An anonymous complainer targeted a 12-year-old driveway at a home in The Villages.
Eric and Sheryl Jensen purchased their home at 3171 Southern Trace in the Village of Southern Trace in 2020 for $395,000, through Properties of The Villages.
One of the home’s most attractive features was the driveway which offers more room for parking and turning around.
When the Jensens purchased their home, they were apprehensive about the heavy, fast-moving traffic on Southern Trace. Eric Jensen is a retired police office and was heavily involved in traffic enforcement during his career.
“The speed limit might be 25 miles per hour, but people are driving 45 to 50 mph,” Jensen told the Community Development District 3 Board of Supervisors during a public hearing Friday morning at Savannah Center.
They felt the driveway extension, which had been in place for more than a decade, was a terrific safety feature.
An anonymous complainer called Community Standards on July 27 about the driveway, which was purported to have been put down without approval from the Architectural Review Committee. The Jensens were stunned when they heard about the complaint from Community Standards. They had no idea there was an issue with the driveway extension.
The Jensens went to the ARC seeking retroactive approval, but were denied. They had been hopeful because other neighbors have the same style of driveway.
The Jensens tracked down the previous homeowner, a widow still living in The Villages. She provided a written statement indicating she believed that she and her late husband had completed all of the proper paperwork for the extension at the home they had purchased in 2004. She wrote that the extension was completed in 2011.