Percent Urban Development Map - January 2014

The district is required by its controlling State Statue to prepare this map, and to update the map "at least" every 5 years or sooner. The "or sooner" is language in the Statute and for a fast growing development like ours, the percentage of urban development is increasing rapidly. Just compare the January 2014 map with what is going on today (December 2016) to see just how much has changed. You may click on the map image shown to see a larger, printable version of the map. The bottom line is that in January 2014 the then District Engineer who prepared this map stated in his report, "The evaluation establishes that approximately 2.42% of the overall area of the West Village Improvement
District (WVID) meets the criteria for designation as an Urban Area under Florida Statute 189.4051."

So, why is this important? Special Taxing Districts like ours are overseen by a Board of Supervisors which are "elected" initially by the land owners in an annual "election" held every June using a one vote per acre (or part of an acre) basis. So, on day one, the district general developer owned all of the land...there were no home owners yet. So, all 12,000 or so of their "votes" were cast for the folks they wanted to see in charge of managing the initial $130 million or so of public bond money debt being used to develop infrastructure for the new district. That was way back in 2005 when the district was first organized.

I have extracted the supporting narrative and methodology used for preparing this map from the REGULAR BOARD MEETING, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 meeting book for you to view and print as a PDF document.

The West Villages Improvement District is chartered under Chapter 189, Florida Statute by special act of the State Legislature. The state department responsible for oversight of Special Taxing Districts like ours has prepared a simple to ready handbook that summarizes the provisions of the statute in easy to read language.

Over time, many new homes have been built, and each new home owner family now can have one "vote" in the land owner's annual election of new Supervisors, and for every 5 or so of these new families, the general developers get one less vote. (each lot is less than 1/4 acre so 5 homes would occupy about one acre). So, say you wanted John Doe to be elected as a supervisor at the next election to better represent your interests as a home owner. Well, you could cast your 1 vote for him at that annual land owner's election in June, and the general developers would cast there 10,000 or so votes (1 vote per acre owned) for whoever they wanted to be the next supervisor. Who do you think will win that "elections"?

The Statue does provide for the eventual take over of the Board of Supervisors by the actual home owner's. The initial seat on the board for a local, popularly elected Supervisor comes fairly early in the process when there are more than 500 registered voters living in homes in the district. That happened back in late 2013 and in a special version of the annual Land Owners Meeting in June 2014, Mr. Bob Rossman (IslandWalk home owner) was elected by popular vote of the registered home owners in the district.

Now, the other four seats on the board are tied by the Statute to the percentage of urban development within the district. Hence, the importance of this map and also the how and when that the map is updated. The schedule of popularly elected seats for the Board of Supervisors is spelled out in the State Statute as: