Did you attend Fruitland Park Meeting?
 

How do you all think it went?

Does anyone have any info regarding what transpired at the meeting?
Thanks!

Good writeup in today's paper.

I suspended the paper since wecare oyt of the house for now

Could someone please post a link to the article??

Thanks in advance

http://www.*******************
Its the online news site

Bogie, would you please provide a synopsis of the article since the link was removed?

Wonder why?

From a different news source
 

http://www.*******************/villa...oject-3-weeks/

"About 200 local residents filled the 99-year old Casino community center beyond capacity Thursday night to hear developers, city staff and city commissioners discuss plans to develop 1,972 new homes in the Villages of Fruitland Park, located on the Pine Ridge Dairy property along the Sumter County line at the city’s western edge.
If approved, the development will accommodate almost 4,000 new residents, nearly doubling the city’s population in the span of two years and ranking Fruitland Park as the nation’s fastest-growing city.
Fruitland Park mayor Chris Bell called the meeting to explain the development and air resident concerns. The Villages sent two of its biggest guns—Dr. Gary Lester, Vice President for Community Relations, and Gary Moyer, Vice President of Development—to help sell the project.
None of the speakers had to work hard, and the standing room only crowd applauded each presentation.
City planner Greg Beliveau, a principal at LPG Urban & Regional Planning in Mount Dora, detailed a Project Impact Analysis study his company completed two weeks ago.
The 980-acre Pine Ridge Dairy site was annexed into the city in 2006 with zoning restrictions that allowed development of 3,233 residential units on 705 acres of the site at a gross rate of 3.3 units per acre.
Changes in the county’s comprehensive growth management plan to allow such density are expected gain approval early next year, Beliveau told the group.
Current zoning restrictions on the entire Pine Ridge Dairy site limit commercial development to 173 acres and require that 72 acres be set aside for public uses such as a school, a well field and parks, and 34 acres for greenbelt.
The Villages currently plans to acquire 760 acres to build 1,972 new homes—or approximately 2.6 units per acre gross, along with three community centers, a golf course, and city administrative offices.
Beliveau’s study estimates that the Villages will pay more than $13 million in impact fees and inspection fees, building permits and the like, while the city will need to add and equip an estimated nine police officers at a cost of more than $1 million the first year and $750,000 per year annually. Improvements to the city’s water system will cost more than $3.5 million.
At project buildout—which the Villages estimates will take two years—the city will more than double its property tax revenues.
Dr. Lester, a longtime local resident who built North Lake Presbyterian Church into one of the fastest-growing Presbyterian churches in the U.S. before joining The Villages in 1999, urged the audience to trust their senses when judging the proposed project.
“A lot of developers come in from out of town with artists renderings and all kinds of promises,” Lester said. “This is a different situation. We all know each other here. My kids attended Fruitland Park Elementary School. We bump into each other in grocery stores. Villagers attend many of the churches here in Fruitland Park, and a lot of Fruitland Park children attend the Villages Charter School,” he said.
“You also know what we do,” Lester said. “We’re a known quantity. You know what our neighborhoods look like. You know how we plan things, how we maintain things, you know what our neighborhoods look like. So you know what you can expect from us,” he told the group.
Moyer, who has helped to develop more than 250 communities and is widely regarded as an expert on sustainable communities, told the group First Baptist Church approached the Villages five months ago to offer the Pine Ridge Dairy site for sale. Dr. Charles L. Roesel, who headed the First Baptist Church of Leesburg for more than 30 years, is president of Pine Ridge Dairy, Inc., which owns the site.
Moyer said city residents will have several more opportunities to air any concerns that may arise.
“If we decide to proceed with our acquisition, the city will have to amend its comp plan in public meetings, alter the zoning on the property in public meetings, and adopt a development order so that we can undertake a DRI review,” Moyer said.
“If everything goes smoothly, we should complete those processes by next summer,” Moyer said. After site-specific planning, design, engineering, and platting, The Villages of Fruitland Park could break ground—and start selling new homes—about a year from now.
But the wait—even at such an accelerated pace—will be worth it, Moyer explained.
“This project will not only pay for itself in ad valorem taxes but will generate surpluses that the city can use for the betterment of the Fruitland Park community,” Moyer said.
“There will also be additional commercial development near the project that will generate additional tax revenues as well as retail opportunities for residents,” Moyer added, “and you’ll see other developers who want to build more communities nearby.”
The Villages is expected to push the button to start the project—by closing on its acquisition of the site—in about three weeks."

From The Daily Sun
 

In First section this morning;

I have been to more of those town hall meetings than I care to remember and each and every time the developer uses the same lines as I read here.

Color me skeptical but there is an uneasiness floating in the air

I attended, and my thoughts are the same as "RUBICON" and think "ANGIEFOX10" must be connected with the Villages somehow. There were residents sitting all around me, and what i heard from them were snickers and boos when Mr Moyer, gave his speech at the residents. There were many standing, who came in late that were applauding when each of the Villages officials spoke, I doubt they were Fruitland Park residents.
Then a public meeting was 1 on 1 with individual commissioners, so not all attendees were able to hear there conversations, how strange.


My gut tells me the Fruitland Park will turn down the Villages offer of big bucks

An interesting item in the Daily Commercial said that The Villages wants all the permits and approvals to be done by Sumter County, even though the entire project is in Lake County. Is there a precedent for this anywhere in the state of Florida, building in one county while another county gives the approvals?

IMO there is a reason why TV has not built one residence in Lake County since the late 1990's, and that is they don't have all the elected officials in their pocket. Hopefully, Lake County will say no to this request if this project ever gets off the ground.



http://www.dailycommercial.com/news/...e9f18ce21.html

That sounds ugly. "in their pocket". I am so tired of this disdain toward the Morse family for no good reason.

You caught me....I'm Gary's daughter!

Ummmm If you look at my post you will notice I copied the article from the paper. I made a point of going back to edit it with quotes to indicate it was just that... a quote. I didn't give my thoughts one way or the other...

Now... leave me alone, or I will tell dad on you.

I don't understand why the residents of Fruitland Park wouldn't want to reap the benefits this project would bring to their city. It is a small portion of land that will be developed that will have a huge financial impact for them.

The curse of being an engineer. I read the whole thing and find myself wondering how you fill something beyond capacity.

They are jealous of us and aggravated at some of our very uppity behavior and they are sick of us coming in to what was their space. Some of us are good ambassadors and some of us are not.

I can't blame them.

What other explanation is there for having a big project in one county, Lake County, but wanting another county, Sumter County, to do all the approvals and permiting? Has this ever been done before in the whole state of Florida?

Glad to hear that some villagers made aXXes of themselves at the meeting.

I don't know but it may be because their operation is based in Sumter county and We are the reason for most of Sumter county's commerce. I say if Lake county doesn't want The Villages than too bad.

What if it has?

And what if it has not? Why would The Villages expect and receive this special treatment?

Why do you think it is special treatment?

Three Comments For The Naysayers
 

1. Fruitland Park would be crazy not to negotiate with The Villages with the intention of having the development of 2,000 homes with 4,000 new residents added to their tax roles. It will take decades, if ever, for "normal" development to achieve these numbers. The incremental tax revenues would fix any funding uncertainties Fruitland Park has forever!

2. The Villages reps speaking at the meeting were absolutely correct in noting that this developer is a known quantity. How they build, maintain and manage their development is clearly evident by just driving from the historic section south to CR 44. There's a reason why more than 95% of residents vote in the annual survey that they would recommend The Villages to anyone. Does it make sense to anyone that developing the dairy property piecemeal with dozens of different builders, probably over decades, would be beneficial to Fruitland Park?

3. As far as having Sumter County handle all the permitting and inspections for the property located in Lake County, what would you demand were you the developer? There is simply no way that The Lake County building department and other staffs are adequately staffed to handle the requirements of a development that will move at the pace required by the Developer. Think about it--if you were the developer, how might you react if you wanted to build 19 homes a week (the actual a pace to sell out the new property in two years), then have the Lake County building department say, "...oh, we're sorry, we're only staffed to handle 5-6 new home construction permits a week." Having the properly staffed and scaled Sumter County building department handle permitting and inspections would be a deal-killer issue were I the Developer. All Lake County has to do is authorize Sumter to do the job for these 1,972 homes only. Easy fix, but a deal killer if it doesn't get done.

bk - i agree with points 1 & 2 but hafta take exception to #3 since lake county is the county that needs the $$ received from all of those permits and inspections. and sumter county is likely not familiar with the lake county policies/procedures for permitting and inspecting [i don't know if there is a uniform way to do things between counties - but here in nj every town does something different].

perhaps the developer could convince sumter county to help train new staff for lake county if there is a uniform way of doing things among counties; or loan lake county several employees [an excellent way to get an inside look at what goes on in that office!]; or just process the work and give the fees to lake county!

Typically, the fees charged by governmental building departments basically cover their costs of operation, They're not "profit makers".

With the exception of only one large city in the U.S., no other counties or municipalities create their own building codes. There are national codes that are widely accepted for governing residential building. In the USA the main codes are the International Commercial or Residential Code [ICC/IRC], including electrical, plumbing and mechanical codes. There are a few local or state-wide amendments to codes, such as some minor requirements for hurricane protection here in Florida. But those minor amendments are widely accepted and reflected in local building codes across the state. I think the differences you cite in New Jersey are differences in staffing and the way various sized municipalities administer the building codes, not the codes themselves.

Due to ever increasing complexity and cost of developing building regulations, virtually all municipalities in the United States have chosen to adopt model codes instead. The City of Chicago remains the only municipality in America that continues to use a building code the city developed on its own as part of the Municipal Code of Chicago. My educated guess is that the Lake and Sumter county building codes read word-for-word like the national model residential building code.

So the key issue seems to be which building department is prepared to keep pace with the demands of a very large and fast-moving project? As has been noted here, if the Villages of Fruitland Park proceeds, Fruitland Park will be the fastest growing municipality in the U.S for about two years.

Look at it from the viewpoint of the Developer. They will be placing millions of dollars at risk in building this development. Their formula is pretty simple. Prior to actually starting construction, the roads and utilities are paid for from the proceeds of bond issuances. Then they build houses so fast that they don't even need construction financing. They build, sell and close so quickly that they can finance construction within the normal payment terms offered by their suppliers of the building materials they use. By the time the bill for foundations, lumber, electrical and the like is due, the house is sold and closed and the suppliers are paid from the proceeds of the new homeowner's mortgage loans.

Basically, the development can proceed without the Developer even borrowing money, so long as it proceeds at the planned pace needed to build, sell and close in their normal window of about 45 days. If anything interferes with this program, the whole development model falls apart...and could become very costly for the Developer.

Maybe the question that should be asked is, if you were the developer would you agree to proceed with this development under the aegis of the Lake County authorities, knowing that the number of building permits and inspections required will about three times the normal volume per year administered by the county building departments?

Not only isn't Lake County staffed to oversee such a project, but unless they build a temporary building department office right here in The Villages (like Sumter has done down near the Sumter County annex on CR 466), the developer and contractors would have to run all the way down to Tavares for permits and other construction-related documents. In case you're unfamiliar, that's 23 miles on US 441 during daylight hours, "in season" more than an hour each way in heavy traffic.

The way I see it, this project will only proceed if the two counties get their heads together and permit Sumter County to continue with the permitting, inspections and oversight of this expansion of The Villages. That would be pretty easy to accomplish. All that would be needed would be...

• An inter-governmental agreement that Sumter County would administer the permitting and construction of The Villages of Fruitland Park development.
• That Sumter County would perform such administration using the building codes used by Lake County, presumably the national model building codes.
• That Sumter County would enter into a "hold harmless" agreement shifting any risk of litigation involving this specific development from Lake to Sumter County.

I know that if I were the developer, there is no way I would proceed otherwise. There would be way too much risk of inadequate governmental staffing and support, regardless of what they may promise prior to starting the development. I guess we've seen how good government promises in Washington are worth haven't we?

Villages Kahuna -- thank you for your thorough and thoughtful explanation.

I am new here and apparently do not know what is going on here. Can someone explain to me why this is a matter that current Village residents would care about?

There are some on here, for whatever reason, lose all sense of logic and reason if The Villages management or the developer's name is mentioned. This is truly a character flaw with these folks who cannot even discuss issues without the ...well, I would describe it as character assassination...just simply ignoring the facts.

TOTV is NOT the place to be for any unbiased discussion of The Villages. If you are on the outside reading, you cannot possibily have a positive picture of our town. Hope this does not get me deleted, but not political...just joining Gracie in saying it is getting very old, and while what I know of is not big numbers, it loses posters.

Village Kahuana, as always has put things in perspective and those who simply use this forum as a hatchet for the developer should really work on reading skills to learn about what they post before looking so foolish.

Sorry Grace but I share your frustrations.

Discussion on issues is great and all sides should express themselves, but the tone 100 % of the time from some becomes so tiresome

[QUi OTE=Big O;749722]I am new here and apparently do not know what is going on here. Can someone explain to me why this is a matter that current Village residents would care about?[/QUOTE]

I don't understand what the big deal is either.

Hi VK. It is nice to see you. I wonder if you know how many employees there are in Lake County's Building Service Division and/or the entire Lake County Department of Growth and Management?

Really, unless you live real close to the "dairy property" or if you live in Fruitland Park and not The Villages, there is no big deal.

Other than probably having CR 466A widened all the way to US 441, which might not happen if the Fruitland Park part of The Villages isn't developed, it won't affect the rest of us at all.

From what I can tell, the entire Lake County Department of Growth Management has 29 employees. The department is responsible for building services, contractor licensing, development planning, zoning and something called "enterprise zone development".

Among the 29 employees there are:

• One (1) Building Services Manager

• Three (3) Permitting Technicians

• Three (3) Plans Examiners

• Two (2) Building Inspectors

It's kind of hard to get really current information. But in recent years, Lake County has issued residential building permits in the range of 300 to 600 per year. The Villages is building and selling 300-400 houses or villas a month, all in Sumter County.

I tried to compare Lake County to Sumter County's Department of Building Services. I couldn't get any information on staffing. But their process for plan review and permitting seemed very precise. In fact, their website says that building inspections can be requested and conducted twenty-four hours a day and that any inspection requested before midnight would be conducted the next day. It's kind of hard to imagine that the two Lake County inspectors could deal with inspecting 19 houses a week for all the various of stages of construction requiring inspection (structural, framing, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, final, certificate of occupancy, etc.).

While it's only anecdotal information, my neighbor is in the process of completing a really nice rental house on CR 468 in Fruitland Park. It took him almost two years to get the necessary permits to begin construction. At one point he became so frustrated with the slowness and inefficiency of the process that he almost put the property back up for sale. The house is almost done now, a dramatic improvement over the unoccupied, overgrown, windowless, unpainted structure that it replaced. But my neighbor said that he would NEVER do it again in Fruitland Park.

Kahuna is correct about the situation. When our home was being built I asked our sales rep why they could build so quick down here and up north, even in good weather it takes 6 months. His answer was that a lot had to do with inspections and permits and not waiting days to obtain them. I assume (hate to use that term) that inspectors are on site throughout areas being built and permits are issued immediately when needed.

[QUOTE=Villages Kahuna;749712]Typically, the fees charged by governmental building departments basically cover their costs of operation, They're not "profit makers".
snipped
QUOTE]


maybe that's the issue - here in my little corner of jersey, our community makes a lot more than covering the cost of the operation. some in city hall refer to it as one of the town's cash cows! i just hate to see f.p. lose out on the funds generated by those permits and inspections! ;)

thanx for the post - and i get it. ;)

Will these new homes have bonds? Issued by?

.

But I thought that there are no bonds in Lake County.

You haven't posted for awhile and in fact a new-er poster calls himself Kahuna.

I had almost forgotten what a great ability you have to explain complex situations clearly and accurately.

It is so good to see you posting again.

"Beliveau’s study estimates that the Villages will pay more than $13 million in impact fees and inspection fees, building permits and the like the city will need to add and equip an estimated nine police officers at a cost of more than $1 million the first year and $750,000 per year annually. Improvements to the city’s water system will cost more than $3.5 million."

Does that sentence from the article not suggest that inspection fees are going to the local community? Otherwise how is that 13 million linked to the cost of increased police etc unless it is an asset to be drawn against.

If Lake County is granting the building permits and those permits require inspections, as they must, wouldn't Lake County have to maintain responsibility for enforcement? In the event of failures in the new construction which could in part be a result of inadequate inspections would Sumter County be responsible for those failures and the inevitable lawsuits if it provided the inspection services? The perception that Lake county is unable to do its own permitting and inspection would reflect poorly on Lake. If this project is going to go forward there would seem to be no reason that Lake County couldn't hire additional qualified persons to do whatever permitting and inspections are required. If Mr. Morse wouldn't accept that situation I would wonder why. I cannot imagine a county ever ceding control of one of its central functions to a smaller neighboring county.

Annex into sumter, then get permits