Lisa Lake moved into her new home one month ago in the Village of Dabney.
Dabney is located in Community Development District 14 in the new Leesburg section of The Villages.
She and others were shocked to learn of a 56 percent increase that has been proposed in the maintenance assessment for CDD 14 residents.
“Many here live within a certain income amount. This exorbitant rate plus high property taxes would cause more people to move out and/or make resale impossible,” she said.
Lake said she and her neighbors are already feeling like the “stepchildren” of Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.
“Seems wealthy areas living on golf courses should be paying more than those in District 14 who have smaller property and activities,” she said.
Sharon Krull lives on Chad Court in the Village of Lake Denham.
“I do not understand such discrepancies between one Village and another Village within the same proximity, using the same infrastructure, and services. What segregates District 14? Help me understand,” Krull said.
CDD 14 will see the greatest increase in its maintenance assessment in the coming fiscal year, while Middleton is set to see a 31 percent increase, Community Development District 13 will see a 14 percent increase and Community Development District 12 will see an 8 percent increase.
CDD 14 will be paying more than $1.2 million into the fund for the new Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee, which pays for shared infrastructure for CDD 14 and Community Development District 15. CDD 14’s contribution to EMAC makes up slightly more than half of its total budget.
EMAC was formed for the new CDDs south of State Road 44 after a long, bitter battle over the future of the Project Wide Advisory Committee. CDD 12 (which includes, Fenney, DeLuna and Linden) and CDD 13 (which includes Bradford, Cason Hammock, Chitty Chatty, Citrus Grove, Hawkins and St. Catherine) have remained in the original PWAC which includes CDDs south of County Road 466.
When PWAC II never got off the ground, due the objections of Community Development District 7 supervisors, EMAC emerged as a reimagined version of PWAC II.
A public hearing on the CDD 14 budget is set for 1 p.m. Sept. 12 at Everglades Recreation Center.
