Reader T. writes, “I agree with H on the population overgrowth. It has been out of control. And I don’t know the answer, other than to place a moratorium on building any more sprawling neighborhoods until the infrastructure has a chance to catch up.
“What is Tallahassee doing about this? As Dr. Phil said, “Are they ‘contributing or contaminating’ this issue?”
“I live in a gated community. I like it for the sense of security and the beauty. And being in an HOA can attract power mongers, but it can be a necessary evil to keep the community as a whole pleasant to look at. I lived in a non-HOA community in San Diego, and people would enter it and dump appliances and other items.
“At the dumpster area, I was constantly calling the property manager to have things hauled away. One of the many reasons I left San Diego. I loved my home, but could not tolerate any more of the illegal dumping and unknown people accessing our community pool and laundry room as if they lived there.
“Advantages of living in a gated community with on-site management. Just my thoughts based on my personal experience. Although I would like to know more about why we pay more money to live within a gated community. Thank you.” — T
T, let me tackle the easy question first. Is Tallahassee a contribution to solving or contaminating this issue of overgrowth? Tallahassee is a contaminant.
Governor DeSantis just signed a bill promoted by the Republicans in Tallahassee to allow mega developments to bypass local zoning rules. You think it is overcrowded now? Wait till megadevelopments crop up everywhere near you with no local rules to slow them down.
You also ask why you pay more because you live in a gated community. It’s Spiderman’s Law. “Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.”
The HOA can close its roads to the rest of the community. That means you live on private roads and must pay for the cost to build your roads and to maintain them, in addition to paying regular city and county taxes.
Your developer had the power to probably create a community development district — basically a city with its own rules and regulations. Instead of the developers spending their own money to install sewer and water, build the roads, and build the clubhouse and pool, they had the community development district borrow the money.
Because you bought a house in that community, you likely must pay for all of the costs of the debt service used to create the community you live in, in addition to regular city and county taxes. Developers love community development districts not only because they can say this is a private community and sell more houses, but also because they can pass on the infrastructure costs to you, the residents, and make you pay off their debt.
The most interesting kicker to me is that, for some weird reason, community development districts are generally treated as municipal bonds and are exempt from federal interest taxation, so developers can borrow at very cheap rates. Why do we give developers this huge tax break?
Readers, what do you think? Share your thoughts.
David Dunn-Rankin is chairman of D-R Media, which owns the Highlands News-Sun, as well as newspapers in Lake, Polk and Sumter counties. He can be reached at David@D-R.Media .