[banjobob]

Well written, good points and I agree but I do think the Community Watch should be the guardians and not individuals reporting violations. Many many homes have added very nice enhancements to yards, I would be against allowing actual building colors or designs to be changed.

[Judy n Ron]

Originally Posted by Bogie Shooter

CDD 5 to end anonymous complaints


So, did you miss this thread with108 posts covering your topic? Or are you just trying to stir the pot back up.
It was beaten to death on that thread and the duplicate posts will continue here.

Unless and until the CDD's do their job like EVERY OTHER DEED RESTRICTED community, it needs to be addressed over and over and over. Shame on The Villages for putting their compliant residents in the position of "neighborhood rat".

[Linnberg]

For those who haven’t been here that long, when we first moved here over 18 years ago, it was the Community Watch who were the ones responsible for reporting any compliance issues. It made sense because they knew all the rules plus the “grandfathered” allowances. In Glenbrook, no statues of any kind were allowed on your lawn BUT certain streets were grandfathered which is why Oak Forest has some of their lawns covered with lawn ornaments while other streets have none. Community Watch would knock on your door and have you move/remove the offensive item. They gave 2 warnings and if not removed, they would report the offense. I believe it changed to the current system after they complained that they didn’t like being the police and wanted to be the helpful group for the neighborhoods. However, that made more sense than “only if someone complains (anonymously) will anything be done. Ludicrous, as one house can be out of compliance and another reported maybe just because someone doesn’t like that person. Also totally agree how daily/weekly rentals have created potential major issues including all night parties, no following of rules, and potentially dangerous visitors.

[defrey12]

The OP’s eloquent post almost got it, but all you have to do is go to the county and ask to find out how it really works…and it ain’t gonna change.
District 5 only changed HOW violations are reported, wrongly in my view. All they will accomplish are “neighbor wars.” The Districts will NEVER police, even though they have people drive around all day, everyday—I know, it seems stupid—it’s a precept known as “selective enforcement.” They got you…but missed your neighbor. Then they (the enforcers) start doing getting people on “purpose” because they’re a “pain”. Barney Fife is alive and well! Then you sue…everybody sues. What’s the better business decision and more cost effective from the District’s view? Innumerable lawsuits or sending a guy out to verify when a report is made? You guessed it. I do agree with the one poster who said to keep confidential records of those who report—to ensure they have an actual interest (live) in the neighborhood.

[skippy05]

Facts: We all bought into the rules when we purchased. To equally enforce every rule all the time would require so many resources (time, money, employees) that it will never be practical to do so, ever. Certain people will always enjoy reporting violations as a hobby and that will never change. Therefore the current manner in which all of this goes down today will be the only practical way for it to continue in the future. If you sell and move into a non-HOA neighborhood you will never have this topic to complain about ever again. However, you will have new things to complain about.

[Daxdog]

I think some people are missing the point, you agreed to the restrictions. Also every place with a HOA will tell you when you are out of compliance, and will make you comply, why do you think TV should be any different? Most people that are complaining about restrictions probably never lived with a HOA, I never did. But living on military bases make you comply or they kick you off base. We had a neighbor that on the last day of living in TV sent a email turning in 19 houses for small and some big problems, but they moved out of TV the same day. But what are you supposed to do when a snowbird leaves and leaves the front yard and unfinished construction mess?

[Byte1]

These citizens are in compliance.

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

In totalitarian countries your neighbors report on you to the govt. Is that a good thing?

Evasive answer. The situation now are NEIGHBORS reporting infractions to the government. No different than the two mythical BIDDIES reporting infractions to the government.

In either case the INFRACTIONS are what count, not the reporters. Nobody gets a correction order based solely on the report of a neighbor or two women in a golf cart.

I ask again: what harm are they doing?

[Mumsie]

I will object when someone moves into the neighborhood and hires a painter—who should be aware of the requirement to choose a paint color from the hundreds provided on the acceptable Community Standards color palette—to paint the trim on their home a color somewhere between “hazard” or ”semaphore” or “fluorescent mustard” yellow.
I guess their philosophy is “damn the rules!”
When we moved in to our neighborhood, I made an appointment to view the palette and chose colors that were approved. Individuality and uniqueness are great traits, just not when expressing them in your choice of paint color.

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by asianthree

So you agree a person from piedmont should travel by cart to fernandina to drive through that neighborhood filling out a complaint (usually a 100) that they deemed a infraction.

They don’t live even close to that neighborhood, but since they fished out their own neighborhood, and all close by, they travel on, to different CDD’s.

I get neighbors a block over walking or driving past a house who has a plant that looks like it may or not be a cross that is offensive to the walker to write a complaint.

I just don’t get why one would travel miles to an area they would never frequent, to write hundreds of complaints? Is it a get even for an infraction that was leveled on their home? Or just a compulsive disorder to have upheaval wherever they deemed offensive, true or not.

Out of the 80 plus complaint written in our old neighborhood, only 11 were against deed restrictions.

So think of the amount of time to read hundreds of what May or not be a issue, individually respond to the complaints, then require them to waste resources such as gas to find out it’s a non issue. All because someone who lives 10 miles away is choosing this is “Their life long dream in Retirement to do unto to others that was probably done to them.

Because they chose that your home needs to be in line with their views. In their mind they are the “Chosen One”. Not a governing employee, a person who lives miles from you.

Where does one think the money and resources come from to pay for this? In our case it was a vine that had curled around to look like a cross, if you turned sideways and looked upside down. And NO, there would never be a cross in my yard.

Let those who live near keep their streets in compliance, travelers need not bother

What is important here? The infraction, or the person/people/agency reporting the infraction? Again. NOBODY is issued a correction order based solely on the word of a reporter. It is checked out, and if not in compliance, the order is issued.

What does matter though is this neighbor-against-neighbor thing. Having Community Watch be responsible for monitoring and reporting infractions eliminates that type of infighting, which does nobody any good. The powers-that-be made the rules. The powers-that-be MUST be responsible for monitoring for rule infraction and then enforcing the rules. This cowardly way out that apparently those powers have chosen, especially with the cockamamie decision to make the names of the reporter(s) public, inevitably leads to bitter neighborhood feuds and completely arbitrary and random enforcement. And who really needs that?

[Heytubes]

Guess I have to remove my front yard sofa on blocks now.

[Hank’s mom]

Bull crap! In some villages some complaints are anonymous and in others they are not. Some homes can have rock gardens in front and others can’t. The complaints should be used for homeowners who do not take care of property, whose property is bothering neighbors.

[clouwho]

Into the fray, I leap…

It is wonderful to hear a calm, logical response from someone who understands the root of the deed compliance issue (which is actually as simple as a homeowner not being compliant😁…duh).

Compliant homeowners will have no issues. Non-compliant homeowners may or may not have an issue. But the people reporting non-compliance are definitely NOT the issue.

And yes, NORMAL deed restricted communities do in fact have people responsible for making sure homes are in compliance. We pay for Community watch to drive down every one of our safe, sleepy streets every day of the year. It is a no brainer for them to simply snap a photo of a home that isn’t in compliance and once a day download those pics and address at end of each shift. Perhaps a total of 10-15 minutes of their shift would be doing a valuable task that would protect our property values and keep the minority that are CONSTANTLY squawking on every forum QUIET.

We initially bought in the area near Savannah Center. We were under the impression that ALL of The villages had deed restrictions. We found out within a year that all manner of yard junk and poor maintenance was starting to pile up in yards surrounding ours.

We sold and moved to the Village of Largo which thankfully DOES have deed restrictions, and when you drive through THIS villages, as opposed to our old village, those restrictions show in the form of a mostly very tidy, well maintained set of homes. It is worth noting that property values are significantly higher per square foot in our deed restricted villages than they are in our former unrestricted village. No coincidence.

So, if you want to live in The Villages and “express yourself” via your yard art, you are certainly free to move to the mobile home section or the area around Spanish Springs where there are minimal restrictions. Fortunately there are still villages in the Spanish Springs area that are nicely maintained because the owners care about the look or their community and their home values. They are voluntarily keeping their villages nice.

Originally Posted by Gladys Turnip

There sure seems to be a lot of people who are upset with the ability of neighbors to anonymously report (alleged) violations of our deed restrictions.

I think these people are missing the point.

Starting from the beginning, the purpose of the deed restrictions is to safeguard the long-term value of neighboring properties and the community at large. We all agreed to these restrictions when we chose to buy a house in The Villages.

Sort of like motherhood and apple pie, I don’t see how anybody could be against wanting to uphold the value of their home.

Next let’s look at the parties involved in a deed restriction violation. There are only two:

(1) The homeowner (who may or may not be in violation), and

(2) The CDD/Developer aka The Villages Community Standards Department (CSD), who has the power to compel compliance with and enforce deed restrictions.

A neighbor should not even be involved, but if he is, he has no power to do anything. All he can do is bring a potential alleged violation to the attention of the CSD. The CSD then decides whether or not to VERIFY the complaint (that is, to dismiss it or pursue it).

People worry that a person who files a complaint – a so called Troll – might be reporting in bad faith, and that the report might be frivolous or even vengeful. But so what? If the alleged violation has no merit, the CSD will simply ignore/dismiss it; end of story. On the other hand, if there is an actual deed violation, we should all want the CSD to take the necessary steps to correct the situation in order to protect the value of the homes in our community.

If people want to be angry with someone, perhaps it should not be with the people who report potential violations, but in fact should be with The Villages (the CSD). Why? Because they have completely abdicated their role in monitoring compliance. In most jurisdictions throughout the country, whoever imposes deed restrictions (the Developer/CDD/CSD in our case), is also tasked with monitoring compliance and enforcement. To monitor, most places hire someone to simply drive around the neighborhood, pay attention, and notice if any properties may be in violation.

But oddly, in The Villages, the developer, the CDDs, and the CSD (that is, the people who created the long list of deed restrictions in the first place) have all washed their hands of the entire process of monitoring compliance, leaving it up to residents to bring (even obvious) potential violations to their attention. By their own words in the CDD Community Standards FAQs: “…reporting potential violations will be a complaint-driven process. Potential violations are NOT reported by Community Standards, Community Watch, or any other District department."

This hands-off position is not only unique, but also seems to make no sense given that Community Watch drives around all day anyway. Seems goofy to instruct these employees to turn a blind eye to possible deed violations, even if egregious.

Back to the original point about anonymous reports ….. I don’t see how you can get mad at someone who is merely trying to protect the value of the homes in our community; that is, protecting the value of YOUR home.

A lot of people seem to think that CDD 5 has it all figured out because reports of violations can no longer be anonymous, and thus they now get a lot fewer reports. But of course fewer reports do not mean there are fewer violations. It most likely simply means that CDD 5 will begin looking like a run-down trailer park sooner than other CDDs in The Villages because NO ONE is taking action to protect the aesthetic values that we all agreed to when we purchased our homes.

Okay, thanks for listening. I need to go now to set up the new trampoline in my front yard, right next to the 1979 Ford Pinto up on blocks. I’m sure no one will complain.

[clouwho]

I have heard about these two trolls for years, but never have seen proof that they exist. I do hope that they don’t, because that would be a super sad way to spend the short, final chapter of life when you have been blessed to live in such a lovely place with so many wonderful opportunities to spend your final days in healthy, happy, fulfilling ways.

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

The problem I have is people driving around looking for things they can report, aka two old biddies.

[clouwho]

There is unfortunately nothing in our deed restrictions about short term rentals. And the developers are actually encouraging that to get more people to buy their new homes.

IMHO short term rentals are one of the single biggest negative quality of life and property value issues we are going to face here in TV in the upcoming years. I am hoping via VHA we can band together with an overwhelming consensus and vote for deed restrictions addendums in all CDDs that require a MINIMUM of a one month lease period. That will allow “investors” to still rent to the targeted 55+ demographic we are supposed to be, while keeping the undesirable revolving door of mystery people out of our neighborhoods.

We do a lot of rentals in resort type communities in Florida. The nicer ones almost all have a minimum of one month rentals, and some require two months.

Originally Posted by tophcfa

Actually, they have done way worse than that, they have made the whole thing a sham by deciding to selectively enforce deed restriction violations. We’re coming after you if you have the audacity to put a little white cross in your garden, but if you’re disrupting the entire neighborhood by running a revolving door short term AIRBNB operation out of your home we’ll look the other way. What kind of a message does that send? Either enforce all violations or let people do whatever they want.