at LSL last week for some band.

I noticed how the event staff are very firm about keeping paths open, moving people in/out of the square. Most of it is for safety, but they enforce the rules.
I wondered why the ambassadors cant enforce the rules on the golf courses?
If I am considering buying a home here, I would appreciate it if the ambassador had pride in the course and corrected something I did.

Wait for the aeration schedules to start up. You’ll again “read” how golfers appreciate (bitch) about this necessary maintenance to try and keep these courses up. I see very few people taking care of our exec courses like they did their home courses. The tee boxes are full of gouges, greens covers in unrepaired ball marks. Fill a divot or two, repair your ball marks. If just 1/2 the people would fix their divot/ball mark plus one more there wouldn’t be any unrepaired left and these courses would stay in much better shape.

Well, it took 4+ pages of comments to finally recognize that golfers are part of the problem: tearing up the tee boxes, driving on the fairways unnecessarily, not repairing ball marks on greens, and not raking the sand traps properly.

The trail fees aren't for walkers. They're for those driving carts. Amenity fees take care of course maintenance.

Discourteous golfers and the drought hurt the course the most, as well as workers not doing their jobs properly.

Assess points to the bad golfers. ������

Absolutely NOT !!!! That’s what’s wrong these days. Everyone seems to believe that throwing more money solves all problems. It will be just like our Federal Tax system that we seem to be paying more and more for sub standard services. The courses that have issues will still have issues and Tee time availability will not get any better. Common sense.