[NJblue]

There have been a number of threads either directly addressing Villages expansion or indirectly (i.e., lack of tee times, limited access to exercise equipment or lanes in the sports pool, etc.) There have also been a number of different views expressed - anywhere from "build-baby-build" to "The Villages is already too big". This is an anonymous poll to see where the TOTV population falls in this debate.

[Bogie Shooter]

Originally Posted by NJblue

There have been a number of threads either directly addressing Villages expansion or indirectly (i.e., lack of tee times, limited access to exercise equipment or lanes in the sports pool, etc.) There have also been a number of different views expressed - anywhere from "build-baby-build" to "The Villages is already too big". This is an anonymous poll to see where the TOTV population falls in this debate.

Build it and they will come!

[NJblue]

Originally Posted by Bogie Shooter

Build it and they will come!

That may be an answer that a developer might give to potential financers of a project, but it is not what is being asked here. This question is directed to the residents and future residents in terms of what they would prefer to see.

[billethkid]

TV is already big at over 100,000 residents or some 50,00 homes, etc.

I think it has already passed the big or not big point some time ago.

To calibrate how much bigger is to big is an exercise in individual outlook.

For me, I say let them keep building as long as appropriate property is available.

I have always said TV concept of distributed services makes a "big" population seem not so big......villages/village pools/village rec centers/regional rec centers/regional pools/villages mail centers/etc along with shopping centers well placed all around......as a result TV at 100,000 does not feel like any other city that size.

btk

[Peachie]

Originally Posted by NJblue

There have been a number of threads either directly addressing Villages expansion or indirectly (i.e., lack of tee times, limited access to exercise equipment or lanes in the sports pool, etc.) There have also been a number of different views expressed - anywhere from "build-baby-build" to "The Villages is already too big". This is an anonymous poll to see where the TOTV population falls in this debate.

I am open to growth. It is crowded in the winter months but I love the pulse of The Villages and the vibrancy of people engaged and enjoying life. I try not to be impatient in lines and to plan around the busiest times. I still wave at people... We get most of the tee times we try for but we are very flexible with times and courses.

We do run into the occasional "out of sorts" personalities but allow for the pain that may be in their lives of which most of us don't know. It's rewarding to start small conversations with some of them and see their true personalities come out, it is just their current struggles that cloud the real person.

This truly is a unique, wonderful community and I thank God we found it when we did. I am not concerned about more Villagers, we are all on this planet together and I'm sure needed facilities and commercial developments will follow. Thank you, thank you, thank you Morse family.

[billethkid]

Originally Posted by Peachie

I am open to growth. It is crowded in the winter months but I love the pulse of The Villages and the vibrancy of people engaged and enjoying life. I try not to be impatient in lines and to plan around the busiest times. I still wave at people... We get most of the tee times we try for but we are very flexible with times and courses.

We do run into the occasional "out of sorts" personalities but allow for the pain that may be in their lives of which most of us don't know. It's rewarding to start small conversations with some of them and see their true personalities come out, it is just their current struggles that cloud the real person.

This truly is a unique, wonderful community and I thank God we found it when we did. I am not concerned about more Villagers, we are all on this planet together and I'm sure needed facilities and commercial developments will follow. Thank you, thank you, thank you Morse family.

Nicely and thoughtfully summarizes it!

btk

[Bogie Shooter]

Originally Posted by NJblue

That may be an answer that a developer might give to potential financers of a project, but it is not what is being asked here. This question is directed to the residents and future residents in terms of what they would prefer to see.

As a 11 year resident that is what I would prefer to see.

[bfdretired]

I came from a community that had 900 people when i moved there....after 28 years it had grown to 55K....now its 75K......and i moved out 20 years ago to quiet area in michigan.......is the villages to big?.....because it is age restricted is the overall city more controlled and quiet???
we will visit for two months this year....past visits were for short period....what sould i expect?
thanks

[rubicon]

My desire was to downsize and that included population. I wanted to get away from the congestion, long waits in lines, etc

However, The Villages continues to grow and with it all of the above problems and more crime.

I believe this growth only diminishes the quality of the Lifestyle people sough when deciding to move here.

I have experienced this before and accept it as a reality

[eremite06]

Potable water will be a problem if we grow much larger.

[justjim]

Originally Posted by eremite06

Potable water will be a problem if we grow much larger.

With all due respect, that's what they said about "the valley of the sun"---known as the Greater Phoenix area---30 years ago. Since then it has doubled in size!

Additional growth will bring JOBS and more economic development to the area. As I mentioned previously, not everybody is in favor of economic development. IMHO we passed a quiet, passive lifestyle in TV a few years ago. There are other places for that----but if you want an active Adult Lifestyle with "lots to do" ---you certainly found it here. With all the "green areas" you find in TV, another 50,000 people or so will not make any difference in our lifestyles. Let it happen.

[NJblue]

Interesting responses so far. The curious thing to me is that of the roughly half of the people who want development to grow unabated, no one has expressed any advantages for the growth. It appears the best rationale for the growth is that it is not likely to be done badly. That to me is damning with faint praise. Why would people actually want more growth if their only rationale is that in all liklihood it won't make things much worse? Am I alone in thinking that if there is a chance that things will get worse, don't do it unless there are concrete advantages that can be enumerated?

I agree with the sentiment that the distributed nature of the development does help spread the resources and the demand put upon the resources. However, I find in just the 5 years that I have been here, there is a negative trend in certain things, like traffic, tee times, crowds in town squares, etc.

Perhaps those who want growth either have no experience of living in an area of unrestained growth and hence don't know how that impacts lifestyle. When I first moved to Central New Jersey, it was a sleepy area of small towns and lots of farm land. Over time, the farms were sold off for housing developments and shopping/commercial districts. It became somewhat like the distributed nature of TV. The problem was that with all of the additional people, going anywhere became a stressful event with all of the traffic. Parks and events that used to be easily accessible became very crowded with people with short fuses. You used to be able to go over to the Garden State Arts Center (now PNC Arts Center) on the spur of the moment and get tickets. Now you have to line up at the beginning of the season and try to be lucky to get tickets.

There wasn't any single development that caused this to occur. It was more of death by a thousand cuts. That is what I fear for TV.

Some people may be looking at this from a financial perspective and somehow equate continued growth to ever-rising house values. I personally don't subscribe to this theory. Even if it were to be true for the short term, it won't be true for the long term. Right now, the baby boomers are making up much of the growth. However, this boom won't last forever. Right behind the boomers are the "bust" period where there won't be enough retirees to buy all of the houses that will be built. So, unless you plan on checking out in the next 15 years or so, you or your heirs may find yourself in a real buyer's market with thousands of other TV houses competing against yours.

[Peachie]

Originally Posted by NJblue

Interesting responses so far. The curious thing to me is that of the roughly half of the people who want development to grow unabated, no one has expressed any advantages for the growth. It appears the best rationale for the growth is that it is not likely to be done badly. That to me is damning with faint praise. Why would people actually want more growth if their only rationale is that in all liklihood it won't make things much worse? Am I alone in thinking that if there is a chance that things will get worse, don't do it unless there are concrete advantages that can be enumerated?

I agree with the sentiment that the distributed nature of the development does help spread the resources and the demand put upon the resources. However, I find in just the 5 years that I have been here, there is a negative trend in certain things, like traffic, tee times, crowds in town squares, etc.

Perhaps those who want growth either have no experience of living in an area of unrestained growth and hence don't know how that impacts lifestyle. When I first moved to Central New Jersey, it was a sleepy area of small towns and lots of farm land. Over time, the farms were sold off for housing developments and shopping/commercial districts. It became somewhat like the distributed nature of TV. The problem was that with all of the additional people, going anywhere became a stressful event with all of the traffic. Parks and events that used to be easily accessible became very crowded with people with short fuses. You used to be able to go over to the Garden State Arts Center (now PNC Arts Center) on the spur of the moment and get tickets. Now you have to line up at the beginning of the season and try to be lucky to get tickets.

There wasn't any single development that caused this to occur. It was more of death by a thousand cuts. That is what I fear for TV.

Some people may be looking at this from a financial perspective and somehow equate continued growth to ever-rising house values. I personally don't subscribe to this theory. Even if it were to be true for the short term, it won't be true for the long term. Right now, the baby boomers are making up much of the growth. However, this boom won't last forever. Right behind the boomers are the "bust" period where there won't be enough retirees to buy all of the houses that will be built. So, unless you plan on checking out in the next 15 years or so, you or your heirs may find yourself in a real buyer's market with thousands of other TV houses competing against yours.

NJ, respectfully, because not everyone shares a viewpoint doesn't mean we have no life experiences with urban sprawl and growth. I find it amusing that the bucolic rural areas turned into large development tracts and population growth you witnessed in NJ are exactly where you're living now, The Villages. You had no issue with growth until you got your foot in the door and now you would like it to stop, you're here!

I don't understand why anyone living in The Villages is worrying about a "buyers market". If The Villages is your retirement portfolio, I think investment advice is needed. I think anyone planning on leaving a lot of money to their heirs down the road may not be cognizant of the dire financial straits of this country. Methinks there will be big plans made for the surpluses of the deceased to alleviate this huge shortfall down the road. But only time will tell and I won't waste precious time thinking about that.

The golf courses will receive less and less use as time goes on, poor health, lack of physical capability and death will ensure that. Hang in there, it will get better!

If you want a plus as to why I don't mind if The Villages expand, if it isn't The Villages, it will be some other development. This area is hot for expansion and I know what The Villages is all about.

All this angst over how much growth may occur around The Villages is fruitless. We have no control over that issue and our philosophy is if we don't like The Villages anymore, we'll leave, it's that simple.

[ilovetv]

Having bought and sold our homes in newer developments in the past, I'd say the time to stop building is clearly when the existing resale homes are not selling.

In this sense, it's good the developers have the majority of resale listings and sales, because if they're the ones doing the continued developing and building (which somebody else is sure to do if they did not), they can halt or suspend new construction according to how their resale listings are selling.

I think it's better to have the known recipe that works--TV doing the developing and building--than somebody else coming in for a couple of years, building cheaply built homes with few or no amenities that are affordable....and then leaving. I don't think TV developers are going anywhere because of the gold mine they have in owning all the commercial leased properties and a happy captive audience of consumers who don't want to leave town to shop, dine, exercise, attend classes, dance, play golf, etc. .

[NJblue]

Peachie, thanks for your somewhat condescending response but it doesn't really address my issues:

You're claim that I want to shut the door behind me is not valid on two points. First, when we bought we were told that development would stop after the Brownwood section was completed. Even the developer used the term "Final Phase" to his advantage in marketing it. When you have the word of someone, I don't think you should be embarrassed to call them on it when that trust is broken. Secondly, the question I am asking is what would people prefer in terms of ultimate size. This has nothing to do with your implied selfishness. If you want to go on a quiet romantic walk with your spouse you probably prefer that a crowd of people don't follow you to that place. By your logic, you should prefer that people follow you there since otherwise you would be selfishly "shutting the door" on their opportunity to enjoy that space.

I agree about the economic thing and said so in my post ... perhaps you missed it. I only brought it up since some of those who endorsed future growth did so based on their beliefs of how it would help home values. I think their logic is 100% wrong.

As to the golf courses, ummm guess what? If I have to wait for all the people moving into the new sections to get old and die to get a tee time, I will a) have many years of waiting more and more for a tee time and b) may die myself while waiting. Having hopes for better tee times 10-15 years from now is no reason to want development now.

I'm not so sure about other developments in this area occuring if TV doesn't expand. TV has proven to be unique in its formula. Other developments have been started in the area and are still crawling to be built out - even though their house values are significantly better in these other areas. The reason - they don't have the full package that only TV can offer. Even if they do come, at least their population won't be contending for our amenities. Also, their growth rate will be substantially less than what TV's rate of growth will be.

Your final point is precisely why I don't want to see continued growth. I love TV the way it is and will continue to love it once the Brownwood section is complete. I am fully invested in this place and don't want to ever be forced to move because it has grown beyond its ability to retain its current charm. By some twisted logic, it appears that you prefer growth because you know that if the growth turns out bad you can always move.