Tee Time and Trail Pass Service Agreement
 

The VCDD meeting on November 1 will change the service agreement between the various owners of the golf courses to consolidate and appropriate revenue between the various owners. This will most likely change how we pay for the trail passes and possible changes to the tee time reservations. The cover sheet and the agreement can be found at Coversheet.

So now priority members will now have to pay an additional $140 per year to play exec courses. A post on Next door encouraged folks to attend the PWAC meeting on Nov 8 at 830 am at Seabreeze where this will be discussed. After reading this I’m not sure whether this plan is open for debate.

There are several items in the agreement as written that are not in the best interest of the residents that will be discussed at the Monday PWAC meeting. I have my copy of agreement marked up with the issues and am ready to go to bat to protect the resident's interest.

As written, I cannot support the approval of the agreement. PWAC could (and should) not approve it as written. Of course, SLCDD could approve it as written marking the first time they have ever overridden the PWAC. With this however goes them owning it lock, stock, and barrel as well as the wrath of the residents, something I doubt they really want. SLCDD likes having the PWAC buffer between them and the residents.

We shall see how this turns out.

Any chance you could elaborate on the points you see as unacceptable. I don't like to see the trail fee's removed from the priority membership, unless the cost of a priority membership is reduced. Not sure if that is what was said in the cover letter.

Thanks for those great YouTube drone videos by the way.

Interesting read. I view some proposed changes as favorable to residents and others not so much. One thing that seems to really jump out is that the convoluted ownership and governing structure has so many involved parties, with different acronyms, it is extremely difficult for residents to really have a full understanding of what’s going on. My suspicion tells me this is all part of the master plan, to avoid transparency and allow carte blanche control.

Good to hear Goldwingnut.

What I find interesting is that the executive courses south of 44 will not be owned by a special purpose government like VCCDD. They will be owned by various villages companies.

You go Wingnut!

$
 

Money hassle between The Villages (Morse) and the VCDD?

It's always that way. The developer will continue to own the executive courses and all rec centers and recreation facilities for probably another decade. There comes a point where they will sell them to a governmental body (commercial district usually and for many good reasons). While they are building an area, they continue own the recreation facilities. Best logical guess, once building is completed to 470 and all work is south of it, then they will sell it to the Eastport Community Development District.

Amenities between CR466 and SR44 did not become owned by a government body (SLCDD) until 2016 when construction started south of SR44.

Don't worry about the ownership, it doesn't affect the play or use thanks to the agreements that are in place.

Golf Fees
 

I rarely, if ever, play executive courses so I would rather not pay a trail fee for those courses, just pay the $6 per round if I were to play. Just like I'm not a fan of having to pay country club pool membership in my priority fee when I never use the pools.

Thanks
 

Goldwingnut, thanks for your service representing the residents of The Villages. In the past you have been a strong proponent of ensuring The Villages remains "The Villages" and not The Villages - Original and Everyone else. I feel it is important and one of the great strengths of The Villages, to maintain our All For One and One For All makes up. Whether this is about the same amenity fee, the same trail fee or even the same access to all of what The Villages has to offer. Not something where we are divided for our own interests. If we divide ourselves and lose the continuity, we become just like all the other separate communities outside of The Villages.

While it may be true that someone from the very southern area of The Villages may not go to facilities and services on the very northern end or vice versa, the fact they CAN (on a golf cart even) and without anything special is what makes The Villages special and unique.

Thanks again for your service.

More fees
 

And it looks like the agreement will include a new, and escalating, reservation fee for most tee times.

Thanks for looking out for the little man, Don.
:bigbow::bigbow:

Basically they’re coming for your money!!!
 

:ohdear: the Parties agree that they shall work together in good faith to establish a uniform charge for Trail Passes, together with annual increases thereto equal to the cumulative change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers over the twelve-month period that is between three and fifteen months prior to the annual increase. :boom:

If I recall correctly, free executive golf for life used to be totally free (not counting the monthly amenity fee) if you played using your cart. Since Executive golf was covered by each homeowners amenity fee, it was treated as such, just like using any other Villages amenity, such as a pool, pickle ball court, or walking trail. Then one day, a trail fee of $1 was introduced, which over time escalated to $4. Now it appears an escalating fee increase will be applied based on an inflation index, similar to our amenity fees. Since there is no fee to residents to reserve an executive t time, I am assuming the fee will be applied to the trail fee?

So now a very dangerous precedent appears to have been set. A user fee, with an escalation clause, has been applied to a previously free and very popular resident amenity. What’s next, will there be a user fee applied to residents every time they swim in a pool, use a pickle ball court, or bike/walk on a recreation trail? Perhaps a gps mileage monitor on our golf carts to charge us for using the multi modal paths? The trail fee really clouds the picture on what exactly our amenity fees actually cover. Stay tuned.

Just pay it. No need to weep. Before the books are burned by the woke, reread the story about the golden goose
Enjoy life. Cant take it $ with you

Just to be clear on what is in the proposed agreement, the CPI adjustments are on the fees charged by the provider (The Villages Operating Company) of the Reservation Service and the Trail Pass Service that will be charged to the VCCDD/RAD and SLCDD/SLAD ($220K and $7200 annually, respectively), not the residents. This is the software and computer hardware to operate the reservation system and a new service to allow on-line payment of the annual trail fee (and hopefully a reminder system).

This will currently not have an impact on the fees charged the residents for the annual/simi-annual/monthly/daily trail fees. Perhaps down the road trail fees may have to be increased, but that will be due mainly to the increased costs of maintaining the executive courses cause by cart damage/wear and tear.

Over the years cart damage to the courses have increased mainly in the areas around the greens, this was the reason for the recent change in the Reasonable Accommodations policy (it was abused). The executive golf division keeps track of the damages and locations to determine trends.

With respect to the change in the Championship Course Priority Membership policy for Executive Course Trail Fees, a discount is usually given to an entity in return for something of comparable or perceived value. In this case the SLAD/RAD received nothing in return for a significant discount provided (perhaps a holdover from when the developer ran and controlled everything), only reduced revenues. The documents do not state how the Priority Membership fee will be affected; it only states the discount given to the developer will be discounted. How the developer addresses the cost change is up to them. The have several options, they could pay the SLAD/RAD the full fee and either raise the priority fee accordingly or keep it the same, they could remove the Executive Course Trail Fee from the Priority Membership and adjust the cost to the end user or not. Again, how it is addressed on the Priority Membership side is entirely their decision, not the SLAD/RAD.

Executive golf is still free and there are no plans that I am aware of to change that. It is the use of the golf cart that is not free. Walk, most of us could use it.

Some here assume a conspiracy is in play to screw over the residents, there is not. These are contract changes that address continued cost increases that for many years have been ignored, they also are providing an avenue for improvements in the systems to better serve the residents. Improvements however cost and there was no instrument in place to pay for or compensate for the additional costs, with this there will be.

It's not a perfect document, there are issues with the cost and revenue sharing calculations as well as data ownership that will be addressed tomorrow morning.

Is this a good time to discuss improving the online tee time system to a real-time model that allows same day reservations. You cannot make a tee time for the evening wave now that we are off daylight savings time and as I understand it, say you want to play 9 holes in the evening wave time frame, you have to call the championship course the same day to see if you can, and they have no way of knowing until almost 3pm. Why not let people specify 9 or 18 holes when they make reservations online?
It might increase revenue.

It is not unusual for some to spew conspiracy plots by the big bad developer when they do no research of their own even though most have too much free time on their hands. It really does get old.

This would all be on the Championship course side of things, if they wanted to add such upgrades to the system I would have to fight against any cost or cost increase because it would benefit only the developer owned side of the equation and not the amenity fee supported side. But, I do agree with you, these are good ideas.

same day applies to executive courses. You have to call around looking for a spot. if you could look online it would be great. They could reduce headcount.