Pinellas Residence Gate
 

Just curious, does anyone have any idea when The Village residence gate at the Pinellas Plaza will be set to use our gate cards? All of the main construction has been completed in Pinellas and Collier, but the gate opens automatically for anyone who drives up.

It's been an on and off thing for about a year. However since that gate or any gate can be opened with a push of the red button it really doesn't make a difference. I agree with your concern and think that at the least gates near the public areas should not have a button and you should be forced to go through a manned gate. For residents in their carts that have forgotten their card key in place of the red button could be a key pad where you could input your your Villages pin#.

What would be nice is a system like the Florida turnpike uses with units in the vehicle that would work without having to put the window down.

The gates are not for security. They exist to control the flow of traffic to accommodate the blend of golf carts with automobiles.

That system would not slow the traffic as much. The purpose of the gates would be defeated.

We moved to TV/Gilchrist 5 months ago. I had lived in a 55+ comm in Leesburg for the previous 8 years. My girlfriend who lived in Lake Mary FL during that time came to my house every other weekend. We came to The Villages at least monthly, mainly for movies and dining at the squares. Loved it of course and last year decided to seriously check out living here.
Well aware of all the gates in TV - we were SHOCKED when calling a TV real estate person when interested in Open House visit. Asked how we enter unmanned gates to go since we are not residents...she said "Oh just press the red button!". What? And of course that was the case - or wave Hi to the gate attendant. We were quite surprised that TV was not truly a 'gated community".

Oh well - we're here now, thrilled, and it is what it is. But the gates seem a bit silly now -and costly.

You don't sound like someone who drive a golf cart... Without the gates, it would be very hard to cross at some places...

Typically, if you are truly a "gated community", you own the roads and charge the residents for road maintenance and repair as opposed to the county owning the roads and maintaining them from property taxes.

What we did at the Morse end of Pinellas was to petition the developer. Within a couple of weeks the gates were reset.

But the gates have a lot to do withs carts getting from one side of the street to the other without getting creamed by a car or cement mixer.

Leave the gates alone,people fly down these roads fast enough without trying to beat a car across an entrance in a golf cart.

As in the rest of the country we need anything that will slow down the traffic. I have never seen so much of a population on the fast lane to know where. The folks in Europe no how to relax. Take a few hours for an evening meal etc. Here is all helter skelter.

Gates Should Remain and in Full Operation
 

Miles 42 you hit the nail on the head... Many agree with you
I feel sure!