I used to post a lot on a website called 55Places. It is a site where they do analysis of age restricted communities across the country. The blog is kind of an afterthought and finding things is a challenge. The bigger issue i had with the site was they removed cost comparisons which was a key component when doing research on a community of choice. I asked why they did that and the answer was it was too extensive to keep up with the yearly changes. That made sense, but i suspect there was some push back by community developers who hated the idea those looking could see how much more expensive one community was compared to another. The simple reality is, if you want glitzy, it's going to cost you. I start every morning reading news feeds and then checking linked sites, 55 Places is one of them. A few weeks back they had done an article of the Villages of Florida and how it may double in size. That is astounding because it is already the largest age restricted community in the country. I'm not a fan of the Villages, the Morse family that owns them is way too suffocating in their political leanings for my taste. Those living there become rabid about living in the "best community" in the world. There's no question, they do some things well, but it is a different kind of animal. For starters, the 100,000 residents are spread across three counties. There are gated communities within the grounds. Some of those are very exclusive. Nothing wrong with any of that, it's just different from what we are . This morning i was reading comments (readers can post comments about articles) at the bottom of the story about how the Villages may double in size. I was shocked to see some of the figures that were posted. I thought i would take the opportunity to share some of them with you, just to see how we stack up: 1). Our monthly rec fees are roughly $41 per month. The poster said theirs are "HOA fees apprx $155 a month or about $5 a day." 2). They have "free golf" on executive courses (par 3). Obviously that is attractive for many and part of why the monthly fees are as high as they are. However, the poster then said they have added costs of "a trail fee to use you golf cart about $148 a year or less than 3 bucks a week. That covers everyone that lives in the household. There is also an online booking system that will cost you a whole $8 per month per household." 3). Our rec fees include the use of pools and rec centers, it all comes with the $41 per month. Another poster to the site said this: "If you want to ensure you get a tee time or use the CC pools, you pay a premium to be a priority member...$600 or more per year. The gyms that are located within our rec centers are not free. There are no professionals available to assist you, no classes. just equipment and the fee is $35 a month." You can find the link to the story and the comments here. There's no question, The Villages of Florida is an option, but with the crazy cafeteria of costs, how much are you willing to pay to live the good life? I know the numbers i am seeing would keep me as far away as humanly possible. I've written and said this too many times to count; in Sun City you get the most amenities at the least cost. There are a thousand other age restricted communities out there, many/most of them newer and nicer and way more expensive. For my money, i will take the original Sun City AZ every time.
Well said. Can't beat SUN CITY ARIZONA!!!! You didn't mention the fact that the people here are very friendly. Also, we have some of the BEST weather.
Yep, the cafeteria pricing strategy seems rather high at first blush, but when reading a little deeper the costs are hand in hand with what it is you want to do in the Villages. The Villages are made up of 17 special purpose districts, each one lending to the type of neighborhood and amenities you will receive. Just to name a few, several dog parks, open space for walking and the life long learning university. If you choose to live in one of the older or more modest village, but desire to play the full Country Club golf course, there are fees to be paid, above and beyond the normal golf fees. The executive courses are all fee for all to use, but the Country Club golf courses are all in the high rent district, and if you are not a resident of the high rent district, you pay more to enjoy and use those amenities. In September 2017, a putt and play multi-functional facility in the Village of Fenney opened. This includes a lake stocked with fish and fishing poles, a walking trail, and an area to play croquet and lawn bowling. They have planned and have within the community grocery stores, discount stores, as well as specialty shops and gourmet restaraunts. The Villages has become a popular spot for many artists. In April 2015, The Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center, a venue with over 1,000 seats, opened to much fanfare.[63] The Sharon has featured various popular artists such as Frankie Avalon, Willie Nelson, The Beach Boys, Jerry Lewis, Felix Cavaliere, Little River Band, Bobby Rydell, Ray Stevens, The Spinners, Kenny G, and Chubby Checker. Nightly activities are held in The Villages three town squares,[78] Lake Sumter Landing's Market Square[79] and Spanish Springs Town Square.[80] A third town square, Brownwood Paddock Square, opened on October 12, 2012. Local media The Villages developers or their successors operate three media properties: The Villages News Network (VNN), which is aired on the local Comcast cable network. The Villages Daily Sun, a local newspaper with 43,610 paid subscribers.[83] Radio station WVLG AM 640 (a Fox News Radio affiliate). Public transportation Sumter County Transit operates The Villages shuttle. They provide various weekday loops through the Villages. Enrichment Academy In the fall of 2017, The Villages launched The Enrichment Academy with more than 140 fee-based, lifelong learning, noncredit courses on topics such as scuba diving, literature, philosophy and psychology, culinary arts, technology, foreign language, photography, and more. The academy is part of the Recreation and Parks Department and take place at designated Recreation locations, and other approved locations throughout The Villages. So, just for comparison, I would expect Sun City to be cheaper, we don't offer anywhere the near the same amenities offered at the Villages. The lifelong learning has been a fly in the ointment for years, as every other adult community seems to offer continuing education except Sun City. Would you be willing to support public transportation within the community if it were available? I surely would. Grocery stores within the confines of the walls plus a way to get there? Oh yes, what a treat this would be to so many seniors residing here now. Guess I am going to say there is no comparison, as what is offered in Florida has outpaced Sun City by leaps and bounds. As each of the above amenities were to be added to the RCSC, I would expect to see our costs rise as well. It is quite obvious the Villages in not a golf all the time/at any cost.
Interesting take C. Do you know, are various parts of the Villages not golf oriented? What i am asking are there individual communities where there are no golf courses and so you don't pay to subsidize play? I have always stayed away from looking too closely at their construct because the research i have done was more on the Morse family and how they shove their right wing views at folks through their various media outlets. I find that wholly distasteful. I'm also curious if the pay to play aspect of Villages' living is a constant? Do they pay additional fees for everything on top of your rec fees? The fact that 55 Places doesn't include that information is one of the reasons i backed away from posting much on the site. Comparisons mean nothing if the costs to enjoy them are out of your price range or beyond what you are willing to pay to use them. Finally, your overall point is well taken. Our (said with a smirk) decision to ignore all other aspects of the Sun City way of life to focus on golf has cost us dearly. Rich Hoffer made the point in his campaign for the board to insist we stay competitive. Unfortunately we (smirking again) have spent a huge amount of PIF to make our golf courses better. As noted, too many times to count, we have done so at the cost of any number of other projects. The answer is always, but the lake. So let's tackle that refrain and try and make sense of it. Viewpoint lake leaks. We've known that for years. Rather than "fix" it by draining it and relining it (at an enormous cost and mess) we allegedly reached some sort of an agreement with the state. We made the argument the lake leaked back into the aquifer and we then reused that water on our courses (effectively we were recycling our own water for our own use). Boards have been told repeatedly we had to spend this kind of money because the state in our "settlement" included vast expenditures to upgrade our water distribution, wells and irrigation. Here's the rub: while on the board i never saw that "settlement." When i asked a board member a couple of years back if they had seen it, they said no, they never saw it either. Let me be clear; i agree 100% with water conservation, good irrigation and water distribution. There's never been an argument there. The problem is everything has been about golf. The long range planning committee before it was disbanded) was told point blank they had no say in golf and that was 75 % of the PIF budget). We spent an inordinate amount of money on Willowbrook/Willowcreek even though the PGA professional said it wasn't due for another 5 years. Hell, many of the members there were up in arms over the "improvements. The point here is if we had a strategic plan on what Sun City needed to stay competitive, we wouldn't be trying to play catch-up now. And to be clear, while The Villages has many of these things in play, the costs are off the charts ridiculous. We just need to refocus and put together a long range plan that makes sense and gets us where we need to go. Or, i guess we could function like the one board president who boasted; "we don't need a long range planning committee, we have one, it's called the board." Really, how did that work out for us genius?
Their marketing strategy is not towards golf at all that I can see. With the use of 37 executive golf courses at your behest, it would be silly to make golf the focal point. Their points are around open spaces, dog parks, 2400 clubs, weekly entertainment at one the three town squares for free, just pick which venue you wish to participate in, and transportation available via golf cart to just about everywhere. The are special lanes and tunnels for the golf carts so as not to cross a major thoroughfare. There in one major hiway which does not have a tunnel, but it does have designated markings for the carts. They kind of tout you don't need to leave the Villages if you don't want to, everything you could want is contained within. Now, seeing the Media outlets for the Villages are all Fox news sponsored made my skin crawl. So, I kind of guessed there was a focused agenda. Per the demographics, 83% of the residents are republican. You pay your rec fees based upon CDD (Community Development District) you live in. If you live where the small, modest homes are, you pay less for the year, but if you want to play the Country Club courses or use their amenities, there is an upcharge. If you already live in a CDD that is "country club" based, then your fees are already at the highest end, so there is little upcharge to do the things you desire to do. I get the feeling if you want to live in the Villages, you already know what your yearly fee for rec fees will be, based upon the amenities available in your CDD. If you want to play with the big guns on the country club side of the fence, then you need to pony up. There are 17 CDD's, and I would imagine the prices run the gambit. It will also cost more to attend the classes at the University, but they also offer credits for some of the classes you take. But there are lots of free music every weekend at three different venues, free lectures on various topics, and choose one of 37 executive golf courses included in your area. The Country Club courses number 12, so they are not as prolific, and probably match the amount of homes to club ratio. The Villages currently operates 17 CDDs. Thirteen of the 17 CDDs cover the various areas of The Village where residents own homes, and provide and maintain the roads and transportation paths, storm water systems and structures, underground utilities, curbs and gutters, and street lights. The costs of building and maintaining this infrastructure are paid for by annual special assessments included in the property tax bill. District residents (including landowners who have yet to build on their property) elect the members of the District Board of Supervisors. Recreation centers In addition, The Villages operates numerous recreation centers. There are three classes of centers (the number shown are as of March 2011 and are based on the types of swimming pools offered): Neighborhood Centers (32; these centers offer local adult-only pools as well as bocce, horseshoe, and shuffleboard courts)[60] Village Centers (17; these centers offer family pools (except for Silverlake, which has no pool), facilities with billiard meeting rooms and full kitchens, bocce, horseshoe, and shuffleboard courts, plus tennis and pickleball courts)[61] Regional Centers (eight; these centers offer resident-only sports pools (except for Paradise, which offers a family pool), larger venues with stages for theatrical and musical productions, and many of the same features as the village centers; all but two also operate fitness centers for which a membership must be purchased) So, I would not say the community is golf centric or pay to play, as it is touted as free golf at every CDD. It is included in you base rev fee.
I get all that Carole, damn, and it is a lot to get. But is golf included in every CDD? Because if it is and the monthly fees are $150, they are in fact paying for the "free" golf, whether they play or not? I would think some of the smaller, older CDD's (i think there are some that are manufactured housing), would have lower monthly fees than $150. Gotta love when something is free, but you are paying enough monthly to cover the costs. If you want an eye-opener, look up the Morse family history and the lawsuits brought by the state. Of course their contributions to those on the right helped soften the blow. I just wouldn't want to be pelted with the barrage of right wing crap. It was bad enough yesterday at the gym when i saw the guy wearing the Trump 2020 t-shirt. I was tempted to run out and print the following shirts for sale: Anybody Butt Trump in 2020. Imagine how ell that would have gone over? There's no question, they do some things really well, but like i said, at what cost? Leave the exclusive country clubs out of the mix, i'm talking about the average Joe and how much it cost to live there factoring their monthly fees, added gym fees and property taxes with assessments. My guess is it goes well beyond anything we are accustomed to.
I was reading several posts under the Villages Talk. Guess since the kids took over they have decided that golf should be revenue neutral. Everyone is complaining about the courses being in awful shape plus the costs per round are going up. So, the country club courses are going to pot with the withdrawal of subsidized play.
I will never regret the move to Sun City, like most, it was one of the best things we ever did. It doesn't get better than this? Or does it? Unfortunately for me E, that's the question/challenge i live with. I can close my eyes and pretend everything is just perfect, ignore what is going on around me and just enjoy life. Hell, i grew up with Alfred E. Newman..."what, me worry?" Funny thing is, it's not worry at all. I've written it more times than i can count, nothing on scale of one to ten in Sun City is more than a one. Life is that good here. That said, simply looking ahead ignores the past. Our history is our blueprint to both our successes and our failures. For whatever reason, we've made it an art form to ignore what Meeker showed us worked and decided to forge blindly ahead with no game plan, no strategy. If i thought golf was done, i'd breath a sigh of relief. It's not. Hopefully this month we will see the costs for the South course pro shop (probably in the 2 million dollar neighborhood). We know the plan is to replace the Lakes West/East maintenance building this year (another 1 million to 2 million). And there are preliminary plans on the Lakes West/East golf car/snack shop and meeting rooms (another million or two by the time it is built). It gets really easy to argue, "but they need to be replaced." With every discussion we race from 20 million to 30 million to 40 million dollars. Pouring this amount into an amenity that is struggling to hold its own and isn't all that popular to the coming generations of home buyers. Worse yet, there is no plan A...how to increase popularity or plan B...what happens if it falls off in the coming years. We just keep throwing more money at it and hope it works. That's not how Sun City was built. Over the nearly two decades to build out, Meeker turned to the community for input. He didn't trust his judgement to be the sole arbitrator of what should be done. He didn't just use a board of 9 members to make those kinds of decisions. He understood if Sun City was to survive and flourish it had to be about more than just a handful of people helping make those choices. It is appropriate we have this discussion in this thread. The Villages is owned and operated by the Morse family. They can and do what they want because it is still all about making a buck. It's a business. They can market, package and price it however they want. As long as folks are willing to spend, it's all good. Sun City, as i have written hundreds of times, is different, unique. We own the community. By looking so small picture, we lose sight of where we are headed and why we are doing things. There are roughly 37,000 card holders in Sun City. About 15% of them golf. You can do the math, but for simplification sake, that is about 5000 people. When we elect a majority of them to the board and the GM wants all golf all the time, we end up where we are. So i am clear. golf courses are an amenity and need to be kept up. But, at what cost and how often and what are our priorities? These are all questions that have been ignored for the past twelve years. I agreed to be on the long range planning committee knowing i couldn't change what we have done in the past, but to ignore it or pretend it didn't put us in a hole we have to try and dig out of is silliness. In another thread we listed some of the potential projects over the next ten years. There's an easy 50 million dollars plus, but trying to make a cohesive strategic plan will mean the board work in conjunction with committees and community alike to determine priorities. We can't change the past, but we can change past shortsightedness. Seems simple enough to me eh?
I love where we live, in the Sun of Arizona. Couldn't get me to go back to the east coast for nothing, and I mean absolutely anything! My concerns are also about history, but about the more recent history which is leading the RCSC down a path I am not sure is in our best interest. Start with over $50 million + poured in golfing, a sport which does not support itself, and could be proven with a forensic audit. A solar contract, signed for a payout of $5 mil, yet somehow, the payout becomes $6 mil, and no on the board knows a commitment to up the original payout has just occurred. A signed contract, done after I left the board which says we don't have any kind of a maintenance agreement for the inverters on the solar system, so now that all of these inverters are bad, someone is going to have to step up and pay for them. Which amenity do we give up in order to fix a solar project which hasn't operated correctly for years. The leaking lake and the agreement with Arizona Water Resources Department. Jan Ek makes a statement which states an agreement has been reached to allow the RCSC to continue to reclaim the leaking water as leaking back into the aquafor, making in unnecessary to spend the millions to redo and reline the lake. Can't find a copy of this agreement anywhere on the web or the Arizona State government's website. Yet, in the newspaper interview it is stated the golf courses all need to be done to meet the new water usage standards. Only Jan Ek has the documents, as no one can find them anywhere, leading up to the disbanding of the LRPC and pouring the entirety of the PIF into redoing golf courses. Monies being poured into car clubs, when so many other clubs have waited years for space, is a slap in the face to all clubs in general. Allowing a board member to sidestep the vetting process for the clubs to get which space at the GAP. Now there are other clubs who lost out on a chance at some space so a board member could get his pet club a grand new space for his jewelry business. All done under the nose of the GM. Finally, the blatant lies told about the RCSC and the age overlay, how children will now be able to move into Sun City, and there will be a ton of young people using all of the amenities. These statements were sent out on the RCSC email blast as being correct. It was a huge scare tactic, and the joke is on us. This little ditty went out without the board even being aware of it. Most people do like to be winners, but not at all costs. Yet here we are, on a precipice of having the revenue we need to continue with projects, or being left to have to borrow money to cover a cost of a lawsuit which should have never happened if clearer heads had prevailed. Had the Gm not continually scared the boards into the boogeyman would get us if we went with Title 33 all of those years ago, this would have all settled out, the quorum would be at 500 which is where it should be, and the future would be most bright. As one looks back as to where these items took wrong turns, it all points back to the GM. She has been leading this ship in the direction she has chosen, and drug the boards down the garden path with her. She even once stated she was the constant in a room of revolving doors. Board members come and go, but she keeps the ship on course. Funny, it doesn't feel as if is on course, or at this point, it is even righted in the correct direction. So, the most recent history of the RCSC and how the GM has guided it is the most frightening part of the history of the RCSC. I know this because I was a board member for two terms and I saw some scary stuff go on. If we do not stop the blatant power grab by the GM, we are doomed to continue to be sued, lose much more money than we ever thought we could, and face the wrath of the courts. I, for one, believe the boogeyman is waiting to come and get us, and it will not be pretty. Will Sun City survive, yes it will. Because of the people who live here will not allow the quality of life suffer due to another's malfeasance. We will survive, but how long it will take to recover may be anyone's guess. Sun City is a great community because of its members, and its supporting cast of members such as CAN, the museum, and a host of other community organizations which help to support those who need it. No more money should be spent on golf, golf buildings, golf outhouses, golf patios or cart parking, as the RCSC is tapped out on golf. The monies need to go elsewhere for the community to benefit, not just golf.
You're doing just fine E. Unfortunately once you've been on the inside looking out, you tend to see everything from that vantage point. For most looking in, everything is functionally perfect. My goals are simple, i want us to be the best we can be. We have a ways to go and the board can do way more to make that happen. It is far easier to go along to get along, but at least a couple of us have struggled with that style of leadership.
Folks, Sun City is the best of the best of all of the Sun Cities out there. It just doesn't get any better than this community for cost of living, ease of life, amenities, and great people. I know this because I live here. Not just exist, but live. We have great neighbors, a great house, and a way of life which can't be surpassed by any other place on earth. So, why do I get so down on the GM, the board, and the management team? Because there are so many things which could be superb as far as amenities, WIFI, show ticketing system that does not have members standing outside in the cold at 5 am, electronic fobs to access to shows and track the Sun Bowl Attendees, and stop robbing Peter to pay Paul for the sorely needed electronics to bring SC to the 21st century. If other Sun Cities can do it, we should be able to do it better. Why, because we are the original, the trend setter for the others. Let us please make this the best community out there. Sun City NOW! Bring on the show!
Now that's funny IC. And, you can't escape the irony of a Trump inspired hat, while the efforts to pass the legislation being carried by those mired on the right. Go figure.
