Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Lauren Ritchie

Published October 17, 2016

The pressure is on — it's on high. And Montverde is the target.

Developers and their lawyers who haven't been seen in Lake County since the real-estate bubble burst are slithering back into town, pushing hard to overcrowd schools and roads with their cookie-cutter subdivisions. Again.

Unfortunately, the lovely little hamlet of Montverde is their target this time, and on Tuesday the Town Council is to vote on whether to increase the size of the city by nearly 40 percent with the approval of a single subdivision to annex.

Oh, Montverde, for the paltry sum of $250,000, developers want you to sell your rural soul. You're being played for rubes by the big boys.

The proposed development is 114 acres that borders Florida's Turnpike and Blackstill Lake Road. It cozies right up to Trails of Montverde, whose horse-loving owners ought to really enjoy having a bunch of below-average houses on teeny-weeny lots next door.

Minutes from several meetings in which council members discussed the request to build about 276 lots on the property show that the owner and his cadre of lawyers and public-relations lackeys have tapped into what they hope will be the council's greed. They flatly stated that Montverde could keep the $250,000 in return for letting developers build 2 1/2 times the number of houses they could build right now. That's a chintzy payoff.

Long calculations about where the development would get water and who would get the coveted connections along with how much the town would get in estimated property taxes were pressed on the council in attempts to convince them.

James Caruso, president of development company Pineloch Management, during a June meeting described the subdivision as "win-win" because it would bring in $316,000 a year for the town. Robert Thompson, marketing consultant, described the development as a tradeoff between the quality of life and the future financial security of the town.

Hahaha. These guys sure are a bunch of cards.

There's no "trade-off" going on here. There is only destruction of a wonderful little place that so far miraculously has managed to survive and maintain its personality among dozens of subdivisions perched on the rolling hills of south Lake.

For starters, Montverde was founded in 1925 and has paid its light bill every month since then. Chances seem high that it will continue to exist without Blackstill East as its financial savior. So, that's a non-issue. (Notice that nobody points out that the people in the new subdivision will require services such as police and fire, for example. Those don't come cheap.)

But the 800-pound gorilla in the room that nobody is talking about will be the real killer. Just ask Lady Lake. Or Mount Dora. or Clermont. Or Fruitland Park, which made some moves to protect itself, but it has succeeded only in delaying its death as a city with a quirky, folksy atmosphere of its own.

What happened in those cities is that they annexed developments that became bigger than the traditional core town — subdivisions that bring people who aren't like the current resident, who don't care to try to fit into the place where they moved, who want a lot more expensive goodies in the way of parks and splashpads and ballfields and the like.

In Mount Dora, the city foolishly annexed big retirement communities across U.S. Highway 441 and now is fighting with those residents who want the council to operate like a homeowner association. Lady Lake for years fought with Villages residents and at one point considered de-annexing the development.

In Clermont, the gated self-sufficient community of Kings Ridge is the tail that wags the dog. Younger families in Clermont want more parks and activities for children; Kings Ridge folks want the city to stop spending money. Heck, they don't need pools and soccer fields.

The developers of Blackstill East say their homes will cost $285,000 or so. These will be family homes, and not at the top of the line either. That's because their goal is to make money, not to build something that meshes with the community. It is the council's job to force developers to build the kind of places the community wants — or tell them to go build somewhere else.

And, it's not like the developers are being deprived of property rights — they can build tomorrow. Right now, according to county records, Pineloch could build about 114 houses, about a house per acre. Regardless of their size or price, they would fit nicely into the community because Montverde's attractive is homes on open, big breezy lots. In fact, half-acre lots are required in Montverde.

Perhaps that's why Montverde's average home value of $306,400 exceeds the average value in Clermont, Groveland, Mount Dora, Winter Garden, Oakland and Apopka. The town is doing something right.

Thompson warned that if Pineloch was limited to building only 114 homes, the development would sit unsold. Um….so what? How is this Montverde's problem? Council members should feel precisely zero pressure to help developers make money.

Council member Jim Peacock worried that the town won't be able to control the development if it doesn't annex the property. This is a specious argument. The county has restricted the property to a whole lot fewer homes than Montverde seems poised to approve. County commissioners could up the number if asked, but they'll want to hear what the town wants before making a decision. Commissioners aren't going to be bought off by a contribution of $250,000.

What Peacock and some of his colleagues may not realize is that they own Montverde now. If they approve this subdivision, they'll lose their power to new residents, and Montverde will change forever. Council members need to ask this question before voting: How does this development improve the lives of people who live in Montverde today?