To the Editor:
I have lived in The Villages now for a little over five years. I moved here for the weather and for the community.
I also moved here for the “rules” that I believed were in place to maintain order and beauty in our outdoor environment. This was important to me as I cared about what I had to look at when I went outside and walked or drove around, and also what someone else would see in the future when I wanted to sell my house.
Ever since moving into my first home here, I have heard people complaining about the anonymous complaint system and also about “the rules” they were never told about.
I have a couple of things I would like to say. The first is this – you were told about your home’s Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions before you ever even sent in or handed over your deposit money. Your sales person gave it to you either by email or in person. If you didn’t read it, in all of its long and boring legalese pages, that’s not my fault. If you read it, but didn’t understand it, it’s still not my fault. Those are the rules that you agreed to play by and so did I.
I read them and counted on them being enforced.
Which is where No. 2 comes in.
If you think you should be able to do whatever it is that you want to do that isn’t in “the rules,” why should you have such a problem with people “telling” on you? We’re just trying to maintain some of the standards. And I for one have given my name and address every single time I have called Community Standards to discuss any issue I was having with anyone.
I’m not against it being changed to becoming a requirement to say who you are when you report someone, but it really shouldn’t have to be. We are all adults here and many of us have come from pretty good backgrounds professionally or we couldn’t have afforded to come here in the first place. So, don’t act like you have never heard of the rules, even if you don’t remember having signed off on that. How about an, “I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention right then,” and suck it up! Asking the Architectural Review Committee first really isn’t all that hard, and it’s FREE.
Heather Walworth
Village of Fenney
