Amenities - fact or fiction
 

This data below is copied from a post today under “Palmetto closing” and seems pretty accurate. It points to the fact that amenities are NOT keeping up with the population growth. Those who bought several years ago bought into a lifestyle where a group of golfers could request a tee time with a reasonable window and obtain a tee time. And, they are still selling that lifestyle, but not delivering on the promise. Now, a small group of 4-6 golfers this past month have been unable to obtain a tee time twice. Why? This data tells the story and many of us are very disappointed. So many wonderful things still here, but this situation is not one of them.
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“The math is simple. There are 36 executive courses north of 44. Divide the population of 100,525 by 36 and you have 2793 for each executive course. Take the south population of about 41,475 (it is higher now) and divide by 2793 resulting in 14.85 courses.
Short 10 executive golf courses.
The championship courses are worse. They are short 12 nines. No room to build them.”

Heck, if we were very disappointed with our life in The Villages, we would leave and live somewhere else.

We have been here for 7 years and we think the amenities in The Villages are better than ever. Yeah, the music has gotten much too loud in the Squares, but we solved that problem by just staying away from them.

Living between 466 and 466A, I had always thought every villages in this area had an adult (neighborhood) pool. I was very quickly corrected by a couple of posters on this forum and informed that there are a few villages in this neck of the woods that do not have an adult (neighborhood) pool. Don't ask me which ones because I don't recall and don't feel the need to look them up on a map.

If the developer told you he would give you a million dollars if you could come up with a design to put two executive courses (in addition to Southern Oaks) in the area north of the turnpike and south of 44, I bet you would get the money.

You have plenty of room - Chitty Chatty, Bradford, Hawkins, Cason Hammock, St Johns, Richmond, St Catherine’s, Citrus Grove, Newell, Lake Denham, and Dabney.

They had room for two Pitch & Putts and two Putting Greens - but no executive courses.

Just wondering........how did the postal worker deliver mail to individual homes without mailboxes? When I lived in NJ, I was told I had to have a mailbox for my mail to be delivered. When I removed my mailbox so I could sand and paint it, I purchased a water proof plastic container with an easy open lid and put a big sign on it......"MAIL". It worked for the couple of weeks I didn't have my regular mailbox in use.

Earplugs work great.

No, no, no, no, and no...


Chitty Chatty and Bradford are very narrow. The topography there is not conducive to adding a golf course. If you put one in St Cathrines, it would take up most of the are for houses. AND, it would be right across the street from Southern Oaks. Same with Hawkins and Cason Hammock

St Johns is a narrow strip of land... Same with NewellLake Denham and Dabney...

The only possibility would have been Richmond, but they are already close to the other exec courses and it's divided by wetlands into two parts.

Much of the area south of 44 and east of the turnpike has those same wetlands to deal with.

As I've stated before, if you look at a map of TV, you'll see the land mass north of 44 it much different than the area south of 44 and east of the turnpike.

The new areas that they are developing NOW is a HUGE swath of land on the west side of the turnpike. THAT is where they are putting all of the new courses. It's simple logistics.

I live west of Morse and south of Hillsborough. There is not a single exec course in the area defined by Morse to Buena Vista, Hillsborough to 44... Why is that? It's a huge expanse of land. It's because of the massive preserve and Lake Deaton. Just like the massive preserve bordering everything south of 44 and east of Morse...

If you watch Don Wiley's latest video, he explains this quite simply...

I am happy we don't have those ugly mail boxes in front of every house!

Staying away from the Squares is easier.

I’ll not disagree with you on who benefits most, the postman, but they are amenities. They have long been built with the neighborhood pools and other recreational items at the same location and have been lumped together. In 2016 when slcdd purchased the 266-44 amenities I questioned this same issue because I thought they should belong to the individual cdds. The answer I was given was that they were a convenience item, without them everyone would have to go to the post office. My response was “Really? Why don’t we get to the door delivery like the rest of the country?” I also asked why, as big as it has become, didn’t the villages have its own post office? After a lengthy discussion the answers all boiled down to 3 words - Lady Lake Postmaster.

If the developer really wanted to build the executive courses, I think he could have found a way.

Instead of building golf courses in this area, they built houses. If the developer built houses where volusia, escambia, and okeechobee are, there would be no room for a golf course.

How much more space would it have taken to turn Richmond or Mickylee into executives? Twice as much land?

If you gave me $500,000, I could find the space for 2 executive courses.

The other thing about the centralized mail boxes, in a community like the Villages, it is a social experience getting your mail. The Villages is all about the experiences - and getting your mail, is an experience for many.

The developer is literally in the business of building and selling houses, not building golf courses. They need a minimum density of housing - profit is the definition of capitalism.

Plus, they dont need the courses for the water management, there is a lot of wetlands between turnpike and 44

They are built surrounding the old landfill and under the high tension power lines... No one would buy a house there...

Once again, it's more than just the land. There are the roads, the turnpike, the wetlands... They all play into where they can build.

If you actually looked at where they built houses in all of the places you listed, you would see (especially NE of the turnpike and east of Morse) that the homes are built on a skinny, long swath of land.

It is simply not feasible to put courses there.

If you actually look at Richmond, you would see that they kept THREE HUGE undeveloped areas of wetlands, and lakes... The houses are split into two relatively small sections, divided nature. You want them to fill that in and build a golf course? Then you would have people screaming that they are destroying nature!

Every time I drive over the Water Lily bridge and go thru Marsh Bend and Fenney, along with Richmond, I'm amazed at what they DIDN'T develop...

Look at the lowlands course. Look at how much land they had to use to fit that course in

St Johns is tiny, and it is bordered by Meggison, wetlands and a MASSIVE lake... Where in god's green earth do you think they could fit in a course there?

There is a HUGE preserve in the middle of Marsh Bend. They had to build everything around it, severely limiting the # of homes they could build.

You may THINK you could. But you don't have access to the water tables, the soil composition, nor anything else that goes into actually building a housing development...

Exactly. When I live in Columbia, MD, we had a central mailbox in the middle of our cul de sac. It was a meeting place and people would hang out there, talking to the neighbors...