Leisureville USA

Out-of-State "Active Adult" Retirement Slowing Down

2011-11-21T09:45:00.001-05:00

USA Today article:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-11-15/baby-boomers-mobility/51221910/1

Boomers spending beyond their means now dread retirement, if it exists

2011-11-06T18:31:00.002-05:00

Not so happy in The Villages

2011-10-04T22:42:00.004-04:00

Report from Leisureville: not very welcoming

By George Erickson
Special to the Star-Banner
Sunday, October 2, 2011

THE VILLAGES — When my wife and I sought relief from our northern winters, we checked out Phoenix and Tucson, but found them much too dry. Next came Florida, which primarily consists of swamps, jungles, strip malls and retirement communities, one of which is modestly called The Villages.

"You have to see it," said a friend. "It's inland, far away from all those hurricanes! You'll have lots of flowers and great landscaping plus an endless choice of restaurants. There's a ton of excellent stores, not to mention a gaggle of golf courses, tennis courts, cultural activities and a wealth of affinity groups with varied interests."

We sent for their cute cardboard "briefcase" and their captivating DVD that provided a tour of The Villages — and, surprise! — a cameo for George W. Bush. Hmmmm.

Oh, well, we thought. That's just marketing. Little, as they say, did we know.

We came. We bought. We furnished. We loved our house, our fruit trees and our big lot with no neighbors behind us.

However, we soon learned that the local radio station was "fair and balanced" — just ask them — and the newspaper, which published cartoons of President Barack Obama drawn with bile, relentlessly featured the acid-etched comments of Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Oliver North, a convicted-but-pardoned felon who, along with Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich, know just how our country should be run.

And then, because The Villages is an obligatory stop for neo-conservatives on cross-country trips, came the book signings at Barnes & Noble. We've had Mike Huckabee, Beck and Sarah Palin, and even George W. Bush, our self-described "warrior president," our lofty ex-decider-in-chief who told a Texas reporter during his first campaign, "If I'm elected president, I'm going to invade Iraq."

So, in an attempt to learn why people would stand in line to praise someone who abetted torture, invaded a sovereign nation and violated the Geneva Convention, I wandered down to the signing to mingle with the crowd, many of whom had erected holiday yard signs proclaiming that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" — not "my" reason or "a" reason, which would be understandable, but "the" reason. Take that, you nonfanatics. But despite all the flags and the chattering, smiling faces, I found only hostility. Wasn't Jesus the Prince of Peace? You know, the "Thou shalt not kill" guy?

The Villages Daily Sun, which is the print version of Faux News, had wasted plenty of space on Bush's face-saving, semi-fiction book. So, for balance, I requested an article explaining how the same people who harassed President Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair would be eager to enrich a man whose fraudulent, trillion-dollar war has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and displaced two million more at the cost of 5,000 dead American troops, 31,000 wounded and an epidemic of post-traumatic stress cases that have raised military suicides to record heights.

That was months ago, and I'm still waiting.

More recently, we learned of the impending visit of Fox News and also Christine O'Donnell, the nonwitch, probably to be followed by Ann Coulter, the genuine article, which is just too much.

We have thrown in the towel. I'll miss the good folks who enliven the World Affairs Club and the Civil Discourse Club, which my free-thinking friend Mike Enright and I founded, but it will be a pleasure to return to Minnesota, a land of truly balanced reporting where scholarships come before warships and where our only real embarrassment is a first-rate religious fanatic named Michelle Bachmann.

George Erickson is a retired dentist and former board member of the American Humanist Association who formerly resided in The Villages.

2011-10-04T22:42:00.001-04:00

Interesting housing demographic update

2011-07-10T22:17:00.003-04:00

Hispanic families favor larger homes with more family members, which is contrary to current "active adult" housing trend, plus other interesting information and updates.

Villages bans Democrats from "private meeting" with Republican Governor in Town Square

2011-06-01T21:50:00.002-04:00

... Members of The Villages Democratic Club were barred from the budget signing by Scott staffers who said the outdoor event in The Villages town square was “private.” Other staffers and Republican operatives scoured the crowd and had Sumter County sheriff’s deputies remove those with anti-Scott signs or liberal-looking pins and buttons. They escorted more than a dozen people off the property....

So much for pretending to be an authentic town....

Advertising attention shifts to older Boomers (as predicted in Leisureville)

2011-05-16T08:00:00.001-04:00

Sunbelt communities running out of cemetery space -- no real desire to build more

2011-04-10T16:58:00.001-04:00

Tampa running out of cemetery space
By KEVIN WIATROWSKI | The Tampa Tribune

For a century now, Italians have been burying their loved ones in a small cemetery on the city's east side.

Headstones in the L'Unione Italia Cemetery bear many names that are still familiar: Ferlita, Greco, Montelione, Nuccio.

Behind a tall black fence, the site is chock-a-block with granite stones and family crypts. An enormous mausoleum holds more than 500 recent burials, stacked six high.

The cemetery has anchored Tampa's Italian community for generations, but it's unclear how much longer that can happen. The Italian cemetery, like many across Tampa, has run out of space. A handful of gravesites and mausoleum slots remain at L'Unione Italia, but they'll soon be gone, said Sam Manna, who oversees the cemetery for the Italian Club.

Tampa isn't alone in running out of cemetery space. Across the country, cities as big as New York and as small as Orem, Utah, are looking for places to bury their dead.

The city-owned graveyards in Tampa â Oaklawn, Woodlawn, Jackson Heights and Marti/Colon â have about 1,100 unused grave sites, all of them spoken for. The city hasn't sold a new gravesite since the 1980s, said Marsha Carter, who manages the cemeteries for the city's parks department.

Another prominent cemetery, East Tampa's privately owned Memorial Park â ran out of new plots in 2006. Since then, it has stopped paying for itself, said owner John Robinson.

As Tampa's cemeteries fill up, families must travel beyond the city limits to bury their loved ones. Even former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who had deep ties to Tampa, couldn't find a final resting space in the city. He's buried in a mausoleum in Pasco County, miles from the baseball stadium that bears his name.

In the Tampa Bay region, decades of suburban growth have left many areas with no cemeteries at all. That's partly because cemeteries aren't part of community planning in Florida. They're treated either as for-profit businesses â often extensions of funeral homes â or as offshoots of nonprofit groups, such as churches.

As a result, from Carrollwood to Keystone, northwest Hillsborough County has no burial spaces. They're also nonexistent in growing bedroom communities such as Wesley Chapel and Brandon.

Even many retiree-oriented communities are without cemeteries, though that's not surprising to Ruth Steiner, a professor of planning at the University of Florida.

"How do you tell someone they're moving to an active-adult community when you include something like a cemetery in the development?" she said.

Cemeteries used to be as integral to a community's life as its churches and schools. But times are changing, and the Tampa Bay region's cemeteries seem at risk of becoming things of the past.

Several factors are at work, experts say:

•The Tampa Bay region is heavy with retirees and transplanted workers for whom "home" is another town in another state. Every year, about 9,000 people die in Hillsborough County, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates. But only a fraction of those people are buried here.

•The cost of a modern burial can run into the five figures, making cremation a cheaper and more appealing option. More than 50 percent of the people who die in Florida each year are cremated, said Jim Ford, president of the Neptune Society, a company that specializes in cremations.

•In bedroom communities, where the population favors young, out-of-state transplants, subdivision builders looking to wring profit from every acre are loathe to set aside land for anything but houses, said Avera Wynne, planning director for the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

Also, many people don't want to live near a cemetery.

"It's really about Not In My Back Yard," said Jennifer Doerfel, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Building Association. "Nobody wants to look at a cemetery."

Not to worry, say cemetery owners and funeral directors. The Tampa Bay region has burial spaces to spare, even if they're in far-flung places such as southwest Pasco and eastern Hillsborough counties.

Given the trends reshaping the way we deal with death, the region's existing cemeteries have space for years to come, said Keenan Knopke, president of the Florida Cemetery, Crematory and Funeral Home Association, based in Pinellas County.

With modern families spread across the country, it makes sense that people opt out of traditional burials, said Lori Collins, an archeologist who studies cemeteries at the University of South Florida.

Collins points to her own family, which has roots in Upstate New York but is dispersed across 15 states. Her father is buried in the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, her mother in Land O' Lakes.

"This idea of having a centralized place where people come may not be such an aspect of our society anymore," Collins said.

That would be a shame, said Laurie Burgess, a cemetery expert with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Cemeteries serve as their community's time capsules, literally casting history in stone. In Tampa, cemeteries hold the remains of the city's founders, prominent members of its Italian, black, Cuban and Jewish communities, slaves and victims of yellow fever and Spanish flu epidemics.

As the Tampa Bay area loses touch with it cemeteries, it also risks losing touch with its history, Burgess said.

"Cemeteries are very good at carrying messages into the future from the past," she said.

Protecting that history isn't always simple, though.

Memorial Park Cemetery owner Robinson said the East Tampa burial ground, where some of Tampa's most prominent black residents are buried, has become a financial burden after three generations in his family.

Robinson couldn't convince the city to take over the site. He also hasn't stirred much interest among East Tampa residents to step in. So, when Robinson, 58, dies, the cemetery will become abandoned property.

A few blocks to the south on 26th Street, Manna hopes to avoid a similar fate for the L'Unione Italia Cemetery. Community members have spent a decade reviving the once-neglected cemetery.

The Italian Club wants to build a costly new mausoleum to extend the cemetery's life for future generations, himself included, Manna said. The group will likely borrow the money to do the work, because few people buy gravesites in advance any more, he said

The alternative is walking away from the cemetery, and that's not an option, Manna said.

"Having a place to come to visit your deceased loved ones helps keep a sense of family," Manna said. "I think that's begun to fracture."

Andrew Blechman and Leisureville featured on the "Kunstlercast"

2011-03-13T15:55:00.002-04:00

Great listening. Enjoy!

Not the sort of people you want to depend on for helping contribute to school taxes

2011-01-30T18:19:00.002-05:00

Washington Post, 01/26/2011
Leisure World residents balk at $1 fee
By Katherine Shaver

Sixty percent of residents surveyed at Leisure World in Silver Spring want to change the “active adult” community’s name rather than pay a licensing fee to continue using it and the landmark steel globe, a community leader said Wednesday.

The survey, which was circulated in December, came after Heidi Cortese, the daughter of Leisure World’s initial developer, proposed charging a $6,000 monthly fee because her California-based company, RRLH, holds the trademark to the name and globe design. Cortese lowered the fee to $1 annually for 30 years, saying she needed to charge something or risk losing her trademark protection.

The Georgia Avenue community has used the Leisure World name and enormous steel globe at its entrance for 45 years.

Leisure World’s 35-member board of directors will vote on the issue in March or April after the staff determines how much it would cost to change the name on signs, trucks, staff uniforms and the entrance, said board chairwoman Marian Altman. The community has already spent $35,000 in legal fees.

Of the 2,895 residents who responded to the survey, 60 percent favored changing the name and 32 percent wanted to keep it, Altman said. Another 8 percent gave only comments. The 610-acre community has 8,500 residents age 55 and older.

If the community changes its name, Altman said, it also would change the globe logo.

On the House: A boomer boom goes bust

2011-01-23T15:19:00.001-05:00

On the House: A boomer boom goes bust
By Al Heavens
Inquirer Real Estate Columnist

A lot of home builders once assumed there would be a bottomless market of baby boomers for their over-55 communities.
You could see the dollar signs in their eyes every time they happened on one of the 79 million Americans born between 1945 and 1964.

Demographers admonished them not to lump all boomers together, noting that a large segment hadn't gone to Ivy League schools or become corporate lawyers.

Some, it turns out, actually worked for a living, or didn't, or lived from paycheck to paycheck, or saw their high-paying jobs outsourced to cheap labor markets and now were working at fast-food outlets.

When buyers didn't materialize fast enough, developments were built that boomers could retire into while they were still working, communing with their demographic in four-unit clusters or at community recreation centers. Then came 2006: The housing bubble burst, the poor got poorer, and the rich became less so.

Now, five years later, boomers are hanging on to their houses, either because they hope their lost equity will be recovered quickly or because buyers are scarce. That's what the 50+ Housing Council of the National Association of Home Builders and AARP found in separate surveys of baby boomers in late 2010.

Another finding: The recession has made buyers more practical about choosing new homes. Design considerations have taken a backseat to financial concerns, which any student of the obvious figured out three years ago.

Falling into the "no-kidding" category: Past surveys showed that selling a house facilitated the purchase of a new one. The most recent data indicate that option diminished during the economic downturn.

In 2005 and '07, the Home Builders/MetLife Mature Market Survey reported, no active-adult buyers acknowledged having to tap cash or savings to buy a house, but in 2009, 45 percent of the typical buyer's down payment came from cash or savings.

The data were drawn from the 2009 American Housing Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In a May Webinar, Margaret Wylde of the ProMatura Group of Oxford, Miss., who produced a number of the studies I've reported on over the years, said the number of boomers "very unlikely" to buy in active-adult developments had risen from 3 percent in 2004 to 31 percent.

Tough crowd.

Those able to buy are getting much more for less, the Home Builders/MetLife study said, with fewer than half reporting that their new houses cost more than their old ones.

AARP's study reported that 88 percent of those 65 and older and 83.5 percent of baby boomers want to stay in their homes as long as they can.

That means most boomers will stay where they are in the suburbs, AARP said: "Retirement communities are now being developed closer to metropolitan areas because many are still working and don't see retirement as withdrawing from society."

There were some interesting insights on urban areas, as well, from AARP:

Many central cities are experiencing a resurgence of urban living fueled not only by young adults but by empty-nesters.

"Yuppie senior" populations emerged in places like Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta.

Slow-growing metropolitan areas in the Northeast and Midwest will age, too, but more likely will consist disproportionately of "mature seniors" who are less well off financially or medically. Those populations may require greater social support, along with affordable private and institutional housing, and accessible health-care providers.

On the House:

Inquirer real estate writer Alan J. Heavens is the author of "Remodeling on the Money" (Kaplan Publishing). His home improvement column appears Fridays in Home & Design.

"On the House" appears Sundays. Contact Alan J. Heavens at 215-854-2472, aheavens@phillynews.com or Twitter: @alheavens.

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Find this article at:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/al_heavens/20110123_On_the_House__A_boomer_boom_goes_bust.html

© Copyright | Philly Online, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Another good reader letter

2011-01-08T17:43:00.000-05:00

Mr. Blechman,

Finally, someone has the stones to publish some truths about this place. Thank you. Everyone in my area, as well as, anyone who is currently employed by The Villages needs a copy of "Leisureville". It's better than therapy. I am a certified builder and have worked for these people for over 12 years. I have lived here locally for over 20 years and watched as the prestine beauty of the area that was fields of grandfather oaks and fox squirrels turn to cookie cutter houses and repeat shopping. Yes, I profited heavily in the housing boom, but I can tell you how homes were pushed to be built in 30 days start to finish and how county inspectors seemed to be "robo signing" inspection cards. This place has no bones or history like many other great places to live. It is surrounded by rampant poverty and high unemployment. It seems as if the Villagers are all bitter when you come into contact with them. Maybe they're pissed because they can't unload their home in Florida's falling house market, or they did everything and are bored. The locals hate the place and go to bed at night loathing that their local gov't is controlled completely by the developer. Roads crumble outside the borders while flower beds are replanted after every cold snap within. County tax revenues seem to be misappropriated. Recently, the local high school was consolidated with the middle school for lack of county funds - while the developer plans a new turnpike exchange and towncenter. When the developer needs an agenda pushed or funds raised, he leans on the subcontractors and business owners for "voluntary" donations. It gets old.....quick!

I agree with you. I think it's wasteful ideology to save your entire life only to live segregated by age and confine oneself to "retirement communities". The word "retirement" itself is a goal less thought of by my generation (X) and surely by the Y and Z gen. "Live now", we say. I recommend "4 Hour Work Week", by Tim Ferriss. This could very well sum up the mindset of the next generations and lead to the termination of phrases like "retirement communities".

If you plan a part two to "Leisureville", I would be more than helpful (free of charge) to fill in any blanks with my extensive experiences as an insider and as a local of 20 years.

Thanks again for a great read!

J.

Interesting reader letter

2011-01-08T17:42:00.000-05:00

Mr Blechman, After a recent trip down to Lady Lake Florida to pack up and move my 80 year old mother-in-law back to New England my wife and I made several unsettling observations of the area that we just couldn't quite figure out. After spending the day packing up her belongings and emptying out her mobile home we went to the Villages to spend the night in one of their hotels. The place was nice enough, but when we ventured out to eat and walk around we just couldn't keep from feeling we were in a giant theme park. We ended up eating one night at RJ Gator's and saw all these "seniors" streaming in these ridiculous outfits- both sexes easily dressed like they were 25 years younger then they were.We figured out that this must have been a stop on the "circuit" and asked our waitress about it. She laughed and said we should have seen the halloween party they had there- the outfits were "shocking", never mind the dancing. When we went back to the room I just had to find out what the Villages we supposed to be all about- We had been there before as my sister and brother-in-law moved there and it was Utopia to them. After just a little bit of digging on the internet I came across your book "Leisureville" and after reading a few pages online I had to get a copy. Being right across the street from a big Barnes and Noble at the Villages you probably won't be surprised to hear that your book was "unavailable". When we got home I bought your book and couldn't put it down. Everything was spot on- from that rag of a newspaper (that has to be seen to be believed) the piped in music, the phony downtowns, you name it. The most disturbing thing is most of the residents don't care- it's the greatest place on earth to them.You basically articulated our observations to a "T", the scary thing is learning how the place is run. We also have some friends that live in Bushnell and that place is a whole different world only 25 or so miles away. My mother-in-law is no fool and after being uprooted by my sister-in-law and told to move from West Palm Beach to Lady Lake she has finally had it. She has been in the area only 2 years and she has decided dealing in reality with the winters in New England (she is originally from Massachusetts) is better than living in a fantasy land in the Villages. Thanks for a great book, J and K, in NH

Nice documentary looking for start-up donations

2011-01-07T18:48:00.000-05:00

Age-Restricted developments = sprawl (Hartford Courant)

2010-12-20T21:49:00.001-05:00

As predicted ... developers dropping age restrictions to keep sales alive

2010-12-20T21:45:00.001-05:00

ctnow.com/business/hc-age-restricted-communities-20101211,0,1607482.story

Struggling 'Active Adult' Developments Drop Age Restrictions
By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN, kgosselin@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
December 13, 2010

In the 1990s, towns across Connecticut enthusiastically approved plans to build housing developments restricted to adults 55 and over, attracted by the idea of solid buyers who would pay their taxes and be active in civic affairs but not add children to school systems.

For retirees, it was a chance to stay in the same towns where they had lived for years.

The number of these "active adult" communities in the state mushroomed — now at 200, by one estimate, representing thousands of single-family houses and condominiums. It worked well for many: Developments flourished and sold out.

But as the housing recession deepened, a growing number of the developments were left unfinished. Some developers have fallen into bankruptcy, others are struggling and looking for a way out.

Now, they've found one.

Following a trend that has unfolded in the past year elsewhere in the country, at least three partly completed "active adult" projects in Greater Hartford — two in Ellington and one in Tolland — have won local approval to drop the age restriction.

In Tolland, Belvedere Ridge provides the most striking example of the slowdown: Envisioned as a community of 66 homes, just two have sold since 2006.

Each of the three developers, including a bank that aims to sell the property to a new builder, are hoping the change will spur sales in a still-weak housing market.

While the conversions are likely to ease financial pressures on developers, they have the potential to spark controversy because the homes were specially approved under the condition that they be only for people over 55. So far, there hasn't been any organized opposition to the change, but some people are raising concerns about what the conversions mean for the future of housing for a fast-growing segment of the population.

Colin Milner, founder of the International Council on Active Aging, said a spate of conversions could reduce the backlog of housing for 55 and over — making it tougher for people that age to find housing in the future. It also could push up the prices buyers may have to pay, he said.

"Will older adults have the adequate number of communities that they will need?" asked Milner, who has been consulted by the White House on issues involving aging. "It's still up in the air."

A Jump Start?

Among the three developments in Tolland and Ellington, 243 housing units — a mix of single-family houses and townhouses — were envisioned. So far, just 17 have been sold.

There are early signs, however, that the conversions are likely to jump start stalled projects.

At Windermere Village in Ellington, the developer, who broke ground in early 2008, went 18 months without a single offer. At most there might be three people a week coming to take peek at a development, where eight units have been sold out of 123 that were planned.

"I felt like I was one of those stores in New York and people were just window shopping," said William H. Coons Jr., the project's developer.

Since the age restriction was dropped, as of Sept. 1, two buyers — a couple in their 40s and one in their 20s with a young child — have placed deposits on single-family houses, Coons said.

Coons and other developers say the nature of the developments, while now allowing children, won't change radically because the homes remain modest, typically under 2,500 square feet with 2 or 3 bedrooms and small yards.Nevertheless, the conversions are ruffling some neighbors who thought the developments would remain age-restricted.

When Christine Lacas and her husband built a new home in Tolland in 2007, she was told the nearby Belvedere Ridge was 55 and over. She was relieved to know there would be no children because there was a wooded area on her property with a stream that she can't easily see from her house.

"We were told this was age restricted and we expected it to remain that way," Lacas said. "I don't want my backyard to be a recreation area for kids in the upper part of that development."

'Everything Just Stopped'

When Estelle Williamson moved into Center Village in Ellington with her husband, John, three years ago, she was the second resident of the 55-and-older community. Then another single-family house went up and then another.

"We thought, 'This place is really starting to build up,'" Williamson said. "Then, it stopped. Everything just stopped."

The lawn of Williamson's Cape Cod-style house is well-maintained, and her home is decorated for the holidays with lights and festive globes of evergreen hanging in the front porch. But all around her are vacant fields.

She fetches a three-ring binder from a closet and opens it on her dining room table. She points to a map showing the 49 houses and a couple of duplexes that were supposed to be constructed. So far, just five houses and a duplex have been sold.

In 2009, Rockville Bank took over the property in a foreclosure from the original developer. The bank said opening the development to a larger segment of buyers made sense in a weak housing market. The bank says it is now in advanced negotiations with possible new owners and could reach an agreement early next year.

Williamson, whose husband died earlier this year, said she and her neighbors didn't oppose the conversion. She says she raised a large family, and doesn't mind that there might be children in the development. What is more important, she said, is getting the development moving again.

The roads in Center Village haven't been accepted by the town. The handful of homeowners have to share costs that should have been spread out among more property owners. Street lighting still needs to be installed.

"It's very dark around here at night," Williamson said. "I would like to see it finished."

Williamson, who paid $350,000 for her home in 2007, knows the house has lost value. A stalled development doesn't attract buyers and lenders are reluctant to finance purchases under such conditions.

The New Normal

The flow of buyers to 55 and over communities slowed to trickle in 2008, as home sales weakened dramatically and property values took a hit.

"It is difficult to sell today, and therefore moves to retirement communities have slowed down," said Susan M. Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. "Potential retirees whose homes are 'underwater,' with mortgages greater than home values make it difficult to sell."

Retirement savings also have been eroded in the financial services meltdown in recent years, forcing some to work longer than expected.

"Staying in place is the new normal," Wachter said.

Wachter said the move to convert to 55-and-over communities could gain momentum, especially if the recovery of the housing market is slow.

Towns in Connecticut didn't quickly embrace the change. In Ellington, town zoning officials initially rebuffed efforts to drop the age restriction, preferring to let the market work itself out, according to town planner Rob Phillips.

But as Center Village's developer fell into bankruptcy and owners there and in Windermere Village lined up to support the change, zoning officials softened their stance. The modest size of the homes, many of them with two bedrooms, are not conducive to raising large families — so the change wouldn't significantly alter what made the 55 and over restriction attractive to start with, Phillips said.

In addition, at Windermere Village, the developer agreed to set aside 20 percent of the units for "workforce" housing to be priced at $250,000.

Knocking on the Door

Not everyone is willing to pull back from the 55 and over market, however.

In Berlin, a developer backed by a group of private investors purchased the Beckley Farms development in August from Webster Bank, which had foreclosed on the project.

The $50 million development is expected to have 156 units in all, including 54 townhouses, to be built in five phases. The project has 22 single-family houses that were built and sold before the previous developer ran into trouble. There also are eight houses that were up and sided, but not finished on the inside.

Jeff Respler, the project's managing partner, said the new owners already have invested $500,000 in improvements. He said the community's feels like it is out in the country, but is still close to shopping and restaurants on the Berlin Turnpike.

"We had people coming knocking on the front door of our sales office, asking for more information," Respler said. "There's definitely a market out there."

But in Tolland, developer Lenard Thylan of New York-based Tomlen LLC said he is looking for a fresh start at Belvedere Ridge. The development also has a new name: Somerset Woods.

Thylan said he believes that the "active adult" market has suffered from overbuilding — and that the niche of the age restriction just shut out too many potential buyers.

"The change is very simple," Thylan said. "Real estate is predicated on market concerns. The market needed to be expanded. It made more sense, if we had the ability to sell to everyone."

Copyright © 2010, The Hartford Courant

Billionaire's son charged with poaching in Montana

2010-11-06T18:15:00.001-04:00

The Villages' mysterious billionaire owner's son is charged with a felony....

Letter from a reader; My response

2010-10-15T04:04:00.002-04:00

Dear Andrew:

I read your book, "Leisureville" twice, as we are considering moving there. There are a couple misconceptions that I would like to clear up. First of all, when I was your age, I also thought active retirement communities were ridiculous and my grown children actually remember me saying that. I am not against children. I do not mind having children around, and I would never consider moving if my children didn't relocate after they graduated from college and we are moving simply to live closer to them. If we move into a development, most of the families would be young and their conversations would be about PTA and such. I always had a problem with getting old, and although I love children (I was a teacher!), I feel older when I'm the oldest person in the neighborhood. In the Villages, or anywhere else for 55+ residents, I wouldn't feel so old, since I would be among my peers. Again, your book insinuated that we are moving away from our children. My son relocated from NJ to Florida, and our primary reason for moving is to be near him and after he's married, to be near our grandchildren. Since we have to move to be closer to him, it just makes sense to live someplace that has activities, so my husband doesn't watch TV all day. By being active, it keeps you young. Watching TV, or other inactive activity just makes you old much too quickly. Believe me, I have seen this with our parents.

I read your book because until recently, we didn't consider an active community, and Leisureville happens to be about the area we plan on moving to. My husband and I are very happily married for 34 years. Are the activities that go on in Katie Belle's really as bad as the book implies? I don't want to live in an atmosphere like that. Yet, my husband and I like to go out to dinner. We don't want to deal with people like Mr. Midnight. In general, is it like any other place, or is it a place for perverted old people?

Have you done any follow-ups to Leisureville? I'd definitely read them if you did.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
X
(kept anonymous by me to protect privacy of reader)

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My Response:

Dear X,

My point in the book is that these communities are not "bad" per se, but rather that they are a symptom of a societal / generational breakdown. Lean times are ahead and I don't think segregation (voluntary or otherwise) is going to lend itself to cooperative sharing when the pie continues to shrink. Regardless, I suspect you'll rather enjoy life in The Villages. Most people there adore it. It is not a "perverted" place in any way, so there's nothing to fear in that way. And as judgmental as you sound about Mr. Midnight, he's actually a very decent guy, not some sort of ass-pincher. He's well liked and for good reason.

Keep in mind that The Villages is extremely conservative Republican for the most part; not particularly intellectual; there is very little diversity -- conformity is the rule, not the exception; there are lots of rules; and one family "governs" the place and they don't like dissent. And while the place itself is a playground paradise for active seniors, it's surrounded by sprawl and rural Floridians with a very different culture. If none of that is a problem, then I suspect you'll like it there very much. It's huge and there's lots to do. People make friends very quickly. But you won't hear from those who don't like it -- they've already left. Also keep in mind that parents who move to be near their children in today's world are often disappointed because their children often move again for jobs when necessary. Like I said, I don't see these communities as "the problem"; merely a symptom.

Best wishes,

Andrew

Another planned 55+ community evaporates

2010-10-11T11:52:00.001-04:00

Reinventing our suburbs -- WSJ

2010-10-11T11:48:00.001-04:00

LIFE & STYLEOCTOBER 9, 2010
How SoHo Can Save the Suburbs
Smart 'edge cities' are turning their shuttered malls and aging office parks into hip hotspots
By RICHARD FLORIDA

In Lakewood, Colo., a long-shuttered mall is being rebuilt into a 22-block area with parks, bus lines, stores and 1,300 new households. Tysons Corner, Va., is undergoing a full transformation from an office park to a walkable, livable community. And officials in Ferndale, Mich., are promoting the arts scene and building affordable housing in an attempt to revitalize the small city outside Detroit. Remaking America's sprawling suburbs, with their enormous footprints, shoddy construction, hastily built infrastructure and dying malls, is shaping up to be the biggest urban revitalization challenge of modern times—far larger in scale, scope and cost than the revitalization of our inner cities.

Just a couple of decades ago, the suburbs were the very image of the American Dream, with their sprawling, large-lot homes and expansive lawns. Suburban malls, industrial parks and office campuses accounted for a growing percentage of the nation's economic output. Planners talked about "edge cities"—satellite centers where people could live, work and shop without ever having to set foot in major cities.

With millions of American homes now "underwater" or in foreclosure, the suburbs and exurbs have taken some of the most visible hits from the great recession. In a stunning reversal, big cities like Boston, Chicago and San Francisco have become talent magnets, drawing ambitious people, empty-nesters, young families and even a growing number of offices back to their downtown cores. As inner-city neighborhoods gentrify, blight and intransigent poverty are moving out to the suburbs. A Brookings Institution study released this week found that the number of poor people in the suburbs has grown by 37.4% since 2000, compared with 16.7% in cities.

The suburbs that have continued to prosper during the downturn share many attributes with the best urban neighborhoods: walkability, vibrant street life, density and diversity. The clustering of people and firms is a basic engine of modern economic life. When interesting people encounter each other, they spark new ideas and accelerate the formation of new enterprises. Renewing the suburbs will require retrofitting them for these new ways of living and working.

Even before the recession, our changing demography had begun to alter the texture of suburban life in favor of denser, more walkable mixed-use communities. The average age of marriage has been rising, households have gotten smaller, and home-buyers—surprising numbers of them single women—are looking for smaller houses closer in, with access to parks and cultural amenities.

Though most suburbanites are happy with where they live, many are unhappy with how much time they have to spend in their cars. A 2002 study found that more than half of Americans would prefer to walk more and drive less. Commuting by car is time-consuming and expensive, and according to research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, it is also one of life's least enjoyable activities. Most suburbanites don't want to move to the city; they want the best aspects of city life to come to them.

Walkable suburbs are some of America's best places to live, and they provide their sprawling, spread-out siblings with a model for renewal. Relatively dense commercial districts, with shops, restaurants and movie theaters, as well as a wide variety of housing types, have always been a feature of the older suburbs that grew up along the streetcar lines of big metro areas. A 2007 study by Christopher Leinberger found more than 150 walkable towns in America's 30 largest metro regions—places like Hoboken, Montclair and Princeton, N.J.; Stamford and Greenwich, Conn.; Brookline, Mass.; Bryn Mawr, Pa.; and Royal Oak and Birmingham, Mich. Newer versions of walkable suburbs can be found in regions that developed later, like Palo Alto, Calif.; Boulder, Colo.; Coral Gables, Fla.; Decatur, Ga.; and Clayton, Mo.

These are the places where Americans are clamoring to live and where housing prices have held up even in the face of one of the greatest real-estate collapses in modern memory. More than that, as my colleague Charlotta Mellander and I found when we looked into the statistics, the U.S. metro areas with walkable suburbs have greater economic output and higher incomes, more highly educated people, and more high-tech industries, to say nothing of higher levels of happiness.

Walk This Way

The most successful walkable suburbs in the U.S., ranked by education levels, per capita income and travel time to work.

1. Bethesda, Md.

2. Princeton Township, N.J.

3. Highland Park, Texas

4. Evanston, Ill.

5. Birmingham, Mich.

6. Coral Gables, Fla.

7. Winter Park, Fla.

8. Menlo Park, Calif.

9. Lake Forest, Ill.

10. Kirkland, Wash.

Sources: Martin Prosperity Institute, Christopher Leinberger, U.S. Census Bureau

Of course, not all of America's suburbs have the option of developing compact cores along streetcar lines or transit, and not all are filled with wonderful old housing stock that is ripe for upgrading. Many are relatively characterless places, with spread-out working class populations living in cookie-cutter houses on large lots and commuting long distances to work. These suburbs have to rebuild from the bottom up.

Languishing older malls are a good place to start. In Phoenix, three abandoned strip malls clustered around one corner have been converted into a restaurant, an upscale grocery, a chic bakery and a cocktail bar. It's called La Grande Orange, and it has become a huge attraction, for both customers and local home-buyers. National Harbor, a mix of hotels, residential units, marinas, parks, stores and indoor and outdoor entertainment venues, is being built on the footings of two previous failed projects in Prince George's County, Md. When completed, it will extend along a mile and a quarter of the Potomac. Outside Minneapolis, the parking lot that surrounded a dead shopping center built on landfill was turned back into wetlands—which in turn attracted new "lakefront" townhome development.

Perhaps the biggest retrofit of all is happening in Tysons Corner, Va., the virtual archetype of an auto-dependent, sprawling edge city. Located near the junctions of three major highways, it boasts 25 million square feet of office space and four million square feet of retail space. Decades ago developers hailed it as the wave of the future—one of hundreds of new satellite centers that would render our old downtown commercial centers obsolete. But Tysons Corner has lately been losing out. Its perpetual traffic gridlock and its lack of human energy have caused home-buyers to choose other places. Some companies that were headquartered there have even moved back into the District of Columbia.

Now developers and landowners are seeking to make it more walkable, with a more integrated mix of uses. In June, the county's Board of Supervisors adopted a comprehensive plan that would transform Tysons Corner into a "24-hour urban center where people live, work and play." Its hallmarks will be green construction, access to public transportation and abundant public amenities, like parks and bicycle trails—something that sounds very much like a real city.

There are countless other opportunities for reclamation, all across America, as Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson document in their 2008 book, "Retrofitting Suburbia." Under-used golf courses can be transformed into parks and nature sanctuaries; abandoned car dealerships can be landscaped and developed as new, mixed-use neighborhoods. Developers can cut streets through formerly walled-off corporate campuses and add restaurants, stores and public spaces.

Historically, America's economic growth has hinged on its ability to create new development patterns—economic landscapes that simultaneously expand space and intensify our use of it. The rebound after the panic and long depression of 1873 was based on the transition to an urban-industrial economy organized around great cities and their early streetcar suburbs. Our recovery from the Great Depression saw the rise of massive metropolitan complexes of cities and suburbs. Today the challenge is to remake our suburbs, to turn them into more vibrant, livable, people-friendly communities and, in doing so, to make them engines of innovation and productivity.

—Richard Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and the author of "The Rise of the Creative Class" and "The Great Reset."
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The American Spectator takes on age-segregation

2010-09-06T05:46:00.001-04:00

The American Spectator
THE NATION'S PULSE: Active Adult Communities and the 'Grace of Chaos'
By James M. Thunder

On August 10, Colin Mason of the Population Research Institute wrote the essay "Are Children the Enemy of Productivity?" He quoted Frank Cottrell Boyce's article in the Guardian:

There's a belief that to do great work you need tranquility and control, that the pram is cluttering up the hallway; life needs to be neat and tidy. This isn't the case. Tranquility and control provide the best conditions for completing the work you imagined. But surely the real trick is to produce the work that you never imagined. The great creative moments in our history are almost all stories of distraction and daydreaming -- Archimedes in the bath, Einstein dreaming of riding a sunbeam -- of alert minds open to the grace of chaos.

Mason agrees with Boyce that children do not distract us from productivity, but he added that he believes they actually enhance our productivity and enhance our lives generally. Children, he writes, "remind us that the greatest insights in the world were discovered not while ponderously meditating, but while delighting in the simple pleasures and pains of life."

Boyce's and Mason's words reminded me of when I was 42. My wife and I and our daughters, ages 16 to 5, moved to a suburb outside Milwaukee. Our next-door neighbors were a retired veterinarian, Dr. Frank Gentile, and his wife, Irene, both about 80. As it turned out, they knew my sister and her family who lived in the next suburb.

We moved away a few years later. And Frank and Irene moved into an assisted living home and passed on.

But my family does not forget them. I have memories of snowblowing their driveway and sidewalk and watching election returns with them. My daughters recall with great fondness their invitations to eat cookies with them after school in their kitchen. One of my daughters and I and Frank sang in the same church choir.

During these same years, we became family to my sister's widowed father-in-law, Jack Schlosser, who was in his 80s and lived nearby. He came to many events of both my sister's family and my family. And one of his grandchildren lived behind us.

In this past year, I've known a couple of people who have moved into active adult communities. Active adult communities are planned, often gated, residential areas for people ages 55 and up, without children under the age of 18. Our three elderly friends outside Milwaukee could have moved to one of them. If they had, all three of our generations (elderly, middle-aged and children) would have been deprived of fruitful, loving relationships.

The number of active adult communities continues to grow in our country. Why?

Residents are repelled by certain aspects of urban or suburban life: the noises of children and of teenagers, crime, and high property taxes that supported schools. And they are attracted by amenities -- bike and walking paths, golf courses, clubhouses, swimming pools, tennis courts, a full plate of indoor recreational activities. While these same amenities are typically available in urban and suburban communities, active adult communities provide them together and close at hand.

I submit that active adult communities are inimical to a rich human life. While still active, while still mobile, while still employed, the residents have purposefully disengaged from their elders, from teenagers, from children -- except on the specific dates and time and places they select. On the spectrum of what should be regarded as examples of faith-based land use planning and what should not, active adult communities fall on the extreme of "not."

When I was in college, I would return home of course. In church, it would feel quite odd to be among young children, teenagers, middle-aged people and the elderly. At first I was happy to return to campus and be with my same-age peers. Later, it was the campus rather than the church that seemed odd. I started calling college campuses "youth reservations." But at least college campuses have redeeming value. They are devoted to the development of the intellect and the transmission of knowledge. They are populated by people intending to remain no more than four years and then go out and change the world. Residents of active adult communities, on the other hand, could remain 20-plus years, and to what good purpose are they devoted?

There may be value in being a "gun-free" or "tobacco-free" or "drug-free" zone, but where is the value in having grown-ups post "child-free" signs? Where is the value in having them post signs declaring "under-age-55-free zones"?

I submit that the groomed and tranquil landscapes of active adult communities are a blight on our larger communities and our nation.

In utter contrast to this blight is the recent development of one-room portable modules that house elderly persons. They will be placed temporarily on the lot of a caregiver's permanent home. The Commonwealth of Virginia recently passed legislation allowing such siting to supersede local zoning laws. The juxtaposition of permanent and temporary housing structures may not be aesthetically pleasing but, in similar fashion, school districts around the country have sited temporary classrooms next to school buildings for the sake our schoolchildren. Hopefully, these modules for the care of our frail elderly will blossom across the landscape. Virginians have welcomed "the grace of chaos."

James M. Thunder is a Washington, D.C. lawyer who has spoken and published on what he calls "faith-based land use planning."

The Villages' big IRS problem (pt. 2)

2010-09-05T16:17:00.001-04:00

IRS-Villages dispute shows no sign of resolution

Lauren Ritchie
COMMENTARY
September 1, 2010
Second of two parts.
OrlandoSentinel.com

In May, the Internal Revenue Service agent conducting the review of $355.4 million in outstanding bonds issued by the Village Center and the Sumter Landing community development districts suggested a settlement in the ongoing war between the two.

The district should redeem all its bonds and repay the debt. It should pony up $16 million in back taxes on the bonds and should agree never to issue tax-free bonds again.

The settlement suggested by the agent wasn't received with dancing in the streets. Though there is no written rejection in the files at the district office, the answer that filtered back to the IRS was quite clear.

And it touched off a new set of skirmishes in what has become an expensive battle — already $209,000 spent in mostly lawyer fees — that I described in Sunday's column.

IRS Agent Dominick Servadio responded to the district's disdain for his idea in July by officially opening new investigations on another $60 million worth of bonds issued by the Sumter Landing Community Development District.

Complaints about agent

The district retaliated by calling Servadio's boss and complaining.

On July 20, he fired back in a letter: "All of the complaints/issues you have raised are totally without merit, and I would only hope that in the future you would have the courtesy to direct any similar comments or complaints to me instead of going behind my back.

"I can only assume that the intent of these recent phone calls is to distract attention away from the examination issues, or possibly to indirectly intimidate me or impede me in the performance of my officials duties.

"I can assure you that you will accomplish none of those things."

He stated that "everyone's best interest" would be served if the district honored his request to deal directly with him and quit calling his bosses.

The district's next move was to file a Freedom of Information Act demand, wanting to know with what third parties (especially the evil media) Servadio had discussed the case. That's because the district seemed convinced from the beginning that this is all about a conspiratorial smear campaign by Villages haters or else a career-building maneuver by the agent. (That's standard response to criticism in The Villages. Anyone who questions the financial structure is either jealous or has a secret agenda to destroy the happiness of 80,000 lucky people. It couldn't be anything else.)

The IRS just laughed and said no. It wasn't releasing any documents from an ongoing review to determine whether nearly a half billion dollars in bonds should be considered tax-free.

Outcome of dispute unclear

Since then, Servadio has been promoted. A field agent in Charlotte, N.C., was assigned the case, and in March she asked for hundreds of pages of information about how the districts function and what they own.

The agent wants evidence of the written consent for establishing the districts from all the landowners whose property is included in the district, a legal description of the external boundaries of the district and a land-use plan showing what is intended for the property in the future.

Meanwhile, an IRS appraiser from Palm Beach County came tocalculate the value of what the district bought from the developer with the bond money. Part of the dispute involves the IRS contention is that the developer made as much as 700 percent profit, which Servadio said would never have happened if the developer hadn't controlled the district.

So, there you have it. Nobody's position has changed much, and the dispute is just humming along through the system.

Millions of dollars are still at stake, and the future for homeowners in The Villages is no more clear when this investigation started several years ago.

Copyright © 2010, Orlando Sentinel

Update on The Villages big IRS problems (pt. 1)

2010-09-05T16:15:00.000-04:00

IRS relentless in probe of Villages bond transactions

Lauren Ritchie
COMMENTARY
August 29, 2010
First of two parts.
OrlandoSentinel.com

A year has passed since the Internal Revenue Service suggested that The Villages retirement community redeem more than $344 million in bonds the IRS says were improperly issued as tax-free.

The agency wanted $16 million in back taxes and a promise by community development districts never again to masquerade as a legitimate government.

The Villages thumbed its proverbial nose at such a notion, and then it was on.

What's happened in the interim may be entertaining for those of us watching from the outside but probably isn't amusing for 80,000 residents of the community that sprawls over Lake, Sumter and Marion counties.

It's got to be unsettling and frightening to wonder what's in store. Not to mention expensive. The district already has spent more than $209,000 of residents' money so far, nearly all on high-powered lawyers on both coasts.

Here's a refresher on the situation:

As The Villages was built, its developer Gary Morse created a form of government called community development districts, the same type scrutinized in this column last week.

Some 294 of these Florida districts have issued bonds, and 42 percent of them are in trouble. Either the districts cannot collect enough assessments to pay for the bonds or the reserve accounts have been raided to make the payments, or the developers behind the communities have gone bankrupt, leaving unsold lots and unpaid assessments.

Villagers can take a deep breath on those fronts. Morse and his family are extremely well capitalized — fabulously wealthy is probably a better description — and because homes in The Villages continue to sell, default on the bonds is an extremely remote possibility.

'Blue-sky' transactions

In the Villages, two main community development districts have sold bonds to buy the infrastructure and recreational facilities — things like lights, roads, sewer and water plants, clubhouses, golf courses, gatehouses and more — from the developer.

That's the way it worked, too, in the other Florida districts that have issued bonds. However, The Villages bond deals differ in two key ways — and that has brought them a load of continuing trouble from the IRS, which contends that the developer perverted law to make himself rich at the expense of retirees who buy homes there.

First, the seats on the district governing boards in other developments typically are turned over to the residents as buyers purchase lots and move in. Not so in The Villages, where the districts selling the bonds in question are controlled by the developer and deliberately are set up so he can keep them out of the hands of residents for as long as he wants.

Second, these districts — remember that they're controlled by the developer — are using part of the bond money to buy "blue sky" from the developer. In this case, it is simply the right to collect assessment fees from residents. The developer gets all the fees in his bank account now instead of having to wait for them to dribble in over 30 years. Lucky residents get to repay the bond through fees — with interest — for 30 years to come.

What a beautifully magnificent source of unfettered, risk-free cash for the developer. The other districts in Florida buy things they can touch, such as water plants. "Blue-sky" transactions haven't been included in their bond deals.

Community development districts that buy infrastructure from developers are a rip-off to the consumer, never mind The Villages' "blue sky" purchases, which are just a secondary piece of legal thievery.

In subdivisions without districts that issue bonds, buyers pay for the infrastructure in the price of the house. In those with districts, they do, too. But in addition, they pay a second time for that infrastructure — with interest — as they pay off the bonds, which often add an extra $20,000 to the price of a house.

Three-year probe

All of this caused the IRS to start looking into the district's bonds three years ago and asking questions about who the district really is and who it benefits. It came to the conclusion that a developer-controlled district benefits only the developer and should not be viewed as a real government with the privilege of the ability to sell tax-free bonds.

The district has contended that it is, indeed, a legitimate government under Florida law and as such, should be recognized as such by the IRS.

Oh, my. What a mess.

Now that you are up to speed on the background, we'll take a look Wednesday at the latest moves on both sides and what they might mean for the average homeowner.

Copyright © 2010, Orlando Sentinel

Kids as Contraband -- Sun City Leads the Way!

2010-09-03T04:34:00.003-04:00

Article in the NYTs that discusses the phenomenon investigated in Leisureville -- special enforcement details designed to hunt down families and kick them out of age-segregated communities.

_________

August 28, 2010
Retirement Haven Hunts Youthful Violators
By MARC LACEY

SUN CITY, Ariz. — From behind the wheel of his minivan, Bill Szentmiklosi scours the streets of Sun City in search of zoning violations like unkempt yards and illegal storage sheds. Mostly, though, he is on the lookout for that most egregious of all infractions: children.

With a clipboard of alleged violations to investigate, he peers over fences and ambles into backyards of one of America’s pioneer retirement communities, a haven set aside exclusively for adults, where children are allowed to visit but not live.

Mr. Szentmiklosi, 60, a retired police officer who settled here four years ago, has remade himself as the chief of Sun City’s age police, the unit charged with ensuring that this age-restricted community of sexagenarians, septuagenarians and even older people does not become a refuge for the pacifier-sucking, ball-playing or pimple-faced.

One recent morning, as he slowly wheeled between ranch homes and palm trees, Mr. Szentmiklosi kept a sharp eye on the driveways and yards, surveying for any obvious signs of youth. It could be a stray ball, a misplaced pint-size flip-flop. In sniffing out children, he said, he relies on his three decades as an officer.

But it is when he strides up to a home, dressed in shorts, sandals and a polo shirt, and knocks on the door that his detective work really begins. He tells the suspected violator that a neighbor has complained and he asks gentle questions to get to the bottom of things, all the while peering around for signs of youthful activity. His work is helped by a simple reality: children are hard to hide.

They leave tracks and make unique sounds. Newborns bellow, toddlers shriek and teenagers play music that is not typical around Sun City.

Mr. Szentmiklosi and his fellow child-hunters have their work cut out for them. The number of age violations in Sun City, a town of more than 40,000 residents outside Phoenix, has been rising markedly over the years, from 33 in 2007 to 121 in 2008 to 331 last year, a reflection of a trend at many of the hundreds of age-restricted communities nationwide.

This year’s figures are expected to be even higher, said Mr. Szentmiklosi, who knows that despite his patrols Sun City is probably harboring more children that have not yet been detected. The economic crisis is aggravating the problem, he said, forcing families to take desperate measures to cut costs, even if it means surreptitiously moving into Grandma and Grandpa’s retirement bungalow.

The vigorous search for violators of Sun City’s age rules is about more than keeping loud, boisterous, graffiti-scrawling rug rats from spoiling residents’ golden years, although that is part of it. If Sun City does not police its population, it could lose its special status and be forced to open the floodgates to those years away from their first gray hair.

The end result would be the introduction of schools to Sun City, then higher taxes and, finally, an end to the Sun City that has drawn retirees here for the last half-century.

At 50, Sun City is not old by the standards of Sun City, where the average resident is in his or her early 70s.

To remain a restricted retirement community, at least 80 percent of Sun City’s housing units must have at least one occupant who is 55 or older, allowing for younger spouses or adult children. But the rules are clear on one thing: no one, absolutely no one, who is a teenager, an adolescent, a toddler, a newborn, any form of child, may call Sun City home.

“Visits are O.K. as long as they’re limited,” said Mr. Szentmiklosi, who describes himself as a doting grandfather and insists that he does not have an anti-child bone in his body. “You can have children visit for 90 days per year. That means if you have 10 grandchildren, each one can visit, but they can only stay nine days each.”

Mr. Szentmiklosi, the compliance manager for the Sun City Homeowners Association, said that although the city was scrupulous, it remained compassionate. For instance, it allowed a young woman with an infant who was renting a home without the association’s knowledge a year to move out.

But the association also plays hardball, issuing fines and threatening legal action to pressure youthful violators to leave. One reason Sun City is so vigorous is because of what happened on the other side of 111th Avenue, one of the main roads traversing the neighborhood.

Although Del Webb, who developed Sun City in 1960, gets credit for inventing the idea of a community of active retirees, the concept actually started years before on an adjacent tract in what was called Youngtown. But the developers there were not diligent in drawing up their legal paperwork. A challenge by the family of a teenage boy led the state to strip Youngtown of its age restrictions in 1998.

So on one side of the road, little people can be seen running around. On the other side, many people remember the Great Depression, and not from reading about it in a book.

“It was so much quieter before,” said Librado Martinez, 80, a retired machine operator who lives on the Youngtown side of the line and has to put up with children playing ball in the park in front of his house. “You heard no screams before.”

That peace is what Sun City residents want to keep. They rose up last month to block a charter school, which is not governed by the same rules as other public schools, from moving in.

“They were concerned about children roaming the streets and terrorizing things,” said Marsha Mandurraga, who works for the school’s founder.

To prevent future incursions, Sun City’s leaders are using their clout to urge state legislators to change the law to keep Sun City school-free.

“I’ve raised kids,” said Chris Merlav, 61, breathing through an oxygen tank and resting on the side of a Sun City pool designed for walking, not swimming. “After a while you get to the point where you don’t want to be bothered anymore.”

Mr. Merlav, who moved here from Rochester, had evidence at hand that he was not anti-child. His 20-year-old stepdaughter, Danielle Anastasia, was lounging in the pool with him. She understood the desire of Sun City residents to be with people their own age. “It’s like me hanging with my college friends,” she said.

Some of Sun City’s more hard-line anti-child activists can sound as though they somehow bypassed youth completely.

“There are people here who have never had children, don’t care for children and don’t particularly want children around,” said Jan Ek, who runs Sun City’s seven recreation centers, eight golf courses, two bowling centers and assorted other entertainment venues, some of which sometimes open up for child visitors.

At Sun City’s museum, the resident historian, Bill Pearson, 62, played a videotape used to lure retirees to the development in the 1960s.

The narrator said then what many residents still say now: “Of course we love them and enjoy their visits, but you deserve a little rest after raising your own.”

Unrelated but interesting Op-Ed I've written for the LA Times

2010-08-30T16:07:00.002-04:00

latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-blechman-germanjew-20100830,0,1429192.story

latimes.com; August 30, 2010

Raising a child to be Jewish and German

Germany has made remarkable efforts to face up to its horrific Nazi past, but the reminders make it a complicated place to be a Jew.

By Andrew D. Blechman

One recent warm afternoon, I buried a miniature treasure chest filled with shiny "gold" coins and smooth "gemstones" for my young daughter to find in the sands along the Rhine at our favorite picnic spot.

When I called her over and showed her the cartoon-perfect image of the chest's edge poking out of the sand, her face lighted up in excitement. After minutes of furious digging, she pulled the chest to the surface and exclaimed in German, "Papa! Piraten Schatz!" ("Pirate treasure!"), followed by a more conspiratorial, "Shhh, nicht verraten!" ("Don't tell anyone!")

It was one of those unforgettable moments, and something of a salve for the last shiny object my daughter had found just weeks earlier. It was a bronze-plated cobblestone on the sidewalk outside an apartment house in our Duesseldorf neighborhood. When she was a 2-year-old in a stroller, explaining its significance to her was easy — it was simply a shiny object, and she enjoyed spotting them all around the city. But now she's 5, and things have started to become more complicated, especially when she points to the lettering etched onto the metal. I finally told her the truth: The cobblestones commemorate the Jews who once lived in these buildings.

"We're Jews, right, Papa?"

"Yes, sweetheart, we are."

"What happened to those people?"

"They were killed."

"That's bad, Papa! By who?"

"By Nazis, honey."

"What are Nazis?"

"They were bad Germans."

"I'm German, aren't I, Papa?"

"Yes, German and American. The best of both."

This year, Germany marked the 65th anniversary of the end of the war and the liberation of its many former concentration camps with a series of appropriately grim state ceremonies. But while the horror of Germany's Nazi past has few if any precedents in human history, the country's attempts to publicly confront its past are similarly unrivaled. Unlike so many other nations, Germany delivers its apologies readily. Memorials, monuments and museums are scattered across the country, and Berlin is so chock-full of them that they've become the city's de facto tourist attractions.

By comparison, Russia has only just acknowledged the Katyn massacre, the United States apologized for slavery about a year ago, and we still haven't fully acknowledged our mistreatment of Native Americans. Meanwhile, Turkey continues to deny the Armenian holocaust, and Japan refutes its use of wartime sexual slavery.

That said, it remains an unusual experience to live as a Jew in a nation that systematically murdered 1.5 million Jewish children, among millions of others. My way of dealing with it has been to examine Duesseldorf's own topography of terror. There's little sign of Judaism left. One thousand years of vibrant Ashkenazi life in the Rhineland has seemingly disappeared into the ashes of Auschwitz and other death camps in the epochal equivalent of an eye blink. But I've learned that a beloved city park was built partly with Jewish slave labor, and that the old freight yard near my daughter's kindergarten was used to ship Jews to the ghettos and concentration camps in Poland and beyond. They were processed there —1,000 at a time — in front of their former neighbors, then forced to sleep in the city's (decidedly unkosher) slaughterhouse before being marched several kilometers in broad daylight with heavy luggage to waiting trains, for which they were forced to purchase "tickets."

On the other side of town are the remnants of the old Jewish cemetery. The graves start out in Hebrew and then switch to mostly German as the population assimilated. During the 1920s, the tombstones were costly Bauhaus-inspired slabs; a few years later they grow smaller, more makeshift, and eventually crumble from the neglect of a nearly extinct community. The community's once-stately synagogue in the center of town was so solidly built that it survived the fires of Kristallnacht. It was later dismantled brick by brick, with the congregation invoiced for the destruction.

The new synagogue is in my small neighborhood. It's protected by concrete barriers, remote cameras, a bulletproof entrance and free 24-hour police protection. It nonetheless remains an attractive site, although I find little solace inside. As is typical in Germany, it's an Orthodox congregation of mostly immigrants from Eastern Europe. I'm not religious, and I'm one of the few there who speak English. Aside from tribal affiliation, I'm not sure what else we have in common. Without the help of my small Reform congregation back home in the U.S., I feel it's left to me to teach my daughter about Judaism. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I'm doing a journeyman's job of it at best.

Then there's my daughter's other heritage. She comes from a family of resisters, smugglers and ultimately orphans, but as with so many German family trees, there's at least one really bad apple whose actions may have contributed to the need for commemorative cobblestones.

These are issues that I will no doubt need to address as she grows older. But for now, she has bigger concerns. She's learning two languages, struggling to balance her little pink bike without training wheels and excitedly contemplating where to hide her pirate's bounty.

Andrew D. Blechman is the author of "Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children" and "Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of a Revered and Reviled Bird."

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

Housing bust leads to desegregation of 55+ communities (as predicted in Leisureville)

2010-08-26T05:54:00.002-04:00

An article from the Boston Globe about developers needing to open up unsold 55+ communities to families -- exactly as predicted in my book.

STDs and Active Adults

2010-06-27T15:59:00.000-04:00

Older Sexually Active Adult "Swingers" May Serve as a Reservoir for STDs

By Barbara Lock, MD
June 24, 2010
The man was clearly intoxicated; he said he had come to town looking for some action, had used some cocaine, alcohol and marijuana, and had a wild party that included sex with people he didn't know. Pretty wild, I thought, especially for someone who was 72 years old.

Yes, the swinger coming to me to be evaluated for exposure to sexually transmitted diseases was 72 years old. I wondered if it was him who needed protection from the careless sexual practices of others, or if they needed protection against him. Protection probably would have been a good idea all around.

That's what I told him, use barrier protection, or condoms, to prevent disease instead of coming to the Emergency Department afterwards.

A few days later, another man came in, this one in his early 40s, asking to be tested and treated for gonorrhea and chlamydia. As he left, he asked how soon he could have sex again. I told him tonight, if he used a condom. He sort of smirked and said, no really, how soon? And I said, no really, use a condom.

Dutch researchers have revealed that the average age of "swingers" in the STD clinics is 43. That means that half of these sexually promiscuous adventurers were older than 43. Swingers, defined as people with sexual networks of concurrent partners and high rate of unprotected sex, were more likely to carry chlamydia and gonorrhea than female prostitutes. Swingers may be thought of as potentially serving as a reservoir for sexually transmitted disease in the community. Not a very sexy distinction, I think.

Gay active adult communities growing in popularity -- as predicted in Leisureville

2010-05-31T05:47:00.001-04:00

We’re Here. We’re Queer. We’re Retiring.
As America’s gay population ages, LGBT seniors are opting to retire among their own.
by Linda SternMay 26, 2010

Faith Cathcart
At home, at ease: Residents at Rainbow Vista, a gay-friendly retirement home in Oregon.

The last place lesbians and gays want to go when they retire is back into the closet. Just like the larger population, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) seniors want to settle into comfortable, low-maintenance homes in welcoming and affordable communities. “There are estimated to be up to 6 million LGBT baby boomers, and 1 [million] to 3 million over the age of 65,” says Jan Cullinane, coauthor with Cathy Fitzgerald of The New Retirement: The Ultimate Guide to the Rest of Your Life.

Related Article: Long Invisible, Gay Seniors Seek Respect, Services »
To meet the demands of America’s aging gay population, developers are targeting the LGBT market with everything from active-adult rental apartments to retirement communities that promise lifelong care. Exactly how many such developments there are in the country is hard to quantify, but according to the Web site Gay Retirement Guide, there are about 25 existing gay retirement communities in the U.S., and more on the drawing board. That’s a significant increase from 2001, when NEWSWEEK first covered this story and only one gay retirement community was open for business.
Such growth is in contrast to the slower pace of development and the financial troubles hitting traditional “straight” communities. While it’s true that gay communities are getting a later start and haven’t already saturated senior areas like Florida and Arizona with developments, Culliane notes that older LGBTs may be more likely to move to retirement communities than heterosexuals. Why? Gay baby boomers are more likely to worry about their later years than are their heterosexual counterparts, according to a new study on sexual minorities and aging by the Metlife Mature Marketing Institute and the American Society on Aging: “More than a quarter of LGBT boomers reported great concern about discrimination as they age.” And as Culliane notes, “They often have no children to help care for them, may be alienated from other family, or just feel more comfortable in a setting with other gay or lesbian neighbors.”

Justin Sullivan
What to Spend On: Money saving tips.

Quiz: Do You Really Want to Buy That?
The key “amenity” sought after by sexual minorities is respectful medical care that recognizes the rights of same-sex partners to visit and be included in discussions and decisions. But there are others. “You need separate pools for the men and the women, and a place for dogs. Pets are very big,” says Veronica St. Claire, who is planning a full-featured continuing-care retirement community in Palm Springs, Calif., with her business and personal partner, Mary Thorndahl. They created the the Gay and Lesbian Association of Retiring Persons to build the new community. “It’s going to be soup to nuts in terms of lifelong health care … and we’re going to have a flower room for making flower arrangments,” she says. “We’re not going to be playing bingo, I’ll tell you that.”

That being said, the amenities that attract sexual minorities to a particular retirement community aren’t strikingly different from traditional or straight communities, and, in fact, in many areas developers aren’t allowed to discriminate against straight (or gay) retirees. (Many states and municipalities ban housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but it’s not against the law everywhere.) The new gay-focused retirement communities typically say they would not discriminate against straight residents; they simply are aiming their marketing efforts at sexual minorities, perhaps with carefully planned pictures of same-sex couples on their Web sites and in their advertising brochures.

The new crop of LGBT retirement communities runs the gamut from rental units in active-lifestyle resorts to buy-in long-term-care facilities. The self-proclaimed oldest gay and lesbian retirement community is the Palms of Manasota, a villa community in Palmetto, Fla., that opened in 1998. The most recently added community is the Stonewall Retirement Community, which opened earlier this spring in Woodbine, Md. It’s a single building with rental apartments and amenities, including group dinners and a theater.

While concious of the economy’s uncertainty, developers around the country are optimistic that their specialized communities are here to stay. “We have interest from a huge number of people who are very affluent. They are lawyers, doctors, Indian chiefs, everything,” says St. Claire. “They want the same thing the straights have got. A nice safe place to be.”

Boomer's wealth evaporation hurting Active Adult housing market

2010-05-31T05:45:00.001-04:00

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
May 25, 2010

First-timers, boomers seen as key in housing recovery

By Alan J. Heavens

INQUIRER REAL ESTATE WRITER

Although the situation is open to interpretation as well as change, there are growing concerns that the effects of this economic downturn could have a long-lasting effect on the housing market.

A study by the Mortgage Bankers Association, conducted by University of Kentucky economics professor Joe Peek, concludes that "the current financial crisis and recession exceeded the devastation created by other post-World War II recessions."

Saving rates have risen substantially. Many Americans will continue to cut spending sharply out of necessity, "others out of fear of what the future holds," Peek said.

When it comes to housing, he said, it was unlikely that the dramatic rise in loan delinquencies, foreclosures and bankruptcies would show a "meaningful" decrease in the foreseeable future.

"High unemployment and low house prices are widely projected to remain for an extended period, as well as the rise in problem loans at banks that will restrain their willingness and ability to provide credit," Peek said.

Two groups expected to feel the pinch are young first-time buyers and the so-called active-adult purchasers who downsize as their children grow and move out.

"The impact of a higher unemployment rate for Americans ages 16 to 24 could have a lasting effect on lifetime earnings and attitudes toward risk and social policies," Peek said.

In addition, those nearing retirement are delaying it and re-entering the labor force "in an effort to rebuild some of the retirement wealth that was wiped out by the recession," he said.

The housing industry had been banking on both of these groups to sustain growth during the coming decades - especially the empty-nester baby boomers.

"The tougher economic circumstances for twentysomethings and fiftysomethings will weigh on housing demand over the coming decade," said Mark Zandi, Moody's Economy.com chief economist in West Chester. "The first-time buyer and second home markets would be most directly impacted."

Economist Patrick Newport of IHS Global Insight of Lexington, Mass., said that Peek's assessments "are a lot more dismal than ours, and our is hardly rosy."

He said today's housing market "is imposing a bit more discipline by requiring bigger down payments and better credit scores for buying homes."

The financial-reform package passed last week by the Senate includes provisions that, in addition to restricting prepayment penalties and controlling mortgage-broker compensation, would force lenders to consider applicants' income, assets and credit history before making a loan.

If this change is permanent, perhaps homeownership rates will come down to pre-1995 levels - the year they started to climb.

"I do not think this would be such a bad thing," he said.

The homeownership rate slipped to 67.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010 - its lowest reading since the first quarter of 2000.

Home-ownership rates averaged 64 percent from 1985 to '94, but accelerated in 1995 because of government policies that encouraged homeownership, especially for previously underserved low- and moderate-income buyers.

Rates reached record highs of 69 percent "because of easy lending during the housing boom," Newport said.

Although it is probably likely that the lack of good-paying jobs will delay the entry of the current 16- to 24-year-olds into the home-buying market, "it's less clear what effect the re-entry into the workforce of baby boomers is going to have," said Rick Sharga, chief economist of RealtyTrac.

"In some cases, this may keep inventory levels down, as the boomers stay in their current homes while going back to work," Sharga said.

"On the other hand, they may opt to 'trade down' in an effort to maximize their retirement dollars while they're replenishing their IRAs and 401(k) accounts," he said.

"At best, this all suggests a pretty slow, marginal recovery over the next few years," Sharga said.

New Reality TV Series based on LEISUREVILLE

2010-05-02T16:22:00.001-04:00

Here are some links:

http://www.wetv.com/sunsetdaze

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/arts/television/28daze.html?ref=television

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/arts/television/27daze.html?ref=television

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/television/2207128,FIT-News-daze28.article

Ex-Villager's had enough of Village's Life

2010-05-01T15:33:00.001-04:00

Dear Andrew,

I wish, wish, wish I had read your book before I'd made the decision to try the Villages.

Having lived in Bermuda, Trinidad, Nasau, and Paris during my tenure with IBM Int. Marketing, I should have known better. BUT, married friends of mine from my Bermuda days simply raved about the place. Little did I know that the Villages was Orwell's 1984 redux.

I lasted about 16 months in a village quite near the Lake Sumpter landing. One objective involved finishing my novel which I had screwed around with for about 6 years or so. I guess I finally came to the conclusion that the Villages and their incessant propaganda machine wasn't for me. In short, as one in his late 60's I grew more and more despondent when all I saw were 50,000 other gray-hairs who only lived for drink and golf for the most part. I missed seeing kids, young couples.

To name a few, I was incensed when I got my annual Village tax statement that indicated an extra $ 550 "reserve" fee that was never mentioned at closing. Moreover, while my house was advertised at $ 207K, it was really $ 222K which included the "bond." Not only that but the Morse's also charged me INTEREST on the bond: talk about usury.

The constant brain washing was driving me over the edge. I told myself I'd better get the hell out of here. And when I told some of my friends the place just wasn't for me, I was almost immediately shunned.

I've many more vignettes I can reveal that you didn't cover in your excellent reportorial work. More importantly, I was able to sell my house with just a minor loss in Feb. 2008. Hail Mary ! I now live in a "mixed" age community in Vero Beach, FL and simply love it.

Regards,
Bob G, Vero Beach, FL former Villager

Great Reader Email #2

2010-04-12T17:17:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr. Blechman:

In the course of dealing with unemployment ennui, I picked up a copy of Leisureville.

When my grandmother died in the mid 90s, I rendezvoused with my mother at a Christian retirement community in Florida so that we could deal with funeral affairs. My grandparents had lived the last 20-some years of their life in this community, which was on the wane, due largely to its religious exclusivity. In the rental car on the way home, we stopped to visit my mother’s parents, who were investigating housing options at a new retirement community north of Orlando called “The Villages.” Mother and I spent most of the next two days marveling at the nerve of it all. There was no Spanish Springs yet, nobody yet dared to promote a fake history, and the only building I remember was a brewery with a conspicuously large smokestack that was just too reminiscent of a crematorium for its own good [it is no longer there]. My mother and I both remarked at how absurd the community seemed and that we would never want to spend the last years of our lives in Florida.

Well, my mother and her husband now live in The Villages, and also my octogenarian grandfather. I travel there at least once a year to see them. The place has the most maddening effect of being soothing and horribly frustrating all at once. I deeply appreciated your book; it more than articulates the discomfort I experience when I am there. It is not something I can discuss with my mother or my other relatives living there; they are so happily entrenched in their life of leisure that objective discussion about it is impossible. My mother’s remark to any criticism of the place or the lifestyle is to say what I saw several times in your book: “nobody has to live here; if they don’t like it, they can leave.” In the interests of family harmony, I just don’t discuss it anymore, and I always attempt to spend most of my activity budget outside The Villages, such as kayaking and horseback riding in neighboring parks and recreation areas. Going to Villages events and observing the patrons at the clubs and restaurants in Sumter Landing and Spanish Springs usually leave me gasping for normalcy. Your quote from Homer’s Odyssey about the lotus eaters was absolutely right on track!

I am still trying to understand the Chapter 190 situation in Florida and found the chapter about Villages’ governance in Leisureville a bit confusing. I realize, though, that this is certainly not your fault. It is clear to me that Gary Morse and his minions deliberately obfuscate the situation. I strongly suspect nobody in my family—nor most of the residents—clearly understand the high-stakes real estate game that is being played under their noses.

Thanks also for talking about the Daily Sun, which I would put on the same journalistic par as a church newsletter. I find myself getting out of Dodge to get a sanity-saving copy of New York Times at least a few times every visit.

I appreciated your interviewing people on the margins, such as the group of children living on the outside. I have often wondered about what the locals think about being in economic servitude to this giant bunch of people frantically pursuing their own pleasure, and have found that many of them don’t want to talk much about it. Too many of them have jobs in (or because of) The Villages. These days, I suppose many of the waitresses and lawn care guys are too grateful to have work to complain about their low wages or lack of benefits.

I was grateful for Leisureville because it brought to light other aspects about life in The Villages I had not thought much about. It has always been the whiteness and the homogeneity of the place, rather than the childlessness of it, that have captured my attention and left me feeling disturbed (this may be because I myself do not have children). While I am pretty convinced that undercurrents of racism and fear are lingering under the Villages veneer of happiness, I’m grateful that you pointed out more of the societal consequences of large numbers of senior citizens dropping out of real life. I have always remained frustrated with the complacency people in the Villages appear to have for the problems of children, immigrants and poor people and their disdain for anyone who wants to change the status quo. Now I have a better understanding of the consequences that this group withdrawal has for us culturally.

Ultimately, I wonder whether the geritopia [great word, by the way] is a sustainable lifestyle. My last visit to The Villages was in February. The biggest item on the news while I was there was the wretched state of the local real estate market. I found myself wondering, given how many of my friends and peers are not going to enjoy the generous pensions and health care plans that our parents do, how the Villages will be able to sustain itself 15 to 20 years from now. I do not believe that a large number of people in my age bracket (late 40s) are going to have sufficient money to move to Florida when we are retired. We’re not going to make many thousands of dollars on the sale of our homes, and we’re going to have the dickens of a time clinching 30-year mortgages as retirees. I feel pretty certain that a changing economic reality for younger people is going to morph our retirement into something very different from what our parents enjoy(ed). Right now we’re all too worried about losing our jobs and houses and how the hell we’re going to pay for kids’ college educations, much less have anything resembling a financially unfettered retirement.

At any rate, I was immensely grateful for Leisureville and found it engaging. Your book answered questions and left me realizing that the whole scenario isn’t that far removed from me. I look forward to your future books. Thanks for a good read,

Jill R. Walker
Chicago, Illinois

Great Reader Email #1

2010-04-12T16:05:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Blechman,

I just finished reading “Leisureville” and I’d like to thank you for writing such an intelligent and entertaining book. Your work reminds me of Joel Garreau’s “Edge City” insofar as it strains to describe a phenomenon in a balanced way while still making your own concerns quite clear. As much as I enjoy James Howard Kunstler’s rants, he’s never been accused of moderation, but that’s what makes him so endearing. There were also hints of Jane Jacobs' later works, "Systems of Survival" and "Dark Age Ahead". “Leisureville” closely resembles a geriatric version of Setha Low’s “Behind the Gates” (although I admit your writing style is a bit better). Ms. Low was primarily concerned with the social and political fragmentation and mistrust that inevitably results from the self-segregation of gated suburban enclaves.

As a young man I fled the suburbs of the Jersey shore and ultimately settled in San Francisco. A few weeks ago I returned to Toms River, New Jersey to visit my mother who now lives in Holiday City. I talked to her about how she likes her new living arrangement. She said it was a mixed bag. Safe. Clean. Affordable. Lonely. Dull. Restrictive. She confirmed all the stereotypes about sex-crazed neighbors and rule obsessed committees. I had lobbied very hard for her to come and live with me in California siting the cultural offerings and free accommodations, but she ultimately wanted to stay near my sisters and brother and all the grand kids in Jersey. She also wanted to live independently. Fair enough.

As an adolescent I had plenty of contact with the elderly residents of these ever-expanding adult communities. I did housekeeping and gardening chores for many retirees as a way to earn money for college (Rutgers ’96). I enjoy the company of old people so it was a good fit. And to be honest, the generation I was dealing with back then was more likable than the new crop of boomers. They were savers and planners. They had survived the Depression and war. They told stories of how they were smuggled out of Poland “just in time”, or described burning their dining room furniture one piece at a time to keep their Brooklyn tenement warm through the winter. These people didn’t need plastic surgery or granite counter tops. They appreciated the fact that they had good food, a tidy home in the country, and money in the bank at a time in life when their own parents had been destitute. Boomers? Not so much…

I have very few fond memories of my early years in the suburbs. My family was working class and just barely managed to stay afloat. The suburbs are predicated on the concept that if you can't afford your own detached home and private vehicle, you don't belong. Public transport is considered a form of communism. Suburbia is a pay-per-view environment: private country clubs, summer camp, dance lessons, music lessons. Even the beaches in New Jersey are privately owned and charge admission. We couldn't afford any of that. To save money for college I rode a bicycle everywhere and I can't tell you how many times as a young man I was pulled over by the police and questioned. I would ask what I had done wrong, and they would always say that riding a bicycle along the highway, especially after dark or in bad weather, was suspicious. The unspoken message was that only the poor and undesirables do that sort of thing, so they needed to see what was in my backpack. Books usually. They always seemed so befuddled and sent me on my way with a warning. Nerd. Guilty as charged...

I hadn’t been back to Toms River for fifteen years. (I preferred to pay for airline tickets so my mom could visit me in California instead). I was reminded why I left. When I was a kid, the small historic downtown of Toms River still had a working movie theater, a shoe store, restaurants, and a dress shop. All that fell away by the time I graduated high school as strip malls and chain stores chewed up the landscape outside of town. The only things that remained were the government buildings since Toms River was the county seat. Now, most of the old buildings aren’t even there anymore. Little by little they were removed as the roads were widened and parking lots were installed. Downtown is just another kind of mall now, this one devoted to municipal services. Two hundred years of history were paved over so commuters could get through town and make a right hand turn forty five seconds faster.

When I express my concerns about sprawl people often suggest that San Francisco is an anomaly and out of step with how most Americans want to live. After all, nothing like a compact mixed use city has been built anywhere in the country for a hundred years now. I respond by saying that a hundred years from now San Francisco will still be well populated and vibrant. I don’t think the same will be true of most cul de sacs and strip malls. Most of the suburbs will have become mulch by then.

Again, many thanks for your good work.

- John S

Chalk this up under the "who knew" column

2010-03-29T02:13:00.001-04:00

Who knew that a risky financial instrument would have its own daily news site? -- "Reverse Mortgage Daily"

Recession forces builders to open up 55+ Communities to everyone (even kids)

2010-03-29T02:03:00.003-04:00

As predicted in Leisureville, developers are forced to open up their wares to a larger pool of potential owners when such communities become "non-performing" assets. More importantly, this proves that these communities aren't really communities, they're developer-owned investments. That means a developer can do just about anything s/he wants or needs to do to earn a profit -- even change the communities "by-laws" to change it from 55+ to all ages, regardless of what folks thought when they were first buying in. Lesson: When an individual owns a community, they can do what ever they want with it. Unlike a municipality, residents have no voice.

55-plus community in N.J. opens development to all ages

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY

Elazer and Barbara Lew were the first to move in to
Pine River Village in Lakewood, N.J., a development
for people age 55 and older.

"I liked the idea of moving to an adult community,
with all the services and amenities," says Barbara,
63, who works at a nearby school for children with
special needs. "I liked the idea of having people our
own age to socialize with."

That was three years ago — just before the housing
market crashed and the recession hit. Suddenly,
older buyers who wanted to enjoy the amenities
age-restricted communities offer, couldn't sell their
existing homes. On top of that, their retirement
funds were taking a beating as stock prices
plummeted. Some who had planned to retire and
move decided to stay put and keep working.

RECESSION'S TOLL: Active adult developments
struggle to find residents

Only about 20 Pine River Village homes had sold
when the developer approached the homeowners
with a proposal: agree to lift the age restriction on
housing built on half of the development.

"There were mixed feelings," says Ronald Gray, 65,
who was among the first to buy in to Pine River with
his wife, Rachel.

Somerset Development vowed to keep the new phase
completely separate. It even has a different name:
Somerset Walk. Residents have their own clubhouse.

Lifting or easing age restrictions in active adult
communities is the latest consequence of the
recession and housing collapse — especially in new
developments.

New Jersey, with a 16-year supply of age-restricted
housing, is at the forefront of this movement. The
state's towns and counties welcomed no-kids
housing with gusto because the developments
created revenues without putting a strain on local
school budgets.

"They used that tool too often — to excess," says
Robert Lang, urban sociologist at the University of
Nevada-Las Vegas. "It was overstocked because it
was easy to get approved."

Ralph Zucker, whose company is building Pine River
and Somerset Walk, said many developers "pushed
back on regular development because it was a lot
easier to do age-restricted communities … Now, we
see an active market for non-restricted housing."

Last year, New Jersey passed a law that allows
developers to ask municipalities to do away with age
limits on projects that have already been approved.
More affordable housing would be built in return.

Struggling developers see non-restricted building
as a way to tap in to a larger market, including first-
time homebuyers. Residents accept it because they
would rather live in a built community than be
surrounded by dirt lots.

"We can't get our streets paved the way we'd like to
because development hasn't been finished," Barbara
Lew says. Opening it up to families could attract new
business. "We still have our separate development;
we'll still be just in our section," she says. "I see it
as a good alternative to just sitting and waiting."

Gray, who runs a foundation for disadvantaged
children, says "In the final analysis, we realized it
was in our best interest. We felt we'd rather live in a
community than in a construction zone."

The changes also may satisfy older residents' desire
to be close to their children and grandchildren by
creating a multigenerational community, Zucker
says.

The Lews, who lived in Staten Island, N.Y., for 31
years, have two daughters who live in Lakewood.
"For people to have their children buy on the other
side is a very good idea, especially as people get
older," Barbara says.

Large retirement communities are still thriving, says
Dan Owens of the National Active Retirement
Association, a trade group involved in marketing
and building for people older than 50. He predicts
that when the economy improves, the market will get
a big boost because of pent-up demand.

"Even though some communities are drifting away
from age restrictions, you can't ignore the
demographics," he says.

And now the truth: Builders swap age-restricted projects for market rate units in Bridgewater (NJ) [... because they're stalled all over the state]

2010-03-01T13:53:00.002-05:00

A logical act of desperation foretold in Leisureville.

And now a little closer to the truth -- news not from the industry

2010-02-26T16:10:00.002-05:00

Active Adult in demand despite housing crisis (according to the industry itself...)

2010-02-26T03:42:00.001-05:00

from a reader

2010-02-07T20:56:00.000-05:00

Mr. Blechman,

My wife and I just returned from renting a home at The Villages for the month of January. A friend loaned me his copy of your book after he heard we had vacationed there. I must say your book is quite factual, and it accurately reflected many of the experiences my wife and I had while there (no….we are monogamousJ). We used the time to visit other areas of Florida and can adamantly say The Villages is not on our itinerary for next year’s vacation. I actually came inches away from a fist fight with an over-emotional golf cart driver who almost ran into my wife and me as we walked hand in hand along the cart super highway adjacent to Chatham. I actually had to restrain his forearm quite forcefully to keep him from slugging me. Once he realized I had more strength than him, he jumped back into his chariot and sped off, still spewing epithets about my family lineage. Gotta love it!

I enjoyed your writing style and even more, your thoroughness in researching a very difficult and sensitive topic. You represented both sides fairly. You should be a social scientist. If you’re ever in Maine, please get in touch and we’ll wet a fly line.

Best regards,

Bill S.

A diversion to my last book, Pigeons: a reader email that makes this author swoon

2010-02-02T06:02:00.001-05:00

Andrew, I would just like to say that your book about pigeons has totally changed my opinion of pigeons and has led me to become somewhat of an expert in the field in order to try and become their voice and give them a "fair shake." I try to use this newly acquired knowledge to educate a very uninformed public.

I must confess that I have become so fond of the species as a result of reading your book that I have taken to doing the UNTHINKABLE: feeding them in parks, which now has made me a PART OF THE PROBLEM.

I try to justify this by convincing myself that my campaign to have the City of Vancouver set up city run dovecoves based on the PiCAS models. I will be working with the head of the Humane Society of Vancouver to put some clout into my endeavours. You have turned me into a clone of David Roth (minus all the pijjie poop).

Why am I telling you all this? Because I am proof that your book did and will continue to change pigeon prejudice, one human at a time. Thank you for writing such a wonder book. It continues to be my pigeon"bible."

Boomers see retirement later, less likely

2010-01-21T17:10:00.001-05:00

Wed, Jan 20 2010
By Helen Chernikoff

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - People just starting to consider retirement are less optimistic about their ability to stop working than older people, but many still want to move when they reach traditional retirement age, according to a survey commissioned by homebuilder Pulte Homes Inc.

Of those who turn 50 this year, 41 percent say they will never be financially capable of retiring and 23 percent have not even started to save, Pulte revealed at the International Builders' Show, homebuilding's annual industry event, held here this week.
The study compared attitudes toward retirement by older and younger baby boomers, the massive age cohort born between 1946 and 1964 whose sheer size makes it a prize demographic across industries.

Pulte's Del Webb subsidiary, which builds amenity-heavy communities featuring golf courses and swimming pools for the market aged 55 or older, is homebuilding's biggest "active adult" business with operations in 21 states.

Along with luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc, Del Webb is one of only two nationally known homebuilding brands, Pulte Chief Executive Richard Dugas has said.

Del Webb was about half of Pulte's business until it acquired rival Centex Corp in 2009. Now the combined company's business is about a third Del Webb, a third first-time home buyer and a third first-time move-up buyer, said spokeswoman Caryn Klebba.

Pulte's own decision to diversify away from Del Webb by buying Centex demonstrates the active adult category is a tough business, said UBS analyst David Goldberg.

But the company, the largest homebuilder in the United States since the Centex acquisition, has confidence in Del Webb's future, despite the relative pessimism expressed in its survey by younger boomers, said spokeswoman Caryn Klebba.

There are 78 million baby boomers, more than enough to give Del Webb long-term viability, she said. Del Webb, which opened its doors in 1960, has sold 170,000 homes in its 50 years of operation.

Also, between 30 percent and 40 percent of younger boomers still plan to move when they retire, despite financial worries, according to the survey.

Of those planning to move, about 50 percent plan to move to a different state and about 25 percent plan to move to a different city.

"There's no doubt there's a very large percentage of the population that's aging that would like the lifestyle choices that Del Webb offers. It is a good business over the long term from a demand perspective," Goldberg said.

Still, the study reveals deep financial concerns on the part of potential Del Webb buyers who are turning 50 in 2010. Even those who do plan to retire say they will do so later, at a median age of 67 compared with 63 for the older survey respondents.
The older group surveyed is more optimistic about its retirement prospects, however. Only 15 percent say they will never be able to retire. Also, about a third of the older baby boomers say they will be financially prepared for retirement, while only 16 percent of the younger group say they feel that way.

Del Webb can adapt its product to changes in the active adult market's financial profile, Klebba said.

The company has made its homes smaller to enhance their affordability, for example. It has modified Del Webb floor plans to accommodate the more widespread desire for home offices among older buyers who are still working. And it is building more in North and South Carolina, which cost less than the traditional warm-weather retirement destinations, Klebba said.

HarrisInteractive conducted the online survey, consisting of a representative sample of 504 people turning 50 and 510 turning 64 with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, in late 2009.

© Thomson Reuters 2009

Homebuilders Turn to Private Equity as Bank Lending Dries Up

2010-01-21T17:08:00.001-05:00

Homebuilders Turn to Private Equity as Bank Lending Dries Up
By John Gittelsohn

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- More than 40 U.S. homebuilders have teamed up with private equity firms to acquire and complete unfinished subdivisions as banks cut construction lending.

The investments will pay off for the builders and their investors if the prices are low enough and the locations are in areas where demand is recovering, said Megan McGrath, a home building industry analyst at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York.

“I’ve been getting the question: Why aren’t housing starts at zero?” McGrath asked. “The answer is, they’re probably as close to zero as they’re going to get and in some cases it still makes sense to build.”

Managers of at least 22 funds raised $12 billion in 2009 for development projects and other residential real estate deals, Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine reports in its Feb. 1 issue, citing data compiled by Bloomberg, Institutional Real Estate Inc. of San Ramon, California, and Real Estate Alert, an industry newsletter in Hoboken, New Jersey. Those firms have invested with at least 42 builders, the data show.

Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., the nation’s seventh-largest homebuilder by revenue, last year announced joint ventures with two New York-based private equity firms, in which the investors provided at least 80 percent of the money for the developments. GoldenTree Asset Management and Hovnanian are working on 11 projects around Chicago and Palm Beach, Florida, while Angelo Gordon & Co., with $21 billion under management, teamed up for other projects in Florida.

“For every one that we’re doing business with, there are 10 more that we’re talking to,” Ara K. Hovnanian, chief executive officer of the Red Bank, New Jersey, homebuilder, said at a Nov. 17 conference in New York organized by UBS AG.

Building Permits

Home building permits climbed to 653,000 in December, the most since October 2008 and a sign of optimism about demand, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.

The private equity firms are a new source of funding for the homebuilding industry, which has traditionally relied on bank loans and bond sales. Banks slashed lending to homebuilders because regulators pressured them to reduce real estate assets as defaults on construction loans climbed, said Robert Seiwert, vice president of the American Bankers Association.

“What got us into this situation was people making loans that shouldn’t have happened,” Seiwert said in a telephone interview from the organization’s headquarters in Washington.

Outstanding bank loans for land and new development sank to $113 billion in the quarter ending Sept. 30, down 44 percent from a peak of $203 billion in June 2008, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Loans for all construction and development fell to $492.2 billion from a peak of $629.5 billion in June 2008, the FDIC said Nov. 24.

Housing Supply

The supply of new homes on the market rose to 7.9 months in November, compared with the five-year average of 7.2 months, according to the Commerce Department. With unemployment and foreclosures still at quarter-century highs, demand could remain weak for a while, especially with federal tax incentives for home buyers set to phase out in April.

Confidence among homebuilders fell this month to the lowest level since June, as traffic hit a 10-month nadir, the National Association of Home Builders said Jan. 19.

U.S. sales of new homes fell to an annual pace of 355,000 in November, down 11 percent from October, the Commerce Department reported Dec. 23. Homebuilders have seen orders and revenue decline since 2005, when 1.28 million new homes sold, according to the Census Bureau.

Picky Investments

Grosvenor Investment Management of Philadelphia and KeyBank Real Estate Capital Residential Investment Partners, which raised $100 million in 2007, took almost two years to make their first investment, said John Hay, manager of the fund for KeyBank Real Estate Capital Markets, a private equity unit of Cleveland- based KeyBank NA.

The managers wanted to buy ready-to-build lots for about 20 cents on the dollar. They wouldn’t invest in markets such as Las Vegas, South Florida, or Southern California. So far, the fund has entered five deals totaling about $30 million each for subdivisions outside Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

“This investing, while it’s ahead of the game, is still very, very challenging,” Hay said.

Reuben S. Leibowitz, managing director of JEN Partners LLC, a New York-based private equity fund, said he invested $50 million in 2009 for land and construction partnerships in Southern California and Arizona, where he believes the buyers are coming back.

Cater to Retirees

In May, Leibowitz bought Canta Mia, a 600-home “active- adult” community outside of Phoenix that caters to retirees. The original developer, Tousa Inc., filed for bankruptcy and Leibowitz acquired the project -- complete with model homes -- for less than the cost of improvements, such as roads and waterlines. He expects to get his money back in four to seven years, although he doesn’t think there are many other good deals out there. “There won’t be many people who are successful” at bottom-fishing in this market, he said.

At least one private equity fund has pulled up stakes. Rockpoint Group, a Boston investment firm, raised $470 million for a residential real estate fund from investors including a $270 million commitment from the California State Teachers Retirement System. In August, Rockpoint suspended the fund, returning the money to investors, after it failed to find enough workable deals.

Community "Back in Business"

2010-01-18T09:00:00.003-05:00

A "community" that was left half-finished by a cash-starved developer is now "back in business."

Since when are real communities "businesses"?

----------

Community west of Delray Beach back in business
By KIMBERLY MILLER
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Folks in the Tivoli Isles community west of Delray Beach have been living with unfinished homes and a clubhouse that was only 85 percent complete since 2008 when construction halted.

But building has begun again after the purchase of the unsold homes and clubhouse by New Jersey-based K. Hovnanian developers, which will begin selling inventory and new homes under construction in January.

Of 315 homes in the active-adult community east of U.S. 441 and north of Atlantic Avenue, 155 them are occupied by owners and 32 are in various stages of construction. That leaves 128 lots for new homes.

The 6,000-square-foot clubhouse is expected to be finished by February.

"We are pretty popular with the homeowners right now," said Mark Hodges, Southeast Florida division president for K. Hovnanian. "They care deeply about their community."

The community also will get a new name, Four Seasons at Delray Beach.

K. Hovnanian purchased the development's mortgage note from BankAtlantic after a foreclosure judgment against Home Devco Tivoli Isles LLC. Hodges said the amount of the purchase is sealed under a confidentiality agreement until K. Hovnanian takes official title to the property, which will happen by the end of the year.

Home Devco, which had a $54 million loan for the development, started selling homes in late 2005 in the mid $300,000s up to $800,000.

Hodges said the homes sold well until 2007 when the market turned sour. Sales were suspended in 2008. K. Hovnanian's pricing will begin in the $200,000s.

"We see the market returning," Hodges said. "If we aren't absolutely at the bottom, we're near it."

Hodges said to look for K. Hovnanian to buy more sites in the near future.

"We are acting absolutely bullish," Hodges said. "Land values have found their way back to bring affordable housing to the market again."

Z

A new senior-living community is planned for the Abacoa neighborhood of Jupiter after the $3.9 million purchase of a 7-acre site by Divosta Homes LLP.

Construction on the 140-unit, three-story development is expected to begin in summer 2010, with the first units available the following year.

The development, which will include studio, one- and two- bedroom residences, will be at the intersection of Indian Creek Parkway and Central Boulevard.

It will be operated by Hallmark Senior Housing.

For more information on the Allegro at Abacoa, go to www.theallegro.com.

Z

Short sales litter the distressed real estate market but are still uncommon on Palm Beach.

Island residents, however, are not immune to financial woe, and Realtor Gary Pohrer of Fite Shavell and Associates recently closed a short sale on a Palm Beach home at 237 Seabreeze.

Realtor Paul Schafranick with Frank Lanosa Realty represented the buyers in the deal.

The 237 Seabreeze property is between South County Road and Cocoanut Row, and originally was listed at $5.5 million.

The home is newly built, with construction finishing in January.

County records show that former owner Lauro Bianda took out a $3.7 million loan on the property in 2007 with Wachovia Mortgage Corp. Wachovia filed a notice of foreclosure on the property in August.

Pohrer said he hired an attorney with his own money to negotiate the short sale.

"I had spent so much time on the property, I wanted to see it through," he said.

Pohrer said slightly more than $4 million was owed on the home. It sold for $3.95 million.

Find this article at:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/community-west-of-delray-beach-back-in-business-148327.html

Villagers Can't Get Enough of Sarah Palin

2009-11-25T06:21:00.001-05:00

Palin stops in Fla. town that feted her in 2008

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, AP Political Writer
Tue Nov 24, 5:45 pm ET

THE VILLAGES, Fla. – Sarah Palin, who says the 2012 presidential election isn't on her radar, took her "Going Rogue" book tour to the biggest of the battleground states Tuesday, including a stop in the retirement community where tens of thousands of people gave her star treatment in the 2008 presidential election.

The crowd was far smaller than when she made a September 2008 campaign stop as Republican John McCain's running mate, but no less passionate for the former Alaska governor. About 700 people, some who arrived a full 24 hours before the signing, waited for Palin as country music blared. Several signs encouraged her to run for president in 2012.

When she arrived, the crowd chanted "Sarah! Sarah!" She made brief remarks — including a gleeful "You can read my story thus far — unfiltered by the media!" She sat down to a Fox News interview, during which there were shouts of "We love you Sarah! We love you and we want you to be president!" and, "Take back the Constitution! And the Bill of Rights!"

The Villages is a massive, heavily Republican retirement community about 60 miles northwest of Orlando that draws huge crowds for political events. About a month after McCain picked her as his running mate, a crowd that would make some college football teams envious sweated for hours in 92-degree heat to hear her speak for 23 minutes. Some waited 90 minutes for a parking space.

Palin remembered the day.

"Oh my goodness this is a blast," she said. "We had such a great time here on the campaign trail. We said, 'If we ever come back to Florida we have to make sure that we're stopping here.' There's something very special about this place. You just are all so energetic and so inspiring and encouraging."

The feeling was mutual for those waiting for a signature.

"I haven't been eating properly, I couldn't sleep last night at all. I was too excited," said Victoria Dye, 81, of Richfield Springs, N.Y., who is wintering in The Villages. Dye arrived at Barnes & Noble at 6:45 p.m. Monday planning to buy the book and return the next day, but then she saw people already lined up. "I said, 'Well, I guess I better get a chair."

Her friend went home to get the chair while Dye stayed on the sidewalk.

"She's the ultimate woman. She is an amazing human being. I like everything she says and she speaks with sincerity," said Dye, a Republican. "I know good politicians and I know bad ones. She happens to be a good one."

Linda Garrison, 59, splits her years between a house in The Villages and a home in Anchorage, Alaska. She has bumped into Palin at a used clothing store and other events back home, but still slept on the concrete to be one of the first people in line to get her book signed.

"You'd see her in there shopping just like anybody else. You see, Alaska is a different type of a state. You can pick up the phone and personally talk to the governor without too much hassle," Garrison said.

So why sleep on a sidewalk to get her signature? "It's a matter of respect," she said.

Unlike most people at the event, Garrison, a Republican, wasn't sure she wanted Palin to run for president in 2012. She thinks it might be better if she waits until 2016.

"It's very hard to defeat an incumbent, no matter what the economy is doing," she said. "It might not be her time in 2012. That might just be a little premature. She is still a young woman. I hope at some point she runs."

University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus walked through the crowd talking to people to get a sense of why they loved Palin.

"They're just angry at government and Sarah Palin to them is someone who can speak her mind and she's not part of the establishment," MacManus said. "She represents in their minds their viewpoint about what's wrong with government."

Palin also had stops in Jacksonville and Orlando.

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Ave Maria Newspaper -- all the news that's fit to print....

2009-11-22T08:18:00.005-05:00

[[Imagine -- a developer is excited about his own development and optimistic about its success!]]

Pulte Homes "Really Positive" About Future of Ave Maria
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:37

Pulte Homes is making significant new commitments to marketing areas of Ave Maria, the company's president for Southwest Florida, Ryan Marshall, told The Ave Herald.

The first new initiative, Mr. Marshall said, is introducing 10 new models for the town's Del Webb section. Model homes will be built in an area where Pulte has broken ground next to the golf course, behind the cafe (right, in photo by Jo Ellen Monahan)

"We are really positive about the future of the community and see it as a long-term investment," Mr. Marshall said. Del Webb is the company's immediate priority for Ave Maria, Mr. Marshall said, because the "active adult" market has proven to be more resilient to the decline in the housing market overall....

-- For the rest of the article, please visit this link:
http://www.aveherald.com/news/435-pulte-homes-qreally-positiveq-about-future-of-ave-maria.html

Lawsuit alleges discrimination at Idaho Active Adult development

2009-11-09T15:22:00.001-05:00

Idaho Business Review
Lawsuit claims federal fair housing law violations
Posted: Monday, November 9, 2009

The Intermountain Fair Housing Council is suing The Orchards at Fairview Condominium Association, claiming the company and its real estate firm violated federal housing discrimination laws two years after the council explicitly warned the developer about the marketing of the condo project.

The council, a Boise-based nonprofit, filed a lawsuit in federal court Oct. 15 against the association and real estate firm Windermere Real Estate/ Capital Group Inc.

The suit alleges that the companies violated the Fair Housing Act by pitching the development as an “active adult community” and discouraging families with children from living there. It also says the development maintained an unlawful restriction on group homes that would serve the mentally and physically disabled.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on familial status or handicap in the sale and rental of homes.

“There’s no such thing as an ‘active adult community’ to be advertised,” said Richard Mabbutt, the council’s executive director, in an interview. “We discussed that quite frankly.”

Court papers say Mabbutt contacted and met with Orchards developer Mike Dixon after an Oct. 5, 2005 article in the Idaho Statesman described the property as “a 42-unit ‘empty nester’ subdivision.”

Dixon told Mabbutt the term “empty nester” was “the reporter’s choice of words” and that the development was open to families with minor children and not age-restricted, court papers say. He also said the property would include a playground even though the site plans didn’t include one.

Mabbutt warned against use of the word “adult” in advertising and other materials.

A March 7, 2005 article in the Idaho Business Review also included a comment from Dixon that described the condos as “suited for the empty-nester market.”

On May 14, 2007, Mabbutt saw a sign on the property that described it as an “active adult condominium community.” That prompted him to send several testers to the property to investigate if there was a pattern of discrimination.

On May 16, 2007, a tester met with Mary Liese, a Windermere agent who was handling the sale of units at the time. The suit claims that Liese made discriminatory statements, such as “we prefer people 55 and over,” and noted that the complex does not have a playground. She also provided a list of rules that included a prohibition on swing sets, unaccompanied minor children using the pool and teenage parties at the community center.

Another tester returned a week later and picked up a document listing the complex’s covenants, conditions and restrictions, which included a prohibition on “group homes … or any similar type of lodging, care or treatment facility.”

The council filed an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Sept. 7, 2007. It withdrew the complaint on Jan. 24, 2008 so it could later file the lawsuit.

The suit is seeking $56,000 in actual and punitive damages and $34,500 in other expenses. It also asks for the establishment of a $273,500 victims’ compensation fund to repay unidentified victims.

Steve Osburn, Windermere broker and owner, said in a statement that his company represented the Orchards complex for a two-year period starting in about January 2007. He said Windermere successfully sold homes to people of all ages and familial status and that a pattern of discrimination never existed.

He said the lawsuit’s claims about Liese are “simply false” and that she denies making discriminatory statements.

“Furthermore, we only get paid when we successfully close a sale,” he said. “What motivation would Ms. Liese have to limit potential buyers as they suggest?”

The Orchards at Fairview was built on the site of a former BMC West warehouse and includes single-story condos ranging from 1,271 to 1,935 square feet, a clubhouse and pool. Dixon sold the Fairview complex and a similar development, The Orchards at Cloverdale, to partners Mike Keller and Ev Davis in 2008.

A message left with the Orchards was not returned.

Ken Nagy, the lawyer representing the council, said there is a way for communities to be set up as age-restricted under the Fair Housing Act.

“They have to do that consistently, and they have to be set up that way,” he said. “This community didn’t do it that way. It has consistently marketed itself as a community that is attractive to an older group of residents, and they were warned early on about that.”
© 2009 Idaho Business Review

Trend: No Trick or Treating at many 55+ Adult Communities

2009-11-04T08:59:00.001-05:00

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-halloween-how-to-103109,0,3378089.story

OrlandoSentinel.com
Halloween how-to: Try these tricks so you can enjoy treats
Linda Shrieves
Sentinel Staff Writer
October 31, 2009

Halloween may be a kid's favorite holiday (after Christmas, of course). Kids know what to do, but what about adults? Here's the skinny on the hottest neighborhoods for trick-or-treating, the best treats and what time it's OK to turn out the lights.

Best trick-or-treating areas

Live in a neighborhood where there aren't many trick-or-treaters — or people handing out candy? You can head to malls or community events — or follow the lead of candy-hungry trick-or-treaters and head for well-heeled communities with reputations for giving out more chocolate and less candy corn. Not that we'd do that (because frankly, it's a pain to drive around with kids on a sugar high) but some choice neighborhoods include Celebration, Hunter's Creek or Waterford Lakes (where there are more kids per capita than any other place in Central Florida). Translation: They're used to kids there.

One of the best

Dommerich Hills in Maitland, where the streets are teeming with kids. For years, the neighbors in this subdivision have put on what appears to be one heck of a street party. Said resident John Deroo: "It's the biggest neighborhood party I've ever seen. One guy has a popcorn machine; another guy makes snow cones. They all try to outdo each other."

Trick-or-treating deluxe

In Isleworth, the ritzy subdivision that's home to Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal, the mansions are so far apart that kiddies in costume go trick-or-treating in golf carts. Not only do they dress up the kids, but some families also decorate their carts — as the Flintstones' mobile or a circus train, replete with clowns.

Trick-or-treating to the oldies

Thinking about trick-or-treating in a 55-plus community? Fuhgeddaboutit. Even The Villages, the huge retirement community in Lake and Sumter counties, stopped having its annual trick-or-treating event for kids several years ago. "I don't see too many kids around here," said one employee. "Except when the grandkids are visiting."

Are you ever too old to trick or treat?

Apparently not. In an informal e-mail survey of moms, we found none would turn away teens or college students — as long as they are dressed in costume. Even those who show up at her doorstep without a costume get some candy, said Orlando mom Barbara Jones, though it "may be something my daughter got and does not like."

Candy or healthy goodies?

Are you handing out raisins or apples or little bags of peanuts? Good for you, but you're in the minority. Eighty-two percent of Americans hand out bite-size candy bars and 45 percent hand out multiple types of candy treats, such as miniature candy bars, lollipops, gummy candy and non-chocolate candies, according to marketing firm NPD Group. Breaking from that tradition is Gail Hill Smith, an Orlando mom and health counselor, who hands out boxes of raisins, peanuts in shells and individually wrapped toothbrushes. (Don't egg her house, please.)

Be prepared, people

Most Americans say they buy enough candy to prepare for Halloween. But 25 percent admit they often run out of treats. When the supply of candy runs out, they either turn off the porch lights and refuse to answer the door, or they run out to buy more, or scavenge around for other food or coins to hand out. And, yes, some hand out the candy their kids have just collected. (Shame on you, parents!)

Lights out!

What's an acceptable time to turn off the porch light and douse the jack-o'-lantern? Local moms turn off the lights around 9 p.m., sometimes a little later if Halloween falls on a weekend (as it does this year).

Linda Shrieves can be reached at 407-420-5433 or lshrieves@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Awakening the inner "frisky" -- from a NJ newspaper...

2009-11-02T16:34:00.001-05:00

November 1, 2009

Being frisky at 70 isn't a problem

Dear Dr. Marcia: My husband of 45 years and I are pushing 70. When we retired a few years ago, we moved to an active-adult community, and we've never felt better. We're in great shape and exercise every day.

This has made my husband quite frisky, and even when we are out with friends, he jokes about how "active" we are and is always grabbing me and joking around. I get embarrassed, but he doesn't care. Even our adult kids tell him they don't want to know.

What can I do?

-- Sincerely, Blushing

Dear Blushing: Please tell me you wrote this to brag, because if you didn't, you must be kidding! Tell your kids to deal with it. Any of your friends who think it's disgusting are just jealous.

Enjoy!

Poignant reader email -- one of my favorites

2009-11-02T04:47:00.001-05:00

Dear Mr. Blechman,

I just finished reading “Leisureville” and I’d like to thank you for writing such an intelligent and entertaining book. Your work reminds me of Joel Garreau’s “Edge City” insofar as it strains to describe a phenomenon in a balanced way while still making your own concerns quite clear. As much as I enjoy James Howard Kunstler’s rants, he’s never been accused of moderation, but that’s what makes him so endearing. There were also hints of Jane Jacobs' later works, "Systems of Survival" and "Dark Age Ahead". “Leisureville” closely resembles a geriatric version of Setha Low’s “Behind the Gates” (although I admit your writing style is a bit better). Ms. Low was primarily concerned with the social and political fragmentation and mistrust that inevitably results from the self-segregation of gated suburban enclaves.

As a young man I fled the suburbs of the Jersey shore and ultimately settled in San Francisco. A few weeks ago I returned to Toms River, New Jersey to visit my mother who now lives in Holiday City. I talked to her about how she likes her new living arrangement. She said it was a mixed bag. Safe. Clean. Affordable. Lonely. Dull. Restrictive. She confirmed all the stereotypes about sex-crazed neighbors and rule obsessed committees. I had lobbied very hard for her to come and live with me in California citing the cultural offerings and free accommodations, but she ultimately wanted to stay near my sisters and brother and all the grandkids in Jersey. She also wanted to live independently. Fair enough.

As an adolescent I had plenty of contact with the elderly residents of these ever-expanding adult communities. I did housekeeping and gardening chores for many retirees as a way to earn money for college (Rutgers ’96). I enjoy the company of old people so it was a good fit. And to be honest, the generation I was dealing with back then was more likable than the new crop of boomers. They were savers and planners. They had survived the Depression and war. They told stories of how they were smuggled out of Poland “just in time”, or described burning their dining room furniture one piece at a time to keep their Brooklyn tenement warm through the winter. These people didn’t need plastic surgery or granite counter tops. They appreciated the fact that they had good food, a tidy home in the country, and money in the bank at a time in life when their own parents had been destitute. Boomers? Not so much…

I have very few fond memories of my early years in the suburbs. My family was working class and just barely managed to stay afloat. The suburbs are predicated on the concept that if you can't afford your own detached home and private vehicle, you don't belong. Public transport is considered a form of communism. Suburbia is a pay-per-view environment: private country clubs, summer camp, dance lessons, music lessons. Even the beaches in New Jersey are privately owned and charge admission. We couldn't afford any of that. To save money for college I rode a bicycle everywhere and I can't tell you how many times as a young man I was pulled over by the police and questioned. I would ask what I had done wrong, and they would always say that riding a bicycle along the highway, especially after dark or in bad weather, was suspicious. The unspoken message was that only the poor and undesirables do that sort of thing, so they needed to see what was in my backpack. Books usually. They always seemed so befuddled and sent me on my way with a warning. Nerd. Guilty as charged...

I hadn’t been back to Toms River for fifteen years. (I preferred to pay for airline tickets so my mom could visit me in California instead). I was reminded why I left. When I was a kid, the small historic downtown of Toms River still had a working movie theater, a shoe store, restaurants, and a dress shop. All that fell away by the time I graduated high school as strip malls and chain stores chewed up the landscape outside of town. The only things that remained were the government buildings since Toms River was the county seat. Now, most of the old buildings aren’t even there anymore. Little by little they were removed as the roads were widened and parking lots were installed. Downtown is just another kind of mall now, this one devoted to municipal services. Two hundred years of history were paved over so commuters could get through town and make a right hand turn forty five seconds faster.

When I express my concerns about sprawl people often suggest that San Francisco is an anomaly and out of step with how most Americans want to live. After all, nothing like a compact mixed use city has been built anywhere in the country for a hundred years now. I respond by saying that a hundred years from now San Francisco will still be well populated and vibrant. I don’t think the same will be true of most cul de sacs and strip malls. Most of the suburbs will have become mulch by then.

Again, many thanks for your good work.

- John S.

Reader email (from an architect designing integrated housing)

2009-09-25T10:47:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr. Blechman:

I wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how much I enjoyed reading Leisureville. It was humorous while raising very real concerns about how we as a society engage, or disengage, with each other especially during the retirement years.

As an Architect on Cape Cod who designs a wide range of community facilities (ie, community & senior centers, libraries, churches etc..) and housing from modest single family homes to multi-unit and affordable housing developments, I am always interested in housing trends and the social forces which affect the design process and how people live, work and socialize.

Our firm has had the good fortune over the last few years to have aligned with a local non-profit housing developer (Housing Assistance Corp.) to design and build several housing developments and our team discussions are always about "fostering community" among the "age integrated" residents and building well designed and environmentally responsible housing.

After reading your book, it made me appreciate all the more that we are living in and developing real community buildings and housing for real people "warts and all". Developing affordable housing for lower income individuals and families is a real challenge and NIMBYism, even here on Cape Cod is alive and well. Your book has helped to re-energize my work.

Sincerely.
Rick F
Yarmouthport, MA

Making Suburbia More Livable

2009-09-25T05:29:00.002-04:00

"The nation's sprawling suburbs may have been a good place to grow up, but they're a tough place to grow old. Here's how towns are beginning to 'retrofit' their neighborhoods—and what your community might look like in the future."
-- The Wall Street Journal

Builders of homes for younger retirees still adjusting to downturn

2009-09-25T05:29:00.001-04:00

'(Baby) Boomers aren't joiners,' so seniors memberships dip

2009-09-09T10:24:00.000-04:00

Reader email defending their chosen lifestyle

2009-08-31T06:19:00.002-04:00

Mr. Blechman,

You are to be commended for tackling a tough subject in a thorough and responsible manner. Your book was a good read, filled with interesting perspectives.

I might suggest you consider a sequel to Leisureville and visit our community, Sun City Hilton Head. While the last chapter in your book covers all the arguments we've heard against active adult communities, you did not capture what we are experiencing. We have a high percentage of volunteerism inside and outside our gates; a strong security system that affords residents' their privacy and safety; exposure to cultural activities in nearby Savannah, Hilton Head and Bluffton. We are an ethnically mixed community. Most of us recognize our families experience busy lifestyles and we must establish our own in a new setting. Most of us take an active interest in the realities of the outside world. Hundreds of us volunteer in nearby schools, interact with children there, take part in our respective religious institutions outside our gates, go to Chamber of Commerce meetings to hear speakers about local development, and business opportunities. We're actively participating in our nearby community, yet socializing mostly with those with whom we have commonalities. Many of us are active in the community's governance, serving on committees and encouraging volunteerism.

We have deep discussions about the topics you touch upon. Most of us here have never been happier in our whole lives and for the first time since our busy professional days, we have the time and inclination to enjoy nature, appreciate different perspectives, explore new interests and avail ourselves of wonderful educational opportunities at our nearby University. We really love it here.

Just as an aside, our son is a sociologist and harbored your sentiments when he first heard of our plans to move here. We said it's a "gated community." His response: "Oh good grief, you know that's code for ethnic exclusion." He visited and learned he was wrong. Although, like you, he can't fathom a community sans children and calls it "unreal" like a college campus or an enclave outside the real world, he admits now that he is happy to see us in an environment where we are so happy and busy. All our children seem pleased this community offers a support system and genuine neighborly interest.

I wanted to share my thoughts with you and I hope you will explore Leisureville concerns further and particularly in this incredible community we call Paradise..

Ellie (and Bob) Dixon
Sun City Hilton Head, SC

CNN: Market seemingly improving for Age-Segregated Communities

2009-08-31T06:14:00.001-04:00

Interesting Reader Email about School Funding

2009-08-25T03:41:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr. Blechman,

I just finished reading your book, Leisureville. I am a sixty seven year old retiree who lives in Natick, MA and my wife and I have a small condo in an " age qualified" older gated community in Fort Myers, Florida. I absolutely loved your book. I think it is the best book I have read in a long ,long time. You are a great writer, and you certainly know how to capture attention. Fortunately, my condo complex in Fort Myers and the people there are nothing like the Villages and their residents.

One story I would like to relate to you is as follows. I am a twenty five year elected town meeting representative in the town of Natick, and I remember a few years back we were discussing at Town Meeting whether we should support an override to build a new middle school in town. The town seemed to be divided between the older residents, and the young parents in town.

The older residents were resisting the school override, and the young parents were trying to get support for the schools. On the night of the vote, the young parents showed up in droves, but unfortunately many of them were not elected town meeting members, so they couldn't vote that night. When the discussion, and the vote looked like it would go against the young parents, I got up and told the story that many years ago, when I was a young parent and a town meeting rep, the town was closing schools everywhere in town, and trying to cut the school budget at town meeting in all ways possible, I had made a speech urging the older town meeting reps to help us young parents, and they did. Then I said that now, twenty five years later, I found myself in a new position. Now, I was the older town meeting rep being asked to support the schools. The premise of my argument that night was that one generation must support the next generation, just as I, and other parents, were helped by town meeting twenty five years prior. I told the town meeting that it was our obligation to support the schools, just as you said in your book. I am happy to report that the schools did get the support that night.

Sincerely,

Nick DiMasi

Leisureville interview on WBUR (Boston Public Radio)

2009-08-05T23:53:00.001-04:00

Scroll down to "Behind the Gates of a Retirement Community" and then hit the "listen" tab. Enjoy.

Housing Market driving Age-Segregated communities to seek rentals

2009-07-27T18:09:00.001-04:00

Leisureville now in PAPERBACK with a dandy new cover!

2009-07-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

Another article on The Villages' grande IRS problem

2009-07-17T10:05:00.000-04:00

Communities sold like Baseball Cards to highest bidder

2009-07-17T08:02:00.003-04:00

NOTE: Even more interesting are the reader comments. Apparently the developer has reneged on many of its promises to the community -- not surprising when a "community" is a privately owned for-profit entity, as discussed in Leisureville.

Reader Comments: http://regulus2.azstarnet.com/comments/index.php?id=300964

$8M buys unfinished Hovnanian retirement hub in Vail for Pulte
By Josh Brodesky
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.15.2009

For all of $8 million, Pulte Homes has purchased an unfinished retirement community in Vail, picking up hundreds of home lots as well as a 14,000 square-foot lodge, two swimming pools, 12 model homes and tennis courts, among other amenities.
Some economists and housing experts have said such fire-sale deals are a key part of the housing recovery, hinting at a bottom as builders and investors move back into the market.

Pulte closed on the deal Tuesday with K. Hovnanian Homes, the original developer of Four Seasons at Rancho del Lago, an active community for residents age 55 and up.

Hovnanian launched the community in February 2008 — despite the housing downturn — planning to build about 500 homes with prices starting in the upper $180,000s. But it only built about 35 homes and finished about 280 lots. Hovnanian's stock has been trading around $2.20 a share.

With the change in ownership, Pulte has renamed the community Del Webb at Rancho del Lago, although the builder will continue to offer Hovnanian's floor plans. Over time, Pulte said it may bring on its own floor plans.

Although new-home construction is at a veritable standstill, Pulte is banking on a growing demand for active retirement housing as more and more baby boomers retire. The recession may slow down that process by years, but the price of the deal, which was paid in cash, gives Pulte plenty of time.

"It was a great deal," said Shawn Chlarson, Pulte's Tucson division president. "As a location, the Vail submarket is physically beautiful. There is a lack of active adult competition down the I-10 corridor."

Pulte management could not be specific about pricing other than saying homes will start in the "mid-100s."

For some time, Pulte had been looking to return to the active community market in Tucson, relying heavily on its well known Del Webb brand.

"I think it's as ideal a vehicle as we could possibly find, short of doing it ourselves, to execute our brand and our lifestyle," Chlarson said.

Amy McReynolds, vice president of operations for Pulte's Tucson division, said Pulte will go about marketing the amenities Hovnanian had already put in — pools, a massive lodge with a gourmet kitchen — as well as its prime location next to the public Del Lago Golf Club.

"Del Webb builds lifestyle communities," she said. "In Tucson we were missing the active adult community, and it's a pretty big profile to not have in Tucson."

Andy Pedersen, regional director of marketing for K. Hovnanian Homes of Arizona, said the nation's sixth-largest builder will "continue to grow throughout Arizona and carry on the tradition of quality, leadership and value."

"Though K. Hovnanian does not have any active communities in the Tucson market, given the acquisition of Four Seasons at Rancho del Lago, we are committed to providing excellent, hands-on customer service to our Tucson homeowners."

To Tim Oakes, designated broker for Del Lago Realty, the biggest selling point for the community is its facilities and amenities, which he described as "absolutely incredible."

Building has stopped in the area, and prices have dropped to the $140,000s, he said. But because of those facilities and eventual growth, "I think it's still a gold mine," Oakes said. "The facilities are great."

More and more, developers and investors are purchasing unfinished developments, which some experts say is a sign the housing market is hitting a bottom.

"I think a lot of (builders) believe there is going to be potential in a couple of years," said Jay Q. Butler, real estate studies director at Arizona State University.

"Pulte, of course, is going to play on the Del Webb name, and, of course, with the aging baby boomers, they feel this is going to be a big growth market in the coming years," Butler said.

University of Arizona economist Marshall Vest said deals like Pulte's or the recent purchase of the unfinished River Walk townhomes development in the Foothills are a key step in forming a bottom for the housing market.

"It is part of the process and it simply reflects that the appetite for risk is returning," he said. "And it's good news because private capital is coming in now and buying up these assets that are really very cheap."

Interesting Reader Review of Leisureville

2009-07-07T18:35:00.001-04:00

Many Baby Boomers, as we draw closer and closer to the magic number that will allow, or maybe require, us to retire from full-time employment, find ourselves at least a little bit tempted to move into one of the hundreds of age-restricted communities that are popping up all over the country. After all, we reason, we have spent a lifetime paying taxes (including school district taxes for decades after the graduation of our last child), commuting to and from work, and tolerating the unruly behavior and noise of all those kids who live next door and down the street. Don’t we deserve to live our last couple of decades in peace and quiet, among people who share our interests and concerns, and away from the noise and clutter of those not as far into life’s journey as we are?

Andrew Blechman became intrigued by the concept of age-restricted communities when two of his neighbors moved from their longtime home in New England to The Villages, a Florida community designed for people wanting to immerse themselves in a lifestyle of leisure activities and relative isolation from the rest of the world. Blechman became so curious, in fact, that he moved in with his old neighbors for a few weeks to live that lifestyle for himself. Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias is largely the product of what he learned from the time he spent there.

Anyone considering residence in a community similar to The Villages would be wise to read Blechman’s book because of his firsthand reporting of what it is like to live in a place almost completely dedicated to boiling life’s experiences down to a few simple pleasures. Golfers and those into arts and crafts seem to love the place, as do those who want to cram in as much drinking and sex into the remainder of their lives as possible. But you have other interests, you say? Well, then in all likelihood you will want to avoid the lifestyle offered by The Villages and other communities like it and opt for a more traditional retirement location.

Do you resent being pandered to or brainwashed? If so, you will probably find the community-controlled newspaper, radio and television outlets that pretend that nothing bad ever happens in places like The Villages to be more than a little ludicrous. Even the “reporters” who are supposedly paid to function as news gatherers eventually come to resent all of the censorship necessary to keep smiles on the faces of community residents.

But more importantly, Blechman points out the important social issues that need to be considered before committing to life in any of America’s “Leisurevilles.” Is it right for retirees to yank their support from the communities whose services they have enjoyed for a lifetime? Are they abandoning their generational obligations by deciding not to serve as readily accessible role models to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Now that they have the luxury of so much free time should they be using some of it to better their communities by working for social or structural changes from there?

Those are just a few of the questions that Blechman asks in his book. There are good arguments to be made on both sides of the issue as to whether or not age-restricted settings like The Villages are a good thing or a bad thing. For some people, these communities offer exactly the lifestyle most suited to their retirement years. For others the very thought of moving into such a community is mind numbing, at best, and horrifying, at worst.

Leisureville moved me one giant step closer to deciding what kind of retirement setting will be best for me and my wife. But I also came away from the book with the understanding that, although age-segregated, gated communities have no appeal to us, they will appeal to many others – and are absolutely perfect for some.

Personally, I am certain that we would be bored in a community where golf, alcohol and casual sex are such prominent parts of the lifestyle that everything else seems secondary. For us it is more important to remain close to family and to enjoy the benefits of living in a diverse community with so much more to offer than golf courses, bars and community centers. I sincerely believe that aging is as much mental as it is physical, and that the mental part is much easier to govern while surrounded by family, a diverse group of fellow citizens and neighbors, museums, university access, and live sports and entertainment choices.

Email from a former Villages employee -- quite interesting!

2009-07-04T11:17:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Blechman,

I just finished reading "Leisureville," and it inspired me to write you. I worked for The Villages in the "old days," in the 1980s and '90s, for what was then The Orange Blossom Sun.

As such, I was fascinated -- and disturbed -- by your interview with the young reporters now working for the Daily Sun. The idea of discarding back issues of the paper, destroying one's reporting notes and having one's computer routinely scrubbed by the company would have been unthinkable to us.

Harold Schwartz's philosophy was to hire good people to run his departments, then stay out of their way. At the Sun, that person was our publisher, an Orange Blossom Gardens (OBG for short) resident named Adelaide Carpenter, a retired journalist from Hawaii. In addition to running stories, press releases and columns written by resident volunteers, our staff covered various happenings within the community, as well as Lady Lake government. When Harold was running things, we were never told what to print, or chastised for reporting events which might cast the developer in an unfavorable light. When someone climbed a fence on the back side of OBG property, stole a golf cart and burglarized a number of houses, we ran the story without being censored.

That changed when Harold bowed out from running the company day-to-day in about 1994, and Gary Morse took over, after the community had been renamed The Villages. At one point, Gary decided he wanted to de-annex the original Orange Blossom Gardens section from Lady Lake to form his own government (this was before the CDD was formed). We were told that an entire issue of the paper was to be devoted to presenting a clearly biased, one-sided presentation of the issue favorable to the developer. To her credit, Ad Carpenter resisted, and went to Harold with her objections. Eventually, a compromise was reached in which we were allowed to cover the story from both sides in the body of the paper, but a special four-page insert pushing de-annexation was published. When the referendum came, the majority of residents in the Lady Lake portion of The Villages voted to remain tied to the city. I'd like to think our straight reporting had something to do with that.

I'm also proud to say that we were not intimidated by Gary, who Ad derisively called "H. God." At one point, Gary said to us, "I'm not spending all this money so you can play newspaper." To which Ad responded, "We're professionals. We're not playing."

Ultimately, of course, Gary won, and not just in our department. At the Recreation Department, which had been run since the beginning of Harold's involvement in OBG by a pair of twin sisters named Cricket and Janet Jordan, Gary installed the wife of the corporate attorney in a specially created position to "supervise" the Jordans. Eventually, Gary convinced Harold that the Jordans had been disloyal to him and were working to subvert his vision of The Villages -- which wasn't true -- and they were fired. The employees who had worked for years with the Jordans either got fired themselves or resigned in protest. One Rec Department underling who survived the blood-letting was a relative newcomer, an enthusiastic but, to my recollection, none-too-bright young man named John Rohan. Yes, that John Rohan.

Similar blood-lettings occurred in all the departments, as people loyal to Harold were let go. Eventually, that included Ad and me. We tried to start our own independent newspaper, but were unable to secure financing. Eventually, I pursued a career opportunity in the Florida Keys. Four years later, I received a call from Ad telling me she had been diagnosed with cancer, but was optimistic she could beat it. Less than a month later, her daughter called me to tell me Ad had passed away.

At the end of "Leisureville," you speculate about what H. Gary Morse might think about what he has wrought. I knew the man fairly well. I suspect what was true then is true now: He pays lip-service to playing by the rules, but he's not above changing the rules when it suits his purposes. Harold was gregarious. He cared about the residents, he identified with them, and he enjoyed mingling with them. He would never have had a private skybox put into the movie theaters. Gary, on the other hand, sees the residents as a necessary nuisance. If he could find a way to make millions of dollars off The Villages without catering to them, he'd do it. He cares about no one but himself, and about nothing but the bottom line.

Harold wanted to build a community where working class retirees could buy in for a modest price and live like millionaires. Gary wants a community where you have to be a millionaire to gain entry.

I apologize for rambling, but your book sparked all these memories. One last story to illustrate Gary's persona and how he sees the elements of the empire he has created as mere tools to serve his own ends:

In 1992, when Bill Clinton made his first run for the presidency, he made one of his famous "Bus Tours" through Central Florida, starting in Daytona Beach, heading over to Orlando, then coming north to Ocala. His route would take him up Highway 441, the highway which cuts through the heart of The Villages. We thought it would be a good story for us if we could arrange a stop at The Villages. Ad called Rep. Everett Kelley, the State Representative who helped get the golf cart bridge built (and who was a Democrat at the time), and he thought it would be a good opportunity for Mr. Clinton to address seniors' issues, so he arranged it. Clinton drew a good-sized crowd, and The Villages TV station's anchor, Kevin Coughlin, and his cameraman somehow evaded the Secret Service cordon, mixed in with the press corps covering Clinton, and got an interview with him. Needless to say, they were proud of their coup, and kept it in the news loop for a couple of weeks. Then one day Gary called the head of VNN. He had seen the interview of Clinton still running on the station, and he was furious: "Get that son of a bitch off my TV station!" The interview was pulled immediately.

We knew that was the beginning of the end for us.

Thank you for writing this book.

Economy makes roommates of elders and their adult children

2009-06-23T15:17:00.001-04:00

Economy makes roommates of elders and their adult children
acreamer@sacbee.com / JUN. 23, 2009
__________________

At 105, Eddith Moehr is on the cutting edge of a trend.

When she moved in with her daughter, 76-year-old Doris Beresford of North Natomas, at the end of 2007, Moehr became one of the 3.6 million older parents sharing living quarters with their adult children – a number that U.S. census figures indicate has increased 55 percent since 2000.

"I got a new roommate for my birthday in 2007," said Kathy Mullen, 60, who married Beresford last year.

"What a present!" said Beresford.

"Doris' mom is a treasure," said Mullen. "I'd like to be as gracious as she is about being old."

Sitting in her wheelchair at the kitchen table with them, Moehr sips chocolate Ensure and basks in their attention.

"Thank you," she said. "That's nice. Thank you, thank you."

California trails only Hawaii in its percentage of multigenerational family households, according to AARP statistics. Beyond cultural norms, tough economic conditions often play a part in families' decisions to house or move in with their elders.

At the same time, retirement communities and upscale assisted living centers that once had long waiting lists find themselves slammed with vacancies, says the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry.

The problem? Plummeting home prices have discouraged seniors from cashing out of their existing homes.

Given a choice, most seniors would prefer to continue living independently. But among health issues, economic pressures and diminishing public resources, that's not always possible.

Census figures show that California's elderly population is exploding twice as fast as the rest of the state's population – and it's expected to grow even faster as the baby boom generation continues aging. Yet proposed state budget cuts could slash services that help the elderly stay in their own homes.

"There will be more families put in a caregiving situation if we see cuts to home and community-based services," said AARP California's Christina Clem. "Families can help each other."

They may have to.

"People assume that older people in adult day care will end up in nursing homes one day," said Will Tipton, planner for the Area 4 Agency on Aging in Sacramento. "That's probably not an accurate expectation. There aren't a lot of Medi-Cal beds available in nursing homes.

"What's most likely is that Grandma or Grandpa will end up on your doorstep."

The challenges of multigenerational living can range from loss of privacy and financial independence to concerns about the stresses of caregiving.

"An active and able older person can be quite an asset in interacting with older children," said Area 4 Agency on Aging's Pat McVicar. "But that's not always the case. Sometimes, it's an added stress to the family."

For Beresford, the addition of her mother to the household is a pleasure rather than a burden.

"Having Mom here has really enriched our lives," said Beresford, a retired psychotherapist. "It feels like we're this family – more of a family than before. It's been quite an experience watching Kathy take care of my mother and seeing how loving she is."

An Ohio native, Moehr moved to Vallejo in 1951 with her husband. After he retired from the real estate business, the couple moved to Vacaville, where they volunteered as CPR instructors for 15 years. He died in 1997.

She lived alone in her own house – which she still owns – until she was 103, when Beresford grew concerned about her health.

"Up until that time, Doris would go over every week, and they'd go to Raley's together," said Mullen, a retired Sacramento water superintendent. "Mother would tootle around hanging onto the grocery cart."

Because of Moehr's declining health, she sleeps much of the day and can't be left home alone. She receives services from a local hospice organization as well as respite care from Home Instead Senior Care, a private agency that helps family caregivers.

"She started out here using her walker and being up all day," said Beresford. "We'd have breakfast together. I'd ask if she wanted coffee, and she'd say, 'That would be lovely.'

"These things are precious gifts. I'm so glad I have them."

BEWARE: This is what happens when your "community" is privately owned -- it can be traded like a baseball card to the highest bidder

2009-06-17T15:56:00.001-04:00

What next for Four Seasons?
BY SUSAN GIBBS, RECORD REPORTER
Published: June 17, 2009

Last month, a development group based in Northern Virginia paid $5 million to take Four Seasons, the upscale 204-acre active adult community in Ruckersville, off the hands of New York’s Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company (M&T).

The bank bought the subdivision at auction on the steps of the County’s courthouse January 22.

The sale of Four Seasons by M&T to Charlottesville Land Development Group, LLC of Vienna went through at the end of May. But ownership of its plush multi-million dollar clubhouse—and other common areas—is yet to be resolved.

Four Seasons’ homeowners association says those areas belong to it. The bank says they go with the sale.

The situation leaves homeowners in a potential financial mess, according to documents obtained by The Record. In an e-mail, the finances of Four Seasons at Charlottesville Community Association Inc. are described by the sender as “in shambles,“ with no funds in its reserve account and payments being delayed to “several vendors.“

The association filed a lawsuit on January 14, just eight days before the bank purchased the subdivision. The lawsuit alleges, among other things, that contradictory statements were published in the notice of sale of Four Seasons. By February 10, Judge Daniel R. Bouton had signed a joint motion for a stay on the lawsuit, so “all parties” could settle their differences.

The documents obtained from the association member last week show that since then, talks between the parties have been ongoing.

The subdivision was proffered in 2004 as a residential development with expectations of up to 650 single-family homes. According to the documents turned over to the Record last week, only 83 homes are currently occupied.

The documents show that if only residents contribute to the current maintenance costs, each would have to pay roughly $650 per month to maintain the common areas.

“The fact is,“ say those documents, “in the coming days we may well face some major decisions. If so, then we will either make them consciously, or they will be made for us.“

Two of those decisions, according to the documents, are whether or not to drop the continuing legal stay, and whether or not to temporarily close the clubhouse.

The 16,000 square foot clubhouse, which includes an indoor pool, is an integral part of the development. Just last month, it was the site for a gathering to celebrate local businesses by the county’s economic development department.

K. Hovnanian Homes first started building in the development in mid-2006. That company’s website describes its active adult communities such as Four Seasons as “private world(s) where … recreation abounds … quality is second to none” and activities are planned year round.

That was the vision many of the current residents are hanging onto.

In the meantime, as part of the lawsuit, the association and the bank disagree as to whether the association’s declaration has been dissolved.

According to the Code of Virginia, a declaration is the instrument that imposes the responsibility for maintenance of the common areas on homeowners associations, and gives those associations the power to impose mandatory payment toward those responsibilities on lot-owners.

According to documents filed in Greene’s Circuit Court, the Four Seasons homeowners association is charged with “owning, operating and maintaining the common area within the property.“ The declaration also states that the association’s ownership of the common area shall be free of liens. At the time the suit was filed, that common area included the clubhouse.

The declaration was part of the proffers offered the county when its Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the developer’s rezoning request on July 13, 2004. Proffers have the force of zoning law under the Code of Virginia, according to documents filed in the Greene County Circuit Court.

How Phoenix 55+ Communities are Faring

2009-06-15T14:17:00.002-04:00

Real Estate: What happened in Phoenix

Prices in the Arizona desert got hit harder than anywhere else. So can you get your dream retirement home for a song? It depends where you look.

By David Whitford, editor-at-large
June 12, 2009

PHOENIX (Fortune) -- Did you happen to see the latest home-price stats from S&P/Case-Shiller, or did you avert your eyes? Here's what struck me: As of March 2009, every metro area in Case-Shiller's 20-city index, without exception, has fallen double digits from its peak. Ten are down more than 30%. Eight have dropped more than 40%. Las Vegas is down 50%. Phoenix? It doesn't get any worse than Phoenix. According to Case-Shiller, between June 2006 and March 2009 the average house in Phoenix lost a staggering 53% of its value. Possibly during the Great Depression, but almost certainly at no time since then, have house prices in a major metropolitan area fallen by more than half. It's almost unbelievable. Brother, tell me you didn't buy a house during the boom in Phoenix!

I've been to Phoenix twice in the past six months to look at real estate. The first time, in November, I squeezed into a crowded white stretch limo and rode around town all day looking at foreclosures on a tour led by an energetic realtor who wore Chanel sunglasses. Time to buy, she assured us, and who could argue? Prices had come way down. When I went back in May, however, prices were still going down. And while the pace of home sales had picked up, nobody I talked to was ready to call a bottom - not with any conviction anyway. "I think if we reach our toe down, we can kind of feel the bottom," real estate investment adviser Robin Reed, president of ProEquity Management in Scottsdale, told me over lunch at a strip-mall bistro on my first day in town, "but we can't rest solidly on it yet."

My focus on this trip was a little different. I was looking at places where retired people live. I wondered about the specific impact of the bust in those places: How have homeowners fared during the downturn? What are the prospects for newcomers who might want to buy now? To be blunt, are there screaming bargains to be had?

Here are the short answers: Retirement communities in and around Phoenix got smacked ("same as other places," says Reed; "it's real estate") but, in a surprising twist, not as violently as the broader market; the price drops were less dramatic and there haven't been nearly as many foreclosures. Is it a good time to buy? Yes. Will you find a screaming bargain? You might, if you're patient and alert to the peculiar inefficiencies of the retirement market (more on that later), but not as easily as you could elsewhere in Phoenix. That's okay, by the way. Too many bargains implies a market defined, historically, by too much volatility and pain. You don't need that when you retire.

Phoenix is where the seemingly oxymoronic concept of an active retirement was born nearly half a century ago. Today it's famous for its many acres of planned, age-restricted communities built around golf courses, swimming pools, and artificial lakes, where property taxes are low because there aren't any schools (there aren't any kids), yard work is a breeze (yards are all gravel), and street-legal golf carts serve as second cars.

The granddaddy of Arizona retirement meccas and the first development of its kind anywhere in the country, Sun City, turns 50 next year. It was built by the legendary Del Webb, a hard-drinking, nonsmoking former owner of the New York Yankees who made his fortune building military bases (and a Japanese internment camp) in the Southwest during World War II, and later Minutemen missile silos in Kansas and Montana, a 30,000-acre housing development for NASA workers in Houston, the Beverly Hilton, and several Las Vegas casinos. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Howard Hughes were among his pals.

Sun City was a big hit from the day it opened, Friday, Jan. 1, 1960. In its first weekend, according to an account in Time, Webb sold 272 of the "neat and gay pastel houses" at prices ranging from $8,750 for two bedrooms to $11,600 for three bedrooms and two baths. Phase one was completed in the '60s, phase two in the '70s, phase three in the '80s, block after block of new construction displacing irrigated fields of grapes and cotton, gaily marching north up the valley. In the '90s came Sun City West, Sun City Grand, Corte Bella (that one's gated), and just in the past couple of years, Sun City Festival, which sits 10 miles beyond the western limits of developed greater Phoenix in a dusty, whistling wasteland at the base of the White Tank Mountains.

Today more than 100,000 people live in the combined Sun Cities, on curvy, desert-landscaped streets, interlaced with close-cropped fairways and dotted with lakes and bustling rec centers (supported by a modest annual assessment) where residents, when they're not golfing, can swim, bowl, play shuffleboard, and make pottery and stained-glass trinkets. You (or your roommate) must be at least 55 years old to live here. Children under 19 can visit, but they can't stay longer than three months. The newer the development, the nicer the homes, the classier the amenities, the more you'll pay. (Every house gets garbage pickup twice a week; not all come with fancy granite countertops.) If you're prepared to spend nearly $1 million, you can have two bedrooms, a patio suitable for a presidential fundraiser, and a stunning fairway vista in Sun City Grand. Farther south in phase one, meanwhile, just over $100,000 buys a cozy cottage on 107th Avenue that's walking distance from the Sun Bowl amphitheater, which hosts free outdoor concerts in the spring and fall.

Reed had warned me at lunch that given the economic downturn, the mood in Sun City might be grim. "It's one thing to be 40 or 50 and know that you've got 10 years for the thing to turn back around, and that in the meantime you can go out into the job market, you can do something," he said. "People in their sixties and seventies really can't do that. They're feeling a despair right on the heels of what previously had been kind of a wisdom - 'We've been here before, we know how to batten down the hatches.' For them it was never about consumption. But they did expect their savings to be savings and their investments to be investments and their pensions to be pensions. It went from wisdom to concern and then, in some cases, outright fear."

That may be true for retirees in general, but inside the walls that surround places like Sun City the impact of the downturn is muted. At the Sun City Visitors Center on the corner of 99th and Bell, I meet volunteer greeter Bill Burt, 76. He isn't grim at all. Red-faced and barrel-chested, with a shock of salt-white hair sprinkled with pepper, Burt grew up driving a cotton picker in fields not far from where he now lives. He was a "blood banker" when he still worked, he says, building and managing blood donation centers all around the country. Ten years ago he came home. Burt and his wife bought a duplex condominium in an older section of Sun City. Two years later, in 2001, they sold at a small loss and traded up to a nearby duplex on a lake for $161,000. Then came the boom.

By 2005, if we can believe Zillow.com, the Burts' house was worth more than $300,000. And today? Zillow says $173,000, or 40% below its peak. Burt just grins and shrugs. It was only a paper gain; now it's a paper loss from that high. Meaningless, in other words, unless he decides to sell, which he has no intention of doing. He's happy, his wife's happy. His only regret is that he didn't move to Sun City 10 years earlier. "When people leave here, they usually go out in a box," Burt says. "Or they've been cremated, you know. They go out in a bottle."

According to the latest MLS data, Sun City, while definitely hurting, is a lot better off than its neighbors. The median sales price in April for a single-family dwelling in surrounding Maricopa County (Arizona's populous region that includes Phoenix, Mesa, and Scottsdale) was $125,000, down from $230,000 a year ago. That's 46% in 12 months. Ouch. In Sun City during the same period, home prices fell just 24%. What's killing Maricopa County is foreclosures. Even as home sales rise, cheap, bank-owned properties are flooding the market: 1,042 in April alone, plus 8,396 new pre-foreclosures, where the borrower has stopped paying and the eviction process is underway. Foreclosures during the same month in Sun City? Six, representing an infinitesimal one-hundredth of 1% of Sun City's single-family homes. Fewer foreclosures equals greater stability.

It's a pattern that seems to play out nationally. While there's been little research on how retirement markets have fared specifically, experts say that the same profile - minimal foreclosures, less severe price drops - is true of retirement communities across the country (for more examples, see our gallery of deals across the nation). Says Bill Ness, founder of the retirement website 55places.com: "It is a common understanding among most agents that real estate values have held up better in active adult communities than in other non-age-restricted communities."

There could be a simple explanation for this: Old people aren't as stupid and greedy as young people are. Or maybe they're just not as stupid and greedy as they were when they themselves were younger. "By the time you're retired," says Phil Andrews, 85, a Vietnam vet and 10-year resident of Sun City West, "you've got a little bit of sense about buying a house. You're not going to buy one you can't pay for."

It's true. Ask the local realtors about the exotic variable-rate mortgages that suckered so many younger homebuyers into borrowing more than they could ever hope to repay, and they just shake their heads; not in Sun City. In fact an astonishing 61% of Sun City residents have no mortgage at all. Bob Bleasdell, for example. He's a 73-year-old retired obstetrician who lives in Sun City Grand. The night before the full moon in May, Bleasdell and I sit talking for an hour on his patio at dusk while he smokes a $5 cigar. "I retired in 1995 at 61," Bleasdell says. "If you're going to retire early, you can't have a lot of wives you're paying, you sure as hell can't have kids in college, and you can't have a lot of debt. You gotta get your debt down, get your bills paid, pay for your car. And then when hard times come, you don't participate. My IRA's down 40%; I don't sell it."

Bleasdell and his wife paid $220,000 for their house in 2003. Two years later they might have been able to sell it for $400,000, but why would they do that? Bleasdell likes it here, enjoys sitting outside in sandals and shorts under a soft blue blanket of sky by a blooming palo verde tree, listening to the quail and the doves, calling out to neighbors as they pass. He plays golf three days a week, with three different foursomes, rotating among four different courses, none of which takes more than five minutes to get to in a golf cart he parks in its own little garage. Bleasdell says he has no idea what his house is worth today, and furthermore, he doesn't care. His kids might care someday, he allows, but that's neither here nor there. "We don't owe 'em anything," he says. "I helped buy a house for my daughter. I take my son on fishing trips up to British Columbia. I've done enough for them. If they get anything out of us, it's just a bonus. Don't count on it."

Next day I'm driving around the nicest parts of Sun City with realtor Renee Chipules, trying to get a feel for what's out there. First-quarter sales were down slightly this year, Chipules says, in stark contrast with the rest of Maricopa County, where sales were up 79%. One reason for that we already know: Sun City doesn't have nearly as many foreclosures, which tempt investors and first-time homebuyers with irresistible discounts and are fueling a sharp rebound in sales in some parts of the country. But there's also the ripple effect. No one has to move to a retirement community; when people can't sell their houses back home, they tend to stay put. "It used to be the case that people would come in, buy the house they liked, and feel confident that when they went home their house would sell within 60 or 90 days," Chipules says. Now they're waiting for their homes to sell before plunking down for another. Chipules and other realtors I spoke to think there's a huge, pent-up demand for retirement homes. Once the market recovers nationally, the argument goes, Sun City and other places like it will get a big bump, especially as the coming wave of baby boomers starts to retire.

Chipules shows me three houses - similar sizes (about 3,000 square feet), similar layouts (two or three bedrooms, all on one floor), similar amenities (marble everywhere, hot tubs, curved-glass showers), all of them situated directly on or within sight of a golf course. But the asking prices are all over the map: $425,000 in Sun City West, $699,000 in Corte Bella, and $949,000 in Sun City Grand. Why the disparity?

Well, for the one in Grand, it could be the fairway view; it truly is spectacular. "What's going to happen with that particular piece of property," says Sun City realtor Norm Brenna, who knows the house, "it's going to be somebody who pays cash, and it's going to be somebody who walks in and says, 'This is me, here's my money.' That's where that's going to sell." Still, if this one sells for anything close to what the current owners are asking, it would be shocking; they paid $895,000 near the peak in April 2007.

The one in Corte Bella? Possibly it's overpriced, even fully furnished. Its owners paid $491,000 in June 2006, so they'd be making money too. Not likely, says Brenna: "Everybody I've been involved with over there wants to list way more than they can currently get." That's why things are slow, he says. "If you watch the listings over there, when they sell, they definitely come down in price." And Sun City West for $425,000? A bargain, Chipules believes. Priced to sell at two-thirds of its peak value in late 2007. But the current owner was there long before the big run-up in prices; she's got other houses, and she just wants her equity. Sure enough, after 12 days on the market, she gets an offer at asking price, sale pending.

All of this, says Chipules, is evidence of a turbulent and inefficient market. No one really knows what anything is worth anymore. Some sellers appear to be kidding themselves, even now, though a patient, sober buyer will indeed find bargains, even screamers. (Here's a tip: Heirs are motivated sellers. Says resident Tom Mays: "The kids, they'll probably accept the first offer that comes, just to get out.")

But don't get too excited. Excitement is over in real estate. On the other hand, if you're thinking about moving soon to Sun City or someplace like it, you're in luck. You won't have any trouble finding a terrific house, and it shouldn't cost you nearly as much as it would have just a couple of years ago. Congratulations.

The BIG OUCH! -- Explained by Lauren Ritchie

2009-06-01T04:43:00.000-04:00

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lklauren-ritchie-villages-bond053109may31,0,4067907.column

OrlandoSentinel.com

'What ifs' for The Villages in IRS fight

Lauren Ritchie

COMMENTARY

May 31, 2009

Don't even ask, Villagers.

Of course you want to know how your pocketbook will fare in the latest exchanges in the IRS dispute with the government that runs your community. The answer is it's too early to tell.

However, a recent series of letters from the Internal Revenue Service did reveal how the agency wants to solve its problems with the tax-exempt bonds that built much of The Villages and made its developer fabulously rich.

The IRS thinks $448 million borrowed through tax-exempt bonds since 1993 should be taxable. That's because, the agency contends, the community-development districts, which run operations at the retirement community and sold the bonds, don't qualify as "real" governments and shouldn't get tax-free loans as cities and counties do.

District officials say the governments are being operated according to state law, but the IRS contends that the districts are controlled by the developer and the bonds benefited him, not residents. In addition, the transactions were far too cozy and fail to meet federal tests of an "arm's length" transaction.

"If I was a resident of The Villages, I would be outraged," agent Dominick Servadio Jr. wrote to the chairman of the Village Center Community Development District on May 4.

Dramatic and costly step

Finally, someone has just out and said it. The agent is right. Developer Gary Morse's use of the districts over the years could end up crippling the community and tormenting decent people who just want to retire quietly and play golf.

A spokesman for the developer did not return calls for comment.

In the revenue agent's May 18 letter, he urged the districts to take a dramatic and enormously costly step: recall and pay off $355 million worth of outstanding tax-free bonds that paid Morse for everything from golf courses to swimming pools, utility plants to guard houses.

The agency also wants back taxes from one bond issue amounting to

$2.8 million, chump change for the company that posted 2008 revenues of

$696 million, up 9 percent from last year.

And the IRS wants the districts to promise never again to issue tax-free bonds, which would suddenly and drastically turn off the cash tap for Morse and his family, who own The Villages and are still developing it.

Whoa.

Things could be worse

Servadio's suggestion is staggering. But his alternative is even more chilling.

If the two districts — Village Center and Sumter Landing — decide to appeal, the agency will begin officially examining eight more bonds, deepening the districts' possible tax liability to

$16.5 million.

While you're calming the heart rate and sucking down the Valium, here are a few things to consider:

First, this IRS examination is in the negotiation stage. Shortly, however, the agency likely will put its conclusions firmly in writing, starting a 90-day clock for the districts.

District officials then will have to decide whether to appeal the ruling, risking even more extensive IRS scrutiny, or negotiate a settlement that will be expensive.

At the moment, the official word from Village Center District Administrator Janet Tutt is that the district (politely, of course) thinks that the agent is all bluster. It's way too early to even talk about what the district might do, Tutt said.

"The District continues to believe there will be a positive resolution to this issue and at this time there are no further developments to change that belief," Tutt wrote in an e-mail.

OK, now the fantasy portion of the program is concluded.

Incredulous agent

Servadio's recent letters show a degree of disgust with The Villages and its lawyers that is more than warranted.

In the May 4 letter, he accused the district of making a "misleading and incomplete disclosure" in bond documents for a $64 million issue in 2003. He remarked at one point that Villages residents "let the district and the developer off easy" when last year they settled a lawsuit over amenity fees for

$40 million.

And he poked fun at the district's high-paid tax-controversy lawyer who he said submitted to the IRS "a sort of sophisticated version of the I-did-the-homework-but-my-dog-ate- it excuse" when he was forced to admit that appraisers who valued the properties for the sales could not provide backup documents. The California lawyer then asked the appraisers to "recreate" their calculations.

"Issuers of tax-exempt bonds don't get 'do-overs,'" Servadio fired back.

At one point, the agent suggested The Villages engage in a "reality check" when trying to determine whether the Village Center District is a valid issuer of tax-exempt bonds.

"What is the "district?" ... It's really nothing more than a five-member governing board populated with developer employees or related parties that have a history of approving an unlimited amount of tax-exempt bonds to purchase assets from the developer in transactions that in the real world would never pass scrutiny as arm's length transactions.

"This doesn't sound like an entity that the Service wants to be considered as a valid issuer of tax-exempt bonds."

Servadio is no renegade revenuer out to get the Big Republican Money of the Morse family. IRS officials have said publicly and in published documents that one of the agency's goals this year is to closely examine tax-exempt bonds from governments such as the community-development districts of The Villages. So, the orders are coming from the top down, not vice versa. If they weren't, this touchy investigation would have vanished months ago.

Exploring what-ifs

So what might happen if the district takes the IRS suggestion and decides to recall the $355 million that the agency wants out of the bond market?

Bond experts asked earlier this week about the situation were flabbergasted by the amount of money involved. Expect repercussion in the bond markets, they said, if the IRS stands firm. The availability of money to such districts likely would drop and the interest rate that such districts would have to pay would rise, they speculated.

Typically, when the IRS deems tax-exempt bonds as taxable, it demands that bonds be taken off the market. The usual process is that the issuer would go back into the bond market and borrow enough to pay off the first set of bonds. So, theoretically, The Villages could sell, say, $355 million worth of taxable bonds and use the proceeds to pay off the tax-exempt ones.

Two catches: First, is the money available? Bond markets are very tight at the moment, experts said. So maybe, maybe not. Second, do the Village Center and Sumter Landing districts have enough bucks to back the second loan?

The district has two main ways of getting money. First, it receives the amenity fees that residents pay, which totaled $33 million last year.

Second, it has the authority to levy property taxes inside its geographic boundaries. But considering that Morse controls 88 percent of the property in the Village Center District, and the board of supervisors is made up of his employees and business associates, a vote to levy property taxes seems a tad unlikely.

Tricky math

Could the district back a new bond issue using just the $33 million in annual fee collections? Apparently. Consider that roughly half of the amenity fees, about $16 million, go to repay current loans. The other $17 million operates The Villages. The math works only if the new bonds are sold and the old bonds are repaid simultaneously.

Afterward, The Villages likely would have to operate on less money because taxable bonds would cost the district more than tax-free ones.

The other option is that the district decides to get arrogant and fight the IRS. Bond experts didn't even want to speculate what might happen then. Typically, it's just not done for the simple reason that the IRS seldom loses.

God save the golf courses.

What is conspicuously absent from the revenue agent's scenarios is what role Morse might have in this, if any. The agent spent considerable time and energy building a case that the developer is the district, and the district is the developer. If so, shouldn't the developer — the biggest beneficiary in this arrangement by far — bear some responsibility? Or is he absolved by declaring his profits from the bonds as taxable? Morse declared

$53 million as profit in the one issue the IRS examined closely.

No one is saying, especially Morse himself. The developer has kept silent since the examination began in January 2007. Perhaps all will be revealed in time.

Or perhaps this will be settled with a friendly handshake, and we can all just go merrily to our next tee time.

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918. Her blog is at OrlandoSentinel.com/

laurenonlake
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

The Villages in a HEAP OF TAX TROUBLE

2009-06-01T04:39:00.001-04:00

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-villages-tax-problems-053009,0,6055966.story

OrlandoSentinel.com

Pay off $355 million, IRS tells The Villages

By Stephen Hudak

Sentinel Staff Writer

7:28 AM EDT, May 30, 2009

THE VILLAGES

The Internal Revenue Service wants the governments that run this massive retirement community to pay off $355 million in loans after an investigator concluded they improperly issued tax-free bonds to buy recreational facilities such as golf courses and swimming pools.

In addition, the IRS wants the two Villages governments to pay $2.8 million in back taxes and to cease issuing tax-exempt bonds. The demands resulted from a 20-month IRS investigation into tax-exempt bonds transactions involving the playground for 77,000 retirees about 60 miles northwest of Orlando.

Much of The Villages, including 24 executive golf courses, swimming pools, community centers and utility plants -- in fact, virtually everything but the 38,000 houses in "America's Friendliest Hometown" -- have been financed by various tax-free bonds.

As part of the potential deal, the IRS has offered to forgive another $14 million in taxes the agency says could be owed to the federal government. If a deal isn't reached, the IRS has threatened to look into eight similar loans obtained through bond sales. That could expose the governments to millions more in tax liability.

The settlement offer is outlined in public documents provided to the Orlando Sentinel after a public-records request to the Village Center Community Development District. They chronicle a bitter disagreement between the IRS and the Villages' governing bodies, called community development districts.

Created by Florida law, such districts are designed to help developers defray the cost of pricey infrastructure. The districts are considered governments and have the authority to issue bonds. In this case, the district bought recreational amenities from the developer in a transaction disputed by the IRS.

"If I was a resident of The Villages, I would be outraged by the transaction," IRS Agent Dominick Servadio Jr. wrote in a letter to the Village Center. Servadio, a certified public accountant and a revenue agent for 22 years, could not be reached for comment.

The district, however, contends that it followed state law and all the transactions are legal.

Villages residents are watching the investigation unfold, mostly with bewilderment. "First of all, this is a very serious matter," said Joe Gorman, president of the 5,500-member Property Owners' Association of The Villages, an independent group that has often clashed with the developer. Gorman would not comment on the IRS correspondence because he hadn't yet read it.

In total, The Villages' governments owe about $700ƒ|million to bond buyers.

The IRS insists the Village Center and Sumter Landing community development districts are not "valid issuers" of tax-exempt bonds, which are most commonly used by cities and counties to finance public projects.

Servadio contended that the districts that issued the bonds don't meet the test of a genuine "political subdivision." Its governing board isn't chosen by residents, it has no authority to exercise police power and its power to take private property for public projects is very limited.

The agent contends that the districts' governing boards are controlled by The Villages developer, Gary Morse, and their bond sales have benefited him, not residents.

The agent's letters represent preliminary conclusions. However, the IRS is expected within weeks to make those conclusions formal. Afterward, the districts will have 90 days to decide whether to negotiate a settlement such as the one proposed May 18 by the agent or to appeal the decisions.

For now, district representatives are challenging the IRS conclusions. They contend that Florida statutes view them as a lawful "political subdivision," giving them the right to issue tax-exempt bonds like any other government.

In an e-mail, Village Center District Manager, Janet Tutt, who also oversees the Sumter Landing district, said Servadio's opinion isn't the final word. She stated she understood that the IRS was asking its experts in other areas to examine the agent's conclusions.

"Discussion of a settlement offer ... is premature," Tutt wrote. "The District continues to believe there will be a positive resolution to this issue. ..."

Perry Israel, a California bond lawyer handling the matter for the districts, said he could not comment. Morse and Charles Smith, chairman of the Village Center district board, as well as Michael Williams, the district's Orlando bond attorney, couldn't be reached.

Servadio's probe focused on a 2003 tax-free bond issue that raised about $64ƒ|million to buy golf courses, swimming pools and other recreational facilities from the developer.

According to the IRS report, the proceeds should be taxed because only $7.5 million went to buy physical assets. Another $53.1 million bought the rights to collect residents' amenity fees. The sale prices were set by two appraisers using a complicated method that the IRS contends was incorrectly calculated.

Homeowners in The Villages pay up to $135 a month in amenity fees, which generated about $33 million in revenue last year. Servadio pointed out that about $16 million a year -- roughly half of the fees -- are used to repay a variety of bonds that the districts have issued.

"It (is) obvious that the residents' amenity fees could be much lower, or there would be a lot more of the fees available for maintenance of the facilities if these were arm's length transactions... " he wrote.

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Growing Popularity of Aging in Place

2009-05-16T03:29:00.003-04:00

Friday, May 15, 2009

The Aging Evolution: Seniors want to age at home, but will builders adapt?
Unobtrusive technology lets children monitor parents

Sacramento Business Journal - by Michael Shaw Staff writer

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If Wes Justyn’s 91-year-old mother forgets to measure her blood pressure, he gets an e-mail alert.

If she’s inactive, lying in bed for half a day, or hasn’t opened the refrigerator, another e-mail arrives in his inbox.

More alarming behavior could trigger phone calls from the in-home monitoring system that Justyn, an insurance broker from El Dorado Hills, had installed in his mother Nettie’s home 18 months ago.

He is one of the few people using new technologies to allow a parent to “age in place” and avoid the often disruptive or costly relocation into assisted-living facilities or nursing homes.

“I’m very passionate about this,” Justyn said. “This is unobtrusive and it gives our seniors some dignity.”

Senior advocates say 85 percent of the elderly want to remain at home as they age as opposed to moving into care facilities. Emerging technologies that are still not widely known could help them do just that. There are systems available to test cognitive abilities daily, track vital signs and plot their movements by using motion detectors and pressure pads. The results can be continuously uploaded to the Internet and sent to children, physicians or caregivers.

The question is whether builders and the nation’s older homebuyers are catching on to these technologies, which can be hard to retrofit to existing homes but could be easily and cheaply accommodated in newly constructed ones as part of the design process.

Some homebuilders who concentrate on “active adult” communities de-emphasize features related to age and health issues — largely because their buyers don’t want to think about them. Instead, they hype bigger great rooms for entertaining guests and amenity-packed clubhouses.

“Baby boomers are never going to get old,” joked Edward Johanson, a boomer himself and president of Lakemont Homes. The Roseville company partners with Eskaton, a provider of senior housing and services. The partnership is building homes in Roseville and Placerville aimed at 65-year-olds and above, and buyers in this group are more attuned to health needs than the slightly younger boomers.

The homes Johanson is building include the physical characteristics residents will need later in life, such as wheelchair access to all areas. The effort adds about $6,000 to $8,000 per home, including wiring for advanced technologies.

But while they also include technological upgrades, such as more wiring capacity, he said many of the new technologies are too new to generate much interest.

“We are not rolling that out in a comprehensive fashion,” he said. “We do anticipate, like many technologies, that it will grow very fast.”

The next age demographic that homebuilders cater to is the 55-and-older, or “active adult,” crowd. They may eventually need health-related technology, but it isn’t something they’re thinking about.

“Items preferred by 55-and-over buyers do not meet the old-fashioned stereotype,” said Jacque Petroulakis, a spokeswoman for Del Webb Communities, which builds homes aimed at empty-nesters and active adults close to retirement.

She said buyers want more bedrooms to allow for in-home offices, and larger garages and cabinet spaces for keepsakes accumulated over the years. Those who are taking care of parents, or siblings or friends who are buying a home together want split plans with bedrooms and bathrooms on both sides of the house (see related story, this page).

What they don’t want is to feel old.

“While we do not get considerable demand from buyers for specific items such as wheelchair roll-in showers, our homes are designed with the future in mind,” she said.

Seniors are eventually going to need help if they want to remain independent.

“People want to remain in their homes and we have to make that a reality,” said Scott Peifer, an associate director of the Center for Aging Services Technologies in Washington, D.C. Peifer, who lives in the Sacramento region, ran down an impressive list of available gadgets beyond those already mentioned: Software that tests cognitive fitness, breathalyzer-like contraptions that check whether medication is being taken, wearable equipment that monitors heart rate and body temperature, accelerometers that can tell when a person has fallen, and tech that promotes social connection, such as two-way video visits.

A variety of well-known manufacturers, such as Intel Corp. and GE Health Care, are now offering such products.

Many of these technologies are on display at the Eskaton National Demonstration Home in Roseville, built by Lakemont, one of the only demo homes to feature the latest technology.

The cost for these systems can vary between $1,000 and $5,000 and some come with monthly charges, Peifer said.

But it could be much more expensive to retrofit an older home that can’t handle these systems, said Justyn, who along with his wife designed the 1,200-square-foot guest house where his parents moved eight years ago. They put in an electrical system that can handle additional burdens, and more conduit tubing for wires, long before many of these technologies were available.

“If you do it at the time, it really isn’t any more expensive,” said Justyn, 62, who’s also a member of the Eskaton board of directors. He said he paid about $3,000 for the system in his mom’s home, which is made by GrandCare Systems LLC of West Bend, Wis. It uses 11 monitors, most of them invisible to the casual eye, and other gadgets that report her blood pressure and weight.

But no cameras.

“She said, ‘I don’t want any damn cameras in my house,’ ” Justyn said, adding that his mother knows the system is there to monitor her health, even if she’s not clear how it works.

He said there has been only one glitch, when a piece of hardware malfunctioned. It was replaced within a day.

“I like the peace of mind,” he said, adding that he often checks on his mother through his personal digital assistant. He also likes being able to show physicians his mother’s long-term health trends. He told the story of charting the decrease in her mobility after a doctor prescribed a blood pressure medicine and showing the results to the doctor.

“He was blown away,” he said.

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http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2009/05/18/story10.html?b=1242619200%5E1829844

Newest research and statistics on Retirement and Active Adult Housing

2009-05-04T12:53:00.002-04:00

Metlife and the National Association of Home Builders puts out a report each year with the latest trends and figures affecting active adult housing. Although industry-based, it's definitely worth a read.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart takes on Elder Sex

2009-05-04T12:50:00.000-04:00

New Stats on the Age-Segregated Housing Market

2009-05-04T06:27:00.002-04:00

Family matters -- When older Americans move, family is big reason why

By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
May 1, 2009

CHICAGO -- One of the most common reasons people ages 55 and older decide to move is to be closer to family and friends, according to an analysis released this week by the National Association of Home Builders and the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

According to 2007 data, about 40% of people in this demographic who moved into age-qualified active-adult communities did so to be close to friends and/or relatives, compared with 20% who said the same in 2001. And 31% of those who moved into other 55-and-older owner-occupied communities said the proximity of friends and/or relatives was a reason why, compared with 25% who said the same in 2001.

Experts recommend people set aside an emergency fund equal to about six months of income -- a steep figure for those who struggle to save. The solution is to start small and make it fun, says Mackey McNeill, a personal financial specialist and founder of Mackey Advisors. MarketWatch's Andrea Coombes reports.

The report, "Housing for the 55+ Market: Trends and Insights on Boomers and Beyond," was an analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Housing Survey data.

Other reasons that drove housing choices: quality, design and layout of the residences.

One possibility of why being close to family has become a motivator for this group might be related to their experiences with their own parents, said John Migliaccio, director of research at the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

"Baby boomers have had more care-giving responsibility for their older parents," he said, and many learned how challenging it can be to care for a parent who lives in Florida when offspring live in the Midwest, for example. As a result, they might choose to live nearer to family.

Builders already have responded to this desire, he said, building communities to suit this segment of the population throughout the country -- not only in traditional retirement hot spots, he added.

While the NAHB has tracked the 55 and up market for decades, the data in the analysis "gives us our first look at specific consumer behaviors and preferences -- what they look for in a home, the reasons why they move, the characteristics of the communities they choose -- over an extended period of time, said David Crowe, NAHB's chief economist, in a news release.

Other findings

The majority of 55 and older households do not live in age-restrictive or age-qualified communities, but the number is going up. In 2007, 3% of those 55 and older said they lived in age-restricted communities designed for active adults; that's up from 2.2% in 2001

Most consumers of this age were happy with their current homes, but residents of age-restricted active-adult communities had the highest satisfaction rates

Of baby boomers close to 65 years old, the traditional retirement age, many say they aren't planning on retiring just yet. If they move, they want to end up in a community that would be closer to work or one that would allow them to transition into a work-from-home setup

"Some findings, such as the tendency for buyers in 55+ communities to continue to work in greater numbers and for longer periods of time, show us that this group is redefining the traditional notion of retirement," said Sandra Timmermann, director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute, in a news release. Of those 55 and older who chose to move into a single-family detached home, 17% said proximity to work was a reason in 2007's data, compared with 11% in 2001.

To accommodate seniors intending on working from home, new homes are built with flexibility in mind, Migliaccio said. A room may be used as an office initially, but can be converted into a second bedroom, for example, he said.

And when people in this age group make a purchase, they're also thinking of how they'd be able to age in place -- selecting layouts that will enable them to live in the home for years to come, he added.
Amy Hoak is a MarketWatch reporter based in Chicago.

First Grandmother loving her family time in White House

2009-05-04T05:08:00.002-04:00

An In-Law Is Finding Washington to Her Liking

New York Times
May 4, 2009

By RACHEL L. SWARNS
WASHINGTON — Marian Robinson, President Obama’s mother-in-law, moved into the White House “kicking and screaming,” said her son, Craig Robinson. She had never lived outside of Chicago and was reluctant to leave her beloved bungalow, her friends and family, her weekly yoga class and her familiar routines.

But after three months in the Executive Mansion, Mrs. Robinson is unexpectedly and decidedly savoring her new life.

She entertains visitors from Chicago. She attends White House dinners and concerts hosted by her daughter, the first lady, Michelle Obama. She dines at local restaurants and delights in events at the Kennedy Center, where she often sits in the president’s box and chats with performers.

In fact, Mrs. Robinson, 71, is so busy these days that the Obamas hired a baby sitter to watch their two daughters one evening because the nation’s first grandmother had plans.

“She has a very full social life, so much so that sometimes we have to plan our schedule around her schedule,” Mrs. Obama said jokingly last week during a lunch she hosted for Congressional spouses.

Mrs. Robinson still spends much of her time tending to the Obama girls, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. She shuttles them to and from school most days and accompanies them to some play dates, the first lady said. She attends class presentations, helps with homework and baby-sits when the president and first lady need extra help.

And with her plain-spoken, matter-of-fact manner, Mrs. Robinson helps keep the girls grounded amid the gilded trappings of their new lives.

But Mrs. Robinson has also managed to carve out her own space in the White House and to build a satisfying private life, according to Obama administration officials who know the family. Her bedroom sits on the third floor, just above the Obamas’ residential quarters. (The first lady told Oprah Winfrey recently that her mother often announced, “I’m going home,” as she headed upstairs.)

And because she remains a private citizen and still has something of an unfamiliar face, Mrs. Robinson can travel around Washington without being trailed by television cameras or recognized by the public even as she enjoys the perks of living at the White House. (Administration officials do not inform the news media about her comings and goings as they do with the president and first lady.)

For the first time in her adult life, she no longer has to cook or clean, unless she wants to. She participates in White House events; she sat alongside Malia and Sasha at a Black History Month performance of the a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and joined Mrs. Obama in reading a story to schoolchildren at the Easter egg roll.

She has also become a familiar figure at the Kennedy Center, where she has watched performances by the Alvin Ailey dance troupe, the choreographer Debbie Allen and the jazz singer Kurt Elling, among others. (Mrs. Obama likes to joke that her mother has been to the theater more than she has.)

And she joined her daughter for lunch in March at the home of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

“There’s no standoffishness,” said Judith Jamison, the artistic director of the Alvin Ailey troupe, who was invited to the president’s box at the Kennedy Center to meet Mrs. Robinson. “She’s very open.”

Sally Quinn, a Washington writer and socialite, who met Mrs. Robinson at the lunch hosted by Mrs. Heinz Kerry, described her as “the perfect grandmother you’d kill for: cozy, nice, sweet, friendly, dear.”

“It seemed to me that she’s perfectly comfortable in her new life,” Ms. Quinn said.

That may come as a relief to the Obamas, who relied on Mrs. Robinson to help care for their children during the presidential campaign. They did not want to move into the White House without her, Craig Robinson said.

In an interview earlier this year, Mr. Robinson, the men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University, laughed as he described how Mrs. Obama pleaded with him to help lobby their mother, who was refusing to move from Chicago.

“My sister said, ‘You’ve got to talk to Mom; she’s not moving,’ ” Mr. Robinson recalled. He said his mother was utterly unswayed by Mrs. Obama’s description of the exciting new life they would all lead in Washington.

Mrs. Robinson, a retired bank secretary who ran the 50- and 100-yard dashes in the Illinois senior games well into her 60s, has always prized her independence.

“She doesn’t want grand; she doesn’t want great,” Mr. Robinson said. “She would much rather stay home.”

But Mrs. Robinson eventually decided to move in, at least for a while, to help her granddaughters get settled. If she stays through Mr. Obama’s term, she will be the first mother-in-law to live in the White House full time since the Truman presidency, historians say. She declined to comment for this article, but when asked recently by Essence magazine whether she was enjoying her new life, she answered in the affirmative.

“I really am,” she said. “You want to know why? Because my children are good parents. It makes it very easy to be a grandmother when your children are good parents.”

Last week, Mrs. Obama returned the compliment.

In her chat with Congressional spouses, she suggested that her mother helped bring something precious to the White House, a sense of normalcy in extraordinary times.

“I feel like I’ve never left Chicago,” the first lady said. “Soccer on Saturday — yes, I’m on a soccer field all day, just like many of you. Slumber parties — we had about seven girls over, screaming and yelling.

“And we’re shuttling kids back and forth to play dates, just like usual, although now my mom does a little more of the shuttling than I do. I’m glad to have her here.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Big Trouble in The Villages (Part 2)

2009-04-30T11:33:00.000-04:00

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lkritchie-column-villages-0429042909apr29,0,4758757.column

OrlandoSentinel.com
Peeling back layers in Villages bond dispute
Lauren Ritchie
COMMENTARY
April 29, 2009

Sunday's column summarized the responses of The Villages government to the Internal Revenue Service, which has been investigating the community's tax-exempt bonds for the last year and has ruled preliminarily that they should be taxed.

In general, the Village Center Community Development District, which sold $64 million worth of recreational revenue bonds in 2003 to buy golf courses, swimming pools and the like, contends that the bonds shouldn't be taxed because it meets all of Florida's guidelines.

The IRS, however, has a different view.

If the early ruling by the agent were to stand, the district could face staggering financial exposure — it has about $700 million in bonds outstanding. Some $214 million of those are recreational revenue bonds and are of the type being audited by the IRS. They are repaid through amenities fees paid monthly by residents.

Let's look at the specific disagreements.

Not 'political subdivision'

The IRS contends that the Village Center district is not qualified to issue tax-exempt bonds because it doesn't meet the agency's test of what constitutes a genuine "political subdivision," such as a city or county. Agent Dominick Servadio Jr. spent 47 pages of his 102-page ruling building the case. To qualify, the district must have substantial sovereign powers, and the Village district doesn't, he contended, because:

•It must be able to levy property taxes. While CDDs in general have that power, this one doesn't because its structure ensures it never will have "qualified electors" to legitimately choose supervisors to make such a decision.

•Its power to seize private land for a public purpose, called eminent domain, is "limited" and "insubstantial," Servadio concluded, not "rising to the level of a political subdivision."

•It does not have the legal right to exercise police power because the Florida law under which the district was created specifically forbids it.

The Villages side

Both Village Center district lawyer Archie Lowry of Mount Dora and Perry Israel, the district's California tax lawyer, said the district is abiding by Florida law in how it chooses a board of supervisors when residents don't live in the district, and it has the right to be considered a political subdivision. The fact that the supervisors all are either employees of the developer or tied to him in some way is not relevant, they contended.

Israel wrote that the district's ability to exercise eminent domain is clear: "The power is substantial within its geographic jurisdiction even if one thought the District was an alter ego of the Developer ..."

It doesn't matter that the district has not yet used that authority. It could, and other districts have done so, he wrote.

Those are strong arguments.

On the test of police power, however, Lowry's logic is bizarre and contradictory. He acknowledged that Chapter 190, the Florida law under which the Villages district was created, specifically bans it from exercising police power.

Then, he goes on to argue that a different section of the law allows the district to operate a fire department, which he claims is police power.

"It would appear obvious that the fire stations, water mains and plugs, fire trucks and other vehicles owned and operated by the District, which is responsible for fire prevention and control, is an exercise of the police power," Lowry wrote.

Obvious? To whom? Now, there's a stretch. Are firefighters carrying guns and handcuffs these days? The district has said that administrator Janet Tutt is the person to answer questions about the tax dispute, but she did not answer a query seeking an explanation of Lowry's contradictory contention.

And that's not all

Servadio said the bonds also failed to meet other IRS requirements, either. Among them:

The transactions didn't benefit the general public — a requirement of tax-free bonds — but instead only the developer who collected the bond money in exchange for both the facilities and the right to collect amenities fees.

The golf courses, for example, are for the "exclusive use of residents of The Villages," he wrote. Nonresidents can play only at the invitation of a resident, and they can't play at all on some courses that are designated for residents only.

Israel argued that many municipally owned golf courses give preferential tee times to golfers who live in the city. In some places, he said, residents get reduced greens fees, for example.

He cited a U.S. Treasury Department regulation about municipal sewer plants and used it to compare the plants to Villages golf courses. Use of such sewer plants isn't available to people who don't live inside the city, he pointed out, but they are still considered a benefit to the general public. And that's how it is with the golf courses, he argued.

Anybody buying that one? Later, he claimed that "the facilities financed are available for use by the general public."

Really? In that case, let's hold an end-of-the-school-year swimming party for 40 busloads of kids from all the north Lake elementaries! For free! All day! After all, young-uns are "general public," too.

Israel's logic is absurd on its face.

Use of The Villages' facilities generally is restricted to invited guests of Villages residents and the residents themselves, who are paying for the facilities. (Some facilities may be rented by outsiders.) Those conditions may meet the IRS rules or may not; you may like them, or you may not, but that's the way it is. To claim anything else is bogus.

Developer overpaid?

The district grossly overpaid Morse by $53 million, according to the IRS. The tangible assets, such as pools, golf courses, mail facilities, golf-ball washers and guardhouses, were worth about $6.9 million. Appraisers the Village district chose weren't qualified under IRS rules, partly because they weren't independent, and they failed to calculate correctly the value of the items purchased, Servadio contended.

The district acknowledged that one of the appraisers "acted as a consultant to both parties in the transaction," but Israel argued that a regulation requiring independent appraisers doesn't apply to a tax-free bond transaction. Even if it did, he wrote, the appraiser was acting as an independent contractor and was "not subject to the District's controls in the same fashion that an employee might be."

In other words, it's all good to hire your buddies help you spend $64 million in public funds. This is Florida, where the rules are different. Go back to your office in the beltway, Revenooer Man.

Documents 'recreated'

And then there's the allegation of overpayment. The district went on a $53 million shopping spree in The Villages for recreational goodies but apparently misplaced its sales slip.

Neither of its supposedly very qualified appraisers could provide a schedule of what each of the tangible properties was worth as opposed to the value of the other portion of the purchase, buying the rights to collect amenity fees.

So, the district stated in a footnote in teeny-tiny type that it asked the two appraisers to "recreate their calculations."

How very entertaining! Where would Richard Nixon be if Rose Mary Woods had "recreated" the 18-minute gap in the tapes of the Watergate scandal?

Of course, the resurrected calculations show that the district paid just the right amount and that it used all the proper methods of figuring it out the value of the amenity-fee rights.

While calculators in The Villages are cooling off from that stressful exercise, let's look at one more claim by the district. This one made 28 pages of tedious reading worth every moment.

Come on in, y'all

Israel made much ado about an IRS assumption that guardhouses and gates at entrances to The Villages are to keep nonresidents out. The IRS conclusion is hardly an outlandish one when a fellow pops out of a little shack at a gate that physically prevents you from driving into the community, and asks where you're going. I've had it happen dozens of times. And these fellows aren't shy about demanding your business.

The truth, however, is that you can tell the nosy gent that you're picking out houses you plan to burglarize next week, and he still has to open that silly gate to let you through. The streets of The Villages are public, and anyone may drive through the development at any time. Putting gates on them is a disgrace and should never have been tolerated. Can you imagine putting gates on U.S. Highway 441 and asking people where they're bound?

The gates are there to keep out the riff-raff and to intimidate gawkers, and for no other reason.

Israel, however, says that's just not the case. The guards don't turn anyone away, he said. The idea is just to slow traffic around golf carts and to "make The Villages a safer place for everyone."

"The guards are there, to provide help, such as with directions, if needed," he wrote.

Yes! They're here to help you! They're here to help the 40 busloads of elementary children get to the swimming pools for use by the general public safely!

Good morning, Security Man. Which way to the Savannah Center pool?

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918. Her blog can be found at orlandosentinel.com/laurenonlake

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Active Adult builders slashing production of new homes

2009-04-30T11:31:00.001-04:00

Big trouble in The Villages

2009-04-29T03:37:00.000-04:00

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lklritchie26042609apr26,0,3608097.column

Can Villages win battle over bonds?
Lauren Ritchie
COMMENTARY
April 26, 2009
(First of two parts.)

Ding!

That's the signal for the kickoff of Round No. 2 in a battle between the government behind The Villages and the IRS, which has warned that tax-exempt Villages bonds are in danger of being declared taxable.

The Village Center Community Development District, which runs operations at the massive retirement community of nearly 75,000 people, sold $64 million worth of bonds in 2003 to buy everything from the right to collect future fees from residents to retention ponds, clubhouses, swimming pools, guard shacks and golf courses.

Even more troublesome for the district are Internal Revenue Service hints in the agency's preliminary ruling that similar bonds — $214 million outstanding in all — also could be declared taxable.

Before anything drastic happens, the Villages district has the right to present its argument, and in documents prepared by two lawyers — its local attorney in Mount Dora and a tax-exempt bond expert in California — the district did so last week.

The arguments are technical and sometimes double back on themselves, leaving the reader with a "huh?" expression.

Here is the condensed version of The Villages' argument:

The state says this whole arrangement is just peachy, so who is the IRS to question it?

The documents acknowledge much of the too-cozy arrangement between the district and developer but argue that it's just dandy — or, at any rate, perfectly legal — because Florida sanctioned it all.

The IRS doesn't have any business meddling, for example, in trying to determine whether the district is a bona fide "political subdivision." Florida says it is, so, by golly, it just is.

What the local lawyer has forgotten is that the IRS isn't part of Florida's long-standing good-old-boy system that conspired to make developers rich at the expense of retirees who just want to have fun.

Just because Florida considers the Village Center district an honest-to-goodness government with power to issue tax-free bonds doesn't mean the IRS has to recognize it ... or does it?

This case will be a test.

At one point, Mount Dora lawyer Archie Lowry Jr. remarked that the way the district board is made up is "not favored" by the IRS, even though it complies with state law governing community-development districts such as the Village Center District.

"I am not aware of any federal law which would permit the IRS to change, modify or rewrite Florida statutory law," Lowry wrote.

Yo, Archie, dude! Didn't anybody mention that being snippy with an IRS agent may not be the wisest tactic when $214 million is at stake?

The money from the sale of the recreational revenue bonds went to Villages developer Gary Morse and his family, for whom he holds most of the development in trust.

The deal worked like this: Morse built The Villages and supposedly didn't charge residents in the sale price of their houses for any of the recreational goodies.

Instead, homeowners pay an "amenity fee" that varies, depending when they bought their house. Anyone who buys now pays $135 a month. Those who bought in past years pay less.

The district issued the bonds and repays them with amenity fees. The bond money bought not only the tangible items but also the rights to the collect the fees — and that's where part of this disagreement is rooted. The IRS contends that buying intangibles such as "rights" is improper.

The district expects to collect about $33 million in amenity fees this year and spend about half repaying the bonds that made the Morse family fabulously rich. The rest goes for operations.

But perhaps the biggest battle is the IRS contention that the Villages Center District is not a genuine political subdivision under IRS rules and so can't possibly issue tax-exempt bonds.

If that preliminary ruling were to hold, more than $700 million in various types of outstanding Villages bonds could be at risk.

Now that the backdrop is set, let's look at the specific responses from the Village district on Wednesday.

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918. Read her blog at orlandosentinel.com/laurenonlake.

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Senior Humor -- Sex, the Daily Show, and adorable claymation

2009-04-22T03:21:00.001-04:00

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/sex-and-the-seniors

Reader email

2009-04-11T15:43:00.000-04:00

Andrew,

First, let me say, that we are a married couple from upstate NY, are and still working. We have 4 children, all of which have left the nest and are doing well. We stumbled upon The Villages around 5 years ago, in the month of February, when visiting long time friends that had moved there the previous year. Previously we disliked Florida; too much traffic, too hot; nobody was from here and many other things. After spending 4 day’s in The Villages with our fiends, we bought a Villa before we left Florida.

We ordered furniture, had it received and placed by our friends and came back in April for a couple of weeks to get it settled. The first night spot we hit after tending to the villa for a couple of days was Katie Bells. We sat down and ordered 2 Absolutes and sodas. The bar maid said $6.50, I said each, she said for both. An older gent sitting next to us said “if you bought those 3 weeks ago they would have been $1.50 cheaper. I said they seem pretty reasonable to me. We looked around to see much older couples dancing. I said to my wife, it’s just like the old days when us guy’s were out on weekends trying to pick up girls. This is really something I told her. The more I watched, I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry.

Well, its 5 years later and we have moved up to a designer home. We still are working in NY so only get here for about 4 weeks at a time in the winter. We call ourselves snow flakes as opposed to snow birds because we aren’t here enough.

I caught the article about your book in the NY Post a couple of months ago and finally bought and read your book. Let me first say, I took some heat from some people here, they were not happy about your book. I read the book and found it to “not to be” what they professed it to be. It is very thought provoking from my point of view. I did report my findings to all those doubters. When I explained it to them, they seemed to be enlightened; “you mean it’s not just about Mr. Midnight”? I found your contacts here to be informative and, yes, some very entertaining. One disappointment to me, you never finished your investigation of the wine club.

I now find myself kind of agreeing with you to a point. Is it really impossible for us not to still fulfill all those responsibilities you claim we have to the next generations and still enjoy our final years here? I think we can do both but I applaud you for making the point that it is sort of our duty.

However, I must disagree with your long term thoughts on The Villages. You state age-segregated communities will in the future start to thin out from lack of population, but as with any species, the strong will prevail and so will The Villages. Its shear size and the number of amenities, will keep it the place to go. I am afraid you are right on the other’s, being so small, they will have to change there qualifications to survive in the future.

In closing, let me say, I think Leisureville is a great book and I am recommending it to all that will listen to me.

John C.

The (MA) adult-community development bubble has burst.

2009-04-10T16:22:00.001-04:00

Friday, April 10, 2009
Developers endure a senior slump as over-55 market hits wall
Boston Business Journal - by Michelle Hillman

Ocean Meadow developer Stephen Gillis is offering prospective buyers $15,000 toward the purchase of a unit.
View Larger

The adult-community development bubble has burst.

Earlier this decade, developers pursued aging boomers with gusto, building hundreds of “active adult” communities across the state. They banked on the assumption that empty-nesters would want to live out their golden years in maintenance-free homes, often complete with clubhouses and golf courses.

Now the 55-plus market is glutted with inventory. Some developments are in foreclosure, others are stalled and prices on some units reflect deep discounts, as the expected rush to adult communities has not materialized. An estimated 15,000 units are permitted or sitting on the market in Massachusetts.

The glut can be attributed to the housing slump and market crash. Boomers struggle to sell their homes and their ravaged retirement accounts make the care-free lifestyle that 55-plus communities promise more elusive. Since 2000, developers have built 311 active adult communities and 19,458 units, according to PrimeTime Communities LLC, which researched the market for its 2009-Prime 50 Plus Report. The report found that sales of units in 25 adult communities slowed from between three and six units per month at the peak of the market in 2006 to 0.5 a month, or one every other month, in 2008.

“The key factor is a decline in pricing, really, for the single-family homes,” said Thomas Skahen, a partner at PrimeTime. “People saw their housing values dip 10 to 20 percent and their stocks went down 40 percent.”

Stephen Gillis, president of Gillis Homes Inc., is offering prospective buyers a $15,000 “stimulus check” toward a unit at Ocean Meadow at West Newbury. The idea for the check came about after Gillis sold just one unit at in January. The 55-plus project was built in the spring of 2007 “when things were wonderful,” said Gillis.

“The big issue is people being able to sell their house,” said Gillis.

Developers with parcels permitted for 55-plus development are standing still, said Lynne Sweet, a principal at Needham-based market research firm LDS Consulting Group LLC. Those with land are unable to get financing and those with 55-plus projects permitted are trying to get the age restrictions lifted.

“On top of the fact that these things were incredibly over-permitted and not well thought out,” she said.

The developer of Yentile Place in Wilmington can’t get the project out of the ground until he can get a loan from a bank, said Bill Wolfe of Wilson Wolfe Real Estate. Wolfe said the bank won’t budge without 12 purchase-and-sale agreements in hand. Wolfe has only been able to line up seven at his 76-unit project.

A call to the developer was not returned.

“The longer it sits, the more concerns people have,” said Wolfe, adding that the developer has only managed to pour the foundation.

For those who moved ahead with active adult communities, it’s a fire sale.

Even with all the bells and whistles retirement living has to offer, the units are selling slowly, if at all. In Stoughton, the owners of the Village at Ames Pond reduced asking prices by $100,000 to about $340,000 last October to spur the sale of the last 11 units at the 40-unit development. The property was finished in 2006 and was expected to sell out in a 12-to-18-month period.

“We pretty much came on the market at the worst time we could’ve come on,” said Christa Griffin of Griffin Realty LLC.

Some developers haven’t been able to finish building 55-plus projects because of a lack of sales and financing.

The active adult community in Sharon, Hunter’s Ridge, has been quiet for a long time, said Tammy DeWolfe of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. DeWolfe said the property went into foreclosure and the owners, the Charles Mirrione Trust, stopped building when units weren’t selling.

However, Charles “Nick” Mirrione, president of Mirrione Realty Corp. of South Easton, said he’s found a buyer for the project and expects the sale to close May 11.

“We weren’t able to keep up with the project,” said Mirrione, who added he’ll lose more than $6 million on Hunter’s Ridge. “There was no way I was ever going to make any money on it under these conditions.”

“For now I think people are just sitting on their hands and it would be very difficult for anyone to get financing in the future because there’s so much product sitting out there that’s failed,” Sweet said.

http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/04/13/story2.html?b=1239595200%5E1809180

Pulte (owner of Del Webb brand) dilutes concentration on Active Adult sector

2009-04-10T12:46:00.002-04:00

April 8, 2009
Pulte-Centex deal prompts hope, wariness
By GRETA GUEST
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

News of the merger of Pulte Homes Inc. and Centex Corp. to create the nation’s largest homebuilder was met with optimism and caution Wednesday.

One analyst even saw it as a liquid Pulte coming to a debt-heavy Centex’s rescue.

“We view this deal as a necessary and positive step for CTX given its 56% leverage, $1.2 billion debt maturities over the next three years and our expectation for weak cash flow,” wrote housing analyst Daniel Oppenheim at Credit Suisse in a note to investors Wednesday.

The combined business has more than $3.4 billion in cash as of March 31, the companies said, and $1.8 billion in debt.

Oppenheim also notes that the combined company would have eight years worth of land based on an estimated 20,000 home sales for both this year.

The two companies had sales of 39,000 homes in 2008 with revenues of $11.6 billion.

Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said the merger is great news for the company and the state, particularly as it will stay headquartered in Bloomfield Hills.

“There are a lot of unknowns whenever you have a merger of companies,” she said. But to have this company headquartered in Michigan is very important. We have the bragging rights to be home to the nation’s largest homebuilder.”

The merger fills in some gaps for Bloomfield Hills-based Pulte in the first-time homebuyer market and reduces its exposure to the active adult market, which accounted for 45% of its business last year but will total 29% after the merger, Oppenheim wrote.

Pulte also estimated it would save $350 million a year in expenses after the merger.

Howard Fingeroot, managing partner of Pinnacle Homes of Farmington Hills and former president of Pulte Land Development, said the building industry was in consolidation mode prior to the housing and financial industry meltdowns.

“I think this merger with Pulte and Centex is something to generate optimism. It tells me they are looking forward. It’s not just how do we get through today,” Fingeroot said. “They are going to be the biggest homebuilder in the country.”

Ken Dalto, a Farmington Hills-based turnaround expert, said the homebuilding industry was ripe for a right-sizing similar to what is happening in the automotive and financial industries.

“There is so much inventory of houses, Pulte won’t have to build houses for years even when there is a recovery,” Dalto said. “There is not going to be a lot of building and the housing industry is going to be a lot slimmer for a number of years.”

The company will be named Pulte and be headquartered in Bloomfield Hills with a significant presence in Dallas where Centex is based.

Pulte has battled complaints about quality and working conditions lodged by homeowners and the AFL-CIO in recent years. Last year, a group of protesters clashed with Pulte’s board of directors as they arrived for the annual shareholder’s meeting.

The company has said it does all it can to address such complaints. Pulte and its Del Webb brand ranked highest in 11 of 34 markets in the 2007 J.D. Power and Associates New Home Builder Satisfaction Study.

The merger is subject to shareholder approval at both companies.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090408/BUSINESS06/90408085/1017/BUSINESS/Pulte-Centex+deal+prompts+hope++wariness

Interesting post about computers from a reader who works in a retirement home

2009-03-16T06:46:00.002-04:00

People who once used computers to interact have just shut them down or left them behind in their last move. “Can’t be bothered, or don’t want to do than anymore,” is often the reply. And yet I see the computer and the internet as a saving grace for the elder with limiting physical abilities and increasing isolation. I’m advocating for facilities to install access for hook ups to every room/apartment in a facility and to encourage, through planned activities to help elders stay in touch with their families, make new internet friends and stay current in what is happening in the rest of the world.

I’ m also aware of the predators who are on line and the vulnerability of this population. But we learn to protect ourselves when we live in the world outside of retirement homes/villages, why not teach the retirees to be protected?
___________

I think she's got a great point. Nothing more important than staying in touch to help maintain a sense of community and a feeling of connection. What do you think?

Excellent Op-Ed (Australian) based on Leisureville

2009-03-09T09:58:00.002-04:00

Leisureville has been released in Australia and New Zealand. Here's a really thoughtful op-ed in a leading newspaper that discusses the book and its ramifications.

http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/retired-boomers-who-reject-children-live-in-an-unhealthy-world-20090222-8eq8.html?page=-1

Short excerpt:
"A community that refuses to invest in the future sends a message that there is no value in giving back to society unless one directly reaps the rewards. Not only is this selfish, but it is self-destructive. A successful society demands co-operation. It demands that the rewards reaped from the work of past generations are repaid by investing in future generations. Turning your back on young people contributes to the very fragmentation of social values about which you complain."

Author on Dennis Miller Live

2009-03-09T09:48:00.003-04:00

Andrew Blechman is featured on Dennis Miller's coast-to-coast live radio show: http://radiotime.com/program/p_123379/The_Dennis_Miller_Show.aspx

Geritopias: Aging Badly (reader email)

2009-03-09T09:45:00.002-04:00

Dear Mr. Blechman,

Just read one of your articles published in the "Arizona Republic" today entitled: Retirees glide to the finish on 'playgrounds'

Years ago as a much younger woman working in the banking industry, I was transferred to a branch located in Sun City West. I had been to Sun City before and we visitors always marveled at how neat and tidy everything was there - much unlike our "lived-in" communities - and Sun City West was no different, just newer.

By that time Sun City was 20 years old and the original residents were by now, 20 years older. Patterns were already becoming evident. People who had retied in the beginning with good health and good resources had experienced some unsettling changes over time. They had often developed life-altering illnesses and because of unforeseen economic conditions, their solid economic base had eroded and they no longer has very solid financial setting. For some, their illnesses required very costly treatment and medication that they hadn't anticipated on.

The young crop of retirees in their late 50s who were healthy, wealthy and active, were drawn to the new Sun City West. They didn't want to live in Sun City which was much slower and too insulated. It was interesting to observe that about-to-be-oldsters didn't and do not want to hang out with official oldsters because they see what the future will be bringing to them and they don't want to face it or to know the realities.

Therefore, since Sun City did not draw or attract newer retirees to replenish the fading popluation, the aging population continues to grow. It is a downward spiral. Add that to the fact that they don't want to invest in the future. Why should they when it won't benefit them? And they need their money now. The fact that spending money today will help forestall some unpleasant realities down the road, eludes them. They bought a false reality. They had earned their money. It was their's. If they lived in a walled-in complex and separated themselves from the outsiders, then they wouldn't have to be paying for things like elementary schools since they didn't have any in their complexes. There would be no loud noises like the ones that kids make and no messes like kids make. It is really like a warped "Stepford" like existence. There was even a horrible quote from one oldster-ette in a recent newspaper article, "All the taxes we do pay, we want to keep and spend on ourselves".

I found them to be very unloving, unaccepting, judgemental and critical. We would often hear of people turning in their neighbor's to the local association for real or unreal infractions - like having a cat outside who dared to invade their back yard.

Sad to say, the few that are really vocal tend to get the recognition which then unfortunately tends to create the appearance that all oldsters are alike when that is not true either.

Sincerely,

Penny M.
Phoenix, AZ

HIV up among people over 50

2009-03-09T07:25:00.000-04:00

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/06/28/older_hiv.html

Villagers begin to awake from financial slumber....

2009-03-09T07:15:00.001-04:00

Hi Andrew:

We have resided in The Villages for approximately 2 years and are currently in the process of selling this home in order to move to a smaller Senior Community in Ocala with no bonds and a great deal of homeowner partcipation in its operations.

When I began reading your book, I was extremely pleased to discover that my Husband and I were not the only people who believe that The Villages is a MONEY ORIENTED VENTURE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE MORSE FAMILY! This was our primary reason for initiating the sale of our house. From the very beginning, all things (property sales, newspaper, re-sales of houses) deals with an extreme amount of "Brainwashing". "How wonderful it is to live in The Villages". This is a bad concept for those of us who are educated, can think independently and ask questions.

Your book "put into context" facts that Villagers should know and should care about before it is too late to relocate!

Thank your for writing it!

Diana P.

Interest letter from a reader who deals with geriatrics

2009-03-09T06:58:00.000-04:00

Andrew-

I am an RN in Maine, who does admission and scheduled wellness updates on clients in an independent retirement community.

I have noticed an increase in concerns about ability to remain in the apartments where clients now live due to loss of income from investments. “Where am I going to go, when my investments don’t give me the income?” “Will I become homeless?” These were questions one man voiced as he was trying to reach his financial planner in Florida at Christmas.

Rents for all apartments went up 6% in Jan.2009.

Decrease in occupancy as some families take parents into their own homes to save money.

A client planning to move into assistant living facility even though he is independent in his needs, because he is about out of money and MaineCare will pay for assisted living if income qualifies.

Clients not obtaining dental and podiatry care or hiring added services or additional meals in the community dining room, since they are watching their savings decrease and shelter is more important.

Many of my clients lived in those Florida and Arizona communities prior to the Maine relocation. They returned to Maine due to loss of spouse, to declining physical and mental abilities, often brought unwillingly by their children.

What happens to the person who has no family to help financially? What about the people who can not meet community fees and rents and have no where to go after living in the active retirement communities for 5-25 years-it is their home!

Many of my clients miss the warmer client, the social opportunities, and the homes and sometimes the pets, they had to leave behind. Depression, at least one suicide and increasing isolation are very evident after the move north.

Interesting times for this segment of our population. And interesting personally, since I am part of this cohort.

Maybe another book? –Revisiting Leisureville During the Current Economic Meltdown!

Isabelle M., RN

Fiscal Train Wreck Approaches the Station: senior entitlement programs will require major generational sacrifice....

2009-03-09T06:27:00.001-04:00

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080214/1a_lede14_dom.art.htm

Senior benefit costs up 24%
'Health care crisis' leads to 8-year rise
By Dennis Cauchon
USA TODAY

The cost of government benefits for seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007, according to a USA TODAY analysis.

That's a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000. Medical costs are the biggest reason. Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older. The average Social Security benefit per senior in 2007 was $13,184.

"We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis," says David Certner, legislative policy director of the AARP, which represents seniors.

He says seniors shouldn't be blamed for the growing cost of government retirement programs.

The federal government spent $952 billion in 2007 on elderly benefits, up from $601 billion in 2000. It's the biggest function of the federal government. States chipped in $27 billion more in 2007, mostly for nursing homes.

All three major senior programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — experienced dramatically escalating costs that outstripped inflation and the growth in the senior population.

Benefits per senior are soaring at a time when the senior population is not. The portion of the U.S. population ages 65 and older has been constant at 12% since 2000.

The senior boom, however, starts big time in 2011, when the first baby boomers — 79 million people born between 1946 and 1964 — turn 65 and qualify for Medicare health insurance. The oldest baby boomers turn 62 this year and qualify for Social Security at reduced benefits.

USA TODAY used a variety of government data to calculate the cost of providing Social Security, medical benefits and long-term care to an aging population. Billions of dollars paid to non-seniors — the disabled, children and others in the programs — were removed to create an estimate that focuses exclusively on seniors.

Findings include:

•Medicare experienced the most explosive growth from 2000 to 2007. The Medicare prescription-drug benefit, started in 2006, accounts for about one-fourth of the increase in Medicare, which provides health benefits for people 65 and older.

•Long-term care costs per senior have declined slightly in the past three years because of a move away from nursing homes to less expensive home care.

•The cost of senior benefits is equal to $10,673 for every non-senior household.

•About 35% of the federal budget is spent on senior benefits, up from 32% in 2004.

Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Urban Institute, notes that the full cost of senior benefits goes beyond Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A complete estimate would include other programs for retirees, such as military and civil servant pensions and medical benefits, he says.

The Urban Institute estimates that kids receive an average of about $4,000 per child in benefits, including the child tax credit and other indirect assistance.

Economist Dean Baker calls it "granny bashing" to focus on the cost of senior benefits. The elderly paid a designated tax for Social Security and Medicare taxes during their decades of working to support these programs when they retired, says Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic Policy and Research.

IRS to Villages Developer -- You Bilked Residents of Millions of Dollars, PART TWO: The Mystery Deepens

2009-03-05T09:07:00.001-05:00

Who will pay IRS in Villages bond mess?
by Lauren Ritchie
COMMENTARY
March 4, 2009

On Sunday, this column examined a preliminary ruling by the IRS warning the government that runs operations at The Villages that $64 million in tax-exempt bonds issued in 2003 are on the verge of being declared taxable -- and it hints that another $200 million may face the same action.

The money from the bonds was used to buy everything in the community from the right to collect future fees, to retention ponds, sewer plants, clubhouses, swimming pools and golf courses. The seller was developer Gary Morse and his family.

About half the monthly amenity fee paid by Villages residents goes to repay the bonds. The fee is $135 if you buy a house today and is less if you bought earlier.

IRS Agent Dominick Servadio, who has been auditing the bonds for more than a year, concluded preliminarily that they should be taxed because:

*The district doesn't qualify under IRS rules as a valid issuer of tax-free bonds.

*The transactions didn't benefit the general public -- a requirement of tax-free bonds -- but instead, only the developer.

*The Village Center Community Development District issued $53 million more than the properties it bought were worth and handed the cash to Morse, who declared it as a gain on the sale on the corporation's 2003 tax return. Issuing bonds for more than 5 percent more than what's needed throws the bonds into the taxable realm under IRS arbitrage rules, the agent contended.

*The appraisal firms that set the value of the properties were tools of the district who did what they were told. They were not independent appraisers, as the IRS requires.

Whoa. So what does all this mean? Armageddon? Or simply scorched earth? The $64 million dollar question -- literally -- is who will pay?

Or is it possible that this will all vanish quietly?

Dream on.

Audit results

The outcome of any audit is difficult even for experts to predict, but knowing the backdrop against which the story is unfolding helps to put it in perspective.

First off, you should know the IRS has taken a bold interest in community development districts such as the dozen that operate in The Villages. In fact, auditing CDDs for compliance is a priority for the tax-exempt bond division of the agency, according to its published 2009 goals. Part of the IRS' intent this year is to survey such districts and possibly follow up with audits. The head of the bond division of the agency has spoken in speeches about the research the IRS is doing on CDDs.

So Servadio isn't sitting at the end of a tree limb alone, cackling and punching buttons on his little calculator. One can infer that his tough assessment of the district's bonds has the backing of his bosses.

Clues to the dynamics of how this audit is progressing are tucked into the exchange of documents between the IRS and the California lawyer for The Villages, who is among the best tax-exempt-bond-controversy attorneys in the country.

First, the district's lawyer asked Servadio in writing for a meeting with the IRS' Robert Henn, who manages field operations in the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt-bond financing. Servadio ignored the request. Second, there are hints that palms in the district office are sweating, regardless of what officials may say publicly. A letter from the district's lawyer, Perry Israel, to Servadio stated that the district wanted to get this matter cleared up quickly because some of the preliminary rulings "go to the ability of the District generally to issue tax-exempt bonds." Ouch. That would instantly dry up the river of money that flows to Morse.

And, the district has given the standard notice to the standard bond-watching agencies that the 2003 issue is being audited and that the audit is serious. However, the notice also encompasses other bonds that are similar in structure, even though they aren't being audited. Apparently, the district suspects this won't end with the $64 million but eventually will involve about $271 million of recreational-revenue bonds issued over the years.

$18,000 per household?

So, what is likely in this situation?

First, on one end of the scale, it is extremely unlikely that the IRS will drop the audit. You can safely cross that one off the list.

On the other end, if the IRS decides that the Villages district is not a "qualified issuer" of tax-exempt bonds, as Servadio contends, then it might be prudent to step back -- say, approximately to Leesburg. Armageddon would be a tea party compared with the financial explosion and subsequent mop-up that would be involved.

The reason is the stunning size of the sums in the scenario. Consider that the district -- read that "the residents of The Villages" -- still owe about $700 million. That's a liability of about $18,000 for each household in the retirement community, which sprawls across Lake, Sumter and Marion counties. Four important parties are involved in the bond transactions -- the district, Morse, bond buyers and The Villages residents -- and the possible outcomes vary dramatically for each if the bonds are deemed taxable.

Bond buyers are the easiest. Theoretically, they would owe the IRS taxes on the interest they received. However, the IRS views buyers as innocent parties, and it tries to make sure they don't get hurt.

Often, the issuer of the bonds -- in this case, the district -- pays the cost of the bondholder tax liability through a settlement, and the bonds retain their tax-exempt status. The amount usually is 29 percent.

However, this situation is more complicated than someone making a simple mistake. The agent in this case has contended that even the structure of the district is set up to deliberately avoid taxes that should be paid.

And, if the IRS views a bond issue as taxable because the amount sold was more than 5 percent over what was needed -- and the district's bonds do fall in this category -- a whole realm of other possibilities opens, including a settlement structure based on the taxable earnings from the excess money, which is $53 million of the $64 million. And then, of course, you've got to figure in the penalties.

Best-case scenario

The fates of the Morse family and the district are inextricably entwined -- at least they will be if Servadio has his way.

Through 104 pages of meticulous analysis, the agent built a compelling case that the developer so tightly controls the district trustees -- his employees and business associates -- that they are the same entity. Under that scenario, both the district and the developer together likely would face exposure to whatever sanctions finally are imposed.

And the chances are high that any exposure would include the total $271 million worth of recreational-revenue bonds rather than just the one issue of $64 million.

For the district and Morse, the best-case scenario would be that the IRS is willing to structure a settlement that allows one or both of them to pay the bondholders' liability, and the bonds are allowed to remain tax-exempt. That seems unlikely, considering that the IRS contends that the district doesn't have the authority to issue any tax-free bonds, which puts $700 million in outstanding bonds at risk.

If the situation unfolded about as badly as possible, the district and developer could end up having to redeem $271 million worth of bonds, pay the interest liability of bondholders and face sanctions imposed under a separate rule that punishes people who participate in promoting abusive tax shelters. If it played out like that, the district might never be able to issue tax-free bonds again.

Asked what the effect of having to call such a massive amount of bonds might have on the district's finances, bond attorney Michael Williams of Akerman Senterfitt in Orlando said he didn't know.

"That's an issue where a lot of numbers come into play. They're changing every day if not every minute," he said.

Whatever that means.

Settlement structuring

Janet Tutt, the district's manager, said it is "premature to assume anything." She did not answer the question of whether the district could redeem the bonds and continue operating.

She did say, however, that the district disagrees very strongly with Servadio's conclusions, and it is preparing a response to his preliminary ruling that it hopes will set some facts straight.

Which brings us to the very important third party, The Villages homeowners. Unfortunately, the community-development districts in The Villages have only one source of money, and that is the people who own the property. The district has the authority to charge fees and to impose property taxes on residents. It has not yet ever used the latter power.

If the district is sanctioned financially, it stands to reason that homeowners would end up reaching into their pockets. But that would depend on how IRS structures any possible settlement. It could create one that fell nearly entirely on the developer, for example.

The IRS can settle an audit at any time. But that too seems unlikely given what's at stake.

Only one thing seems certain: This will unfold slowly as the firefight cranks up. And it is time for homeowners to worry less about their tee time and marvelous activities and more about their future property values and financial liability.

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel
orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lk-lauren-ritchie-irs-bonds-030409,0,4865936.column

IRS to Villages Developer: You Bilked Residents of Millions of Dollars

2009-03-02T08:09:00.002-05:00

IRS, Villages tangling over maze of bonds

Lauren Ritchie
Orlando Sentinel

March 1, 2009

Perverted is a word whose use has evolved almost exclusively to have a sexual connotation.

However, Mr. Webster still defines it as "to cause to turn aside or away from what is good or true or morally right: CORRUPT."

And to "pervert" is the verb an IRS agent deliberately chose when he recently issued a preliminary ruling that eventually could shatter the financial stability of the government that runs operations at The Villages retirement community.

For the past year, the IRS has been investigating $64 million worth of tax-free bonds sold in 2003 by the Village Center Community Development District and has concluded that they ought to be taxed.

But that's just the start.

If this ruling were to hold, the Villages government would be staring down staggering financial exposure — it has roughly $200 million more in similar bonds among the total of $700 million outstanding.

The fallout is impossible to predict this early, even though the sums at stake are almost unfathomable.

The money is so much because the 75,000 or so people who live at The Villages have paid developer Gary Morse and his family for everything in the community ranging from the right to collect future fees to retention ponds, sewer plants, clubhouses, swimming pools and golf courses.

Frightening prospect

Village Center District authorities vehemently disagree with the IRS conclusion, and no wonder. Even settling the matter quietly typically would cost a bond issuer many millions if the IRS stuck to its opinion. The district ultimately could get that kind of cash from one source and one only: Villages residents.

But it's too early to speculate on the various scenarios of how this might play out, said Michael Williams of the Orlando firm of Akerman Senterfitt, the district's bond lawyers.

Williams, who is bond counsel to 20 of the state's 582 community development districts, said he was surprised by the IRS opinion because the agency had not given an "adverse determination" in 2003 after it examined similar bonds.

Technically, that is true.

However, the letter "clearing" the district in the earlier audit wasn't exactly glowing. The Jan. 29, 2003, letter stated, "Our closing of these cases, however, should not be construed as an approval of your method of operations." The agent went on to detail the IRS' concerns — many of the same ones that have emerged in the recent audit.

The scolding didn't slow the Village district any. Several months later, it sold the $64 million worth of bonds that the IRS is now auditing.

Fancy IOUs

Think of bonds as fancy IOUs for gigantic loans. The money the district borrowed six years ago went to buy golf courses, guard houses, an emergency-services station, a golf-ball washer, a clubhouse sound system, pool tables, pump houses, postal facilities, golf-cart paths and more.

Residents pay a monthly amenity fee — it's $135 if you buy a house today — not only to make payments on the loan but to take care of the facilities the district bought.

So far, so good. And easy to understand. Take a deep breath and read on.

Part of what has the IRS piqued is that $53 million of the $64 million worth of public money bought nothing concrete. Rather, it purchased from the developer the right to collect future amenity fees.

To complicate matters, this is not the first time. In six transactions over the years, this method of financing used public funds to pay $271million to Morse for tangible property worth only $51.6 million, IRS Agent Dominick Servadio Jr. calculated.

How could that happen, dear reader? The answer lies in the "perverted" portion of the agent's 104-page report. What follows is what you need to know.

A puppet government?

The Village Center District was set up under Chapter 190 of Florida statutes, which allows developers to create governments to pay for infrastructure and later, for residents to run their own public systems, such as sewer and water. The law anticipates that as time passes, people move into the district and begin serving on the board of trustees, eventually displacing the developer and his representatives. Voilà! Democracy at work.

However, the Village district was set up in a way that allows Morse to stay behind the scenes but still direct the operation, Servadio wrote. It will never have residents, and for as long as Morse wants, it will be controlled by board members he can select. The district and the developer are "almost indistinguishable," Servadio wrote.

That alone makes the Village district seem a puppet government, but then the lawyer-Gods who created it went even further. They sprinkled it with a potent pixie dust that allows it to buy property anywhere in The Villages — and force those who have no representation on the board to pay for the purchase.

That "effectively perverts" the intent of the law and "allows the developer to engage in unchecked self-dealing ... with absolutely no oversight," Servadio wrote. The set-up "disenfranchises" residents who can have no say in the dealings, the agent contended.

No sense of humor, these federales. Just because a developer wants to make an extra couple hundred million by charging unsuspecting retirees is hardly a reason to get worked up in Florida.

The IRS's case

Servadio's report, a public record available to anyone from the Village district office, concluded that the $64 million in bonds should be taxable because:

•The transactions didn't benefit the general public, a requirement of tax-free bonds — only the developer. •The district issued $53 million more than the properties it bought were worth and handed the cash over to Gary Morse, who declared it as a gain on the sale on the corporation's 2003 tax return. Issuing bonds for more than 5 percent over what's needed throws the bonds into the realm of taxable under IRS rules, Servadio contended.

•The firms that set the value of the properties were simply tools of the district who did what they were told. They were not independent appraisers, as required.

One, who listed The Villages on his Web site as a regular client, wasn't qualified to appraise the properties, used only data provided by the district to come up with his "valuation," and employed improper methods in calculating the value, Servadio wrote.

•The bonds somehow made it through the scrutiny of lawyers and were sold, even though roughly two-thirds of the money pledged to repay the loan was already pledged to repay previous bonds.

So what does the Village district have to say about all this? The district administrator declined to discuss Servadio's specific allegations.

The IRS allows the district to respond, and it is in the process of "clarifying all the factual errors, assumptions and interpretations," District Administrator Janet Tutt stated in an e-mail.

The bond lawyer, Williams, said one example of an error in Servadio's report is that the agent appears to assume that roads in the district are limited-access, and that's not true. He said he couldn't remember the other errors.

Tutt wrote in an e-mail: "I believe our response will address any questions you may have."

The district has until March 25 to submit its statement to the IRS.

So what does all this mean? Let's try to sort some of it out Wednesday.

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel
orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lklritchie01030109mar01,0,925697.story

STDs and oldsters

2009-02-28T04:21:00.001-05:00

Woman infected with herpes wins $7M in Calif. suit

By LORINDA TOLEDO Associated Press Writer

Feb 26th, 2009 | LOS ANGELES -- A jury awarded nearly $7 million to a 56-year-old woman who said she was unknowingly infected with herpes by the 77-year-old founder of a hair-care company.

The lawsuit alleged that Thomas Redmond knew he had genital herpes for more than 25 years but did not disclose it before his sexual relationship began with Patricia Behr, and did not use a condom.

The Riverside County jury awarded Behr $4 million in compensatory damages and $2.75 million in punitive damages. She was also awarded a 2004 BMW car that Redmond had originally given her as a gift.

Redmond, of Las Vegas, is the founder of Redmond Products Inc., which was the maker of the Aussie line of hair-care products. The company was sold in 1997 to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and became part of Clairol, which was sold to Procter & Gamble Co. in 2001.

The defendant's lawyer, Robert M. Frisbee, said the verdict is "outrageous" and his client will seek to have it overturned.

Frisbee said Behr failed to prove it was Redmond who infected her with herpes, and that she had sex with him knowing that he had the incurable sexually transmitted disease.

"The jury decided they didn't like a wealthy man for no particular reason I can find out. It's not based on reason or common sense," Frisbee said.

The lawsuit claimed that Behr suffered unnecessary stress and humiliation as a result of the defendant's conduct, which it called "outrageous and beyond the bounds of decency."

During their romantic relationship, which began in September of 2003 and ended in June of 2004, Behr and Redmond became partners in a small business.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Comment from Inside the Belly of the Beast

2009-02-28T04:04:00.001-05:00

Dear Andrew --

Just finished reading the book yesterday on my flight from Chicago to Phoenix. This is a great book. As someone who works for a company that builds so-called "active adult" communities, I'm frankly embarrassed to be contributing to this sort of segregation. Another reason to quit, I suppose!

Adult Communities Beg for Buyers

2009-02-11T17:07:00.001-05:00

Adult Communities Beg for Buyers
Seniors can't sell their houses, so developers are offering great deals on empty units.

By Anne Kates Smith
Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine
March 2009

The moribund housing market, collapsed stock prices and a reeling economy have produced yet more fallout: stranded seniors unable to move into the retirement home of their dreams -- and lots of others who wish they hadn't.

"It's a disaster across multiple dimensions," says John Rother, executive vice-president for policy and strategy at AARP. "People who can't sell their home can't move into more-appropriate housing. And people whose portfolios have fallen in value, or who have lost their jobs prematurely, don't have the money to move."

Meanwhile, some folks who bought into amenity-rich active-adult communities are finding that their unfinished developments bear little resemblance to the Shangri-La they were promised. No one tracks the number of stalled projects, but "it's big," says Joanne Theunissen, chairwoman of the National Association of Home Builders' 50+ Housing Council. "I've never heard so many builders talking about possibly going out of business."

On the flip side, now is a good time to be in the market for adult housing. You may get help selling your home or swinging the new one. You (or your parents or grandparents) may wind up with a great deal.

Del Webb, a unit of Pulte Homes known for its Sun City developments, is adding "affordable" units in California and other strapped markets. In other communities, bridge loans, which finance a new mortgage until the old place sells, are back in fashion, as are rent-to-own deals. Starting this year, seniors 62 and older can use a reverse mortgage to purchase a home.

If you already live in an active-adult development that's struggling, it behooves you to help attract others to move to the community. Some developers are paying residents for referrals, typically with goodies such as a new TV or a golf cart.

Demand for housing in continuing-care communities -- where residents can live independently until they need care later -- or in assisted-living facilities depends more on the health of the purchaser than on the economy. Still, occupancy rates are down and administrators are going all out to help seniors sell the family home so that they can afford to move. Such assistance is crucial in the campus-like continuing-care setting, where deposits are often tied to median home prices, mounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Erickson Retirement Communities, with 22 continuing-care developments nationwide, established a service to help seniors stage their homes for sale, cutting average sales times by 26%. Ginger Cove, in Annapolis, Md., will rebate $3,500 in moving expenses, and it gives buyers of two-bedroom units $10,000 toward monthly fees or apartment upgrades. Emeritus Corp., which runs 302 assisted-living centers, will waive its move-in fee of one-month's rent, or $3,500 on average.

There's no need to panic that some operators are facing hard times. Accredited facilities must withstand a rigorous review, and state licensing affords some protections. Other stakeholders in a property have an interest in maintaining smooth operations. Most struggling facilities are acquired without any interruption in care.

This page printed from: http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2009/03/senior_housing.html
All contents © 2009 The Kiplinger Washington Editors

Letter from a Villages resident

2009-02-07T12:35:00.002-05:00

Just finished reading your book and it was a great read. I kind of expected a National Enquirer type to stimulate sales but was pleasantly surprised by the well thought out content of your book. It has me reevaluating the type of community i have chosen to live in for my retirement years. As an aside i looked at the Royal Highlands Pringle development South of Leesburg and was turned off by the conservative ownership. I didn't do my homework obviously because I am in a hotbed of conservatism. Good luck on future publications; you are a fine writer, do it more often!
Don R. / The Villages, Fl.

"Sex in The Villages" -- Prurient Interest from the NY Post

2009-01-25T11:47:00.001-05:00

RETIRE TO THE BEDROOM
By STEFANIE COHEN
New York Post
January 25, 2009

LADY LAKE, Fla. - It's 11 p.m. at the Bourbon Street Bar, and Roselyn's gyrating her hips to the blues band, Sue's sipping a cocktail and flirting with her new boyfriend, and Alan is scanning the crowd for cute girls.

"See those two?" a buxom blonde asks, pointing to an elegant couple at the bar. "They were caught having sex in their golf cart a few weeks ago. It happens a lot!"

Welcome to ground zero for geriatrics who are seriously getting it on.

It's a Thursday night at one of a half-dozen hot spots at the 20,000-acre Central Florida complex called The Villages, the largest gated retirement community in America - and one of the most popular destinations for New Yorkers in their golden years - where the female-to-male ratio runs 10 to 1.

It's a widower's paradise, and the word on the street is that there's a big black market for Viagra.

Though The Villages - which spans three counties with 40,000 homes and more than 70,000 residents - boasts 34 golf courses, nine country clubs, two downtown squares and a slew of restaurants and bars, getting lucky is one of the residents' primary pastimes.

The huge complex began growing rapidly in the mid-1990s, and reported cases of gonorrhea rocketed from 152 to 245, of syphilis rose from 17 to 33, and of chlamydia from 52 to 115 among those 55 and older in Florida from 1995 to 2005.

The state's sexually transmitted disease rate among those over 65 is one of the fastest growing in the country, one report claims.

In 2006, a local gynecologist reported that she treated more cases of herpes and human papillomavirus at The Villages than she did when she worked in Miami.

"I get offers for sex all the time," brags Dave, 70, who, like others who spoke about their sexually active set, asked that his real name not be used, "especially by women in their 70s. They say, 'Are you busy tonight? I'll show you a good time.' "

One overly charming lady-killer known as "Mr. Midnight" boasted of one of his conquests last year: "Absolutely beautiful. I've had her a few times. She comes over, takes a shower, jumps in bed, and then gets dressed and leaves. She's simply the best."

His story was told by Andrew Blechman, author of "Leisureville," about communities like The Villages.

"There is lots of romance around here," said Jean, a 63-year-old retired teacher. "But most of the men want a one-night meaningful relationship."

Her friend Louise agrees.

"A lot of the men down here are cheaper than heck," she says, "and a lot of the women are extremely brazen. Some girls will go into the parking lot with a man and come back a half-hour later like nothing happened!"

"We've had some of those complaints," said a laughing Lt. Laurie Davis of the Lady Lake Police Department, ticking off other offenses, like drunken driving in golf carts, illegal drug use, and bar fights.

"Whatever you know about 20-year-olds, it's the same with seniors," said Roselyn Shelley, 68, a divorced former dancer.

Sue Rice, a blonde who will only admit to being over 60 but who looks to be about 80 and dances like she's 14, has hooked up with Larry Tucker, an ex-banker about a decade her junior.

Tucker sports a gold charm around his neck that reads, "Bankers do it with interest."

"Feel this," Rice says, bouncing up from her bar stool and pinching her slim waist. "My body is the same as it was in high school! He can't keep up with me!"

According to Alan, a swarthy 62-year-old, there's a thriving black market for little blue Viagra pills.

"I did it once," he said. "I paid 12 bucks for a single pill."

Local cops just try to keep up.

"You see two 70-year-olds with canes fighting over a woman and you think, 'Oh, jeez,' " Lt. Davis said.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01252009/news/nationalnews/retire_to_the_bedroom_151976.htm
*Some names have been changed.

55+ Foreclosures -- No real surprise here, aside from the optimistic spin put on it by the gullible reporter

2009-01-24T15:00:00.003-05:00

Four Seasons foreclosure
BY SUSAN GIBBS, RECORD REPORTER
January 23, 2009
[Northern Virginia]

Most of the nearly 204 acres upon which the Four Seasons age restricted development sits in Ruckersville off U.S. 33 is set to be sold at auction Jan. 22. But one local realtor says it doesn’t mean the sky is falling, and zoning officials assure residents that the zoning will not change.

In June of 2005 Fried Companies and K. Hovnanian Homes broke ground on nearly 204 acres off U.S. 33 near Advance Mills Road in Ruckersville to make way for the construction of Greene’s first age-restricted gated community.

The Four Seasons Active Adult Community was to consist of 535 homes starting in the lower $300,000 range and a 16,000-square-foot clubhouse for athletic and recreational activities. It was expected to generate at least $1.5 to $1.75 million in real estate taxes annually, representing 9 percent of the county’s then-general fund local source revenue - along with another $1.5 million in sales tax each year.

Since then, the real estate market slumped, recession hit.

Now, the 203.905 acres, less lots and homes that have already been sold, is scheduled to be auctioned off on the courthouse steps in Stanardsville at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 22. It includes the land upon which the multi-million dollar 16,000-square-foot clubhouse sits. The clubhouse opened just last May.

The auction, by The Tranzon Companies, a nationwide organization of real estate auction professionals, is taking place as a result in a default of payment by Charlottesville Development, LLC to New York’s Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company.

No representatives of the parties involved commented for this article: either they refused comment, or could not be reached for comment.

However, Bill Gentry of Jefferson Land & Realty in Rochelle says the auction “does not mean the sky is falling or the project is going down the tubes.“

Gentry, along with county planners, explains that the terms “developer” and “builder” are not synonymous: the developer owns the land; the builder buys from the developer to build upon the land.

While Gentry makes it clear that he is not aware of any of the particulars of the coming auction, he has seen similar things happen over the years. He explains that if a builder’s sales slump, it sometimes happens that the developer is not able to move its land fast enough to keep the lien it has on its land current, and foreclosure ensues.

Based on his observances of similar situations, and his knowledge of real estate, Gentry adds: “In this economic climate, there are not likely to be too many buyers for that project. The bank might want to restructure the loan.“

But if that is not what happens, Four Seasons residents need not worry that the zoning for their community will change, say county planning officials.

The property - to be sold subject to conditions, restrictions, rights-of-way, easements, reservations and all other matters of record taking priority - is contained in a Senior Residential Zoning District.

In Greene, such districts can be either 100 percent or 80 percent age-restricted. If they are 100 percent age restricted, all of the residential units must be occupied by at least one person 55 years of age or older. Guests or children 19 years old or younger are permitted for a maximum 21 days each calendar year. If a person under the age of 55 should, for example, inherit a home in the district and take title, he or she will not be able to reside there until he or she reaches the age of 55.

An exception to the rule is a surviving spouse under the age of 55: he or she can occupy a dwelling without regard to age.

Those districts that are 80 percent age restricted require that 80 percent of the residential units be occupied by at least on person 55 years of age or older.

There is another difference between senior residential zoning districts that are 100 percent and 80 percent age restricted.

Single family detached dwellings, duplex, triplex and quadplex-type dwellings, condominiums, townhouses, patio houses, apartments, and community facilities can all be built by-right in communities that are 100 percent age-restricted.

In 80 percent age-restricted communities, such dwellings can only be built via a special use permit.

The Four Seasons Active Adult Community is 100 percent age restricted. No type of dwelling permissible by right in such a district was ever restricted there.

As for the auction itself, documents provided by Tranzon state that the property may be sold as an entirety or as individual parcels. All or part of the property may be withdrawn from sale at any time before the bidding ends, or, any and all bids may be rejected.

http://www.greene-news.com/gcn/news/local/article/four_seasons_foreclosure/34636/

Grandma in the White House: rebirth of the extended family?

2009-01-15T15:25:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama's mother-in-law will move to White House for trial visit
'First Granny' Marian Robinson will help young girls adjust to their new lives

By Stacy St. Clair
January 12, 2009
chicagotribune.com

Marian Robinson doesn't like a lot of fuss. She doesn't like a lot of attention, either.

But as the country's unofficial First Granny and a future White House occupant, she'll soon be facing plenty of both.

The Obama transition team announced late last week that Robinson, 71, the mother of Michelle Obama and a retired secretary from the South Shore, would be going to Washington to help the family settle into a routine. Aides describe her extended stay as a trial visit, a chance for Robinson to see if she's ready to trade her classic Chicago bungalow for the nation's most famous mansion.

However temporary, the living arrangement thrills senior advocates, who say Robinson will serve as a role model for the growing number of U.S. retirees who are moving in with their children and grandchildren. More than 3.6 million parents lived with adult children in 2007, according to census data. That number is up 67 percent from 2000.

And at least 24 percent of Baby Boomers expect their parents or in-laws to move in with them eventually, according to the AARP.

Senior advocates say Robinson could show that moving into a grown child's home does not mean surrendering one's independence or usefulness.

They expect Robinson to continue her busy lifestyle, which until a few years ago included both a job and competing in the 100- and 50-yard dashes at the Illinois Senior Olympics.

"She is the kind of role model you want," AARP spokeswoman Nancy Thompson said. "She's an active retiree with her own life."

Robinson, who gave only a few interviews during the campaign, already has media and special interest groups lining up to speak with her. Generations United, a group that aims to increase interaction between children and seniors, has asked her to be the keynote speaker at its international conference this summer.

Robinson hasn't responded to the invitation yet, but organizers believe she already has done a tremendous amount to help their cause by taking an active role in her granddaughters' lives.

"It's such a nice example of so many generations working together to raise a family," said Donna Butts, Generations United's executive director. "We believe the Obamas will show Americans the valuable role each generation can play."

Multigenerational White Houses, however, have not always been harmonious. Harry Truman's mother-in-law belittled him constantly while living there, questioning both his policies and ability to govern. Dwight D. Eisenhower's mother-in-law often wintered at the president's mansion, where she lounged in bed and bossed around the staff and her daughter, Mamie.

Robinson, whose close relationship with her son-in-law was documented in Election Night photographs of her holding his hand as they watched returns, will play a much different role from her predecessors. In addition to claiming no interest in politics, she'll serve as the primary caretaker for granddaughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, when their parents are unavailable. It's a position she willingly accepted in 2007, when she retired from her job as an executive secretary for a bank to care for the girls while Michelle and Barack Obama worked the campaign trail.

"The sole reason Michelle was willing to campaign at all was because she knows that Mom is there to help take care of the girls," Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, said at the Democratic National Convention last year.

For 22 months, Marian Robinson cooked meals, prepared baths, helped with homework and shuttled the girls to various soccer practices and ballet lessons. Although she tried to adhere to Michelle Obama's rules about organic foods, limited TV exposure and an 8:30 p.m. bedtime, Robinson acknowledged being a softhearted grandmother who occasionally questioned her daughter's modern-day approach to child raising.

"I've heard [Michelle] say, 'Mom, what are you rolling your eyes at? You made us do the same thing,' " Robinson said in a rare interview with the Boston Globe in March 2008. "I don't remember being that bad. It seems like she's just going overboard."

Presidential historians believe Malia and Sasha will benefit greatly from having their grandmother in the White House. Robinson will be called on to provide the same stability the girls enjoyed in Chicago as they adapt to their new roles as the country's most famous tweens.

"It may save their lives," said Presidential Historian Doug Wead, author of "All the Presidents' Children." "The children will need as much support as they can get. If Grandma is there to offer comfort when their parents aren't home, that could make a huge difference for the girls."

Amy Carter, for example, had spent significant time with her paternal grandmother, Lillian, when they lived in Georgia and missed her terribly when her family moved to Washington, said former White House correspondent Bonnie Angelo, author of "First Families." Angelo believes Carter's lonely White House existence might have been cheerier if her Miss Lillian, as she was called, had been a permanent resident in the mansion and not just a frequent visitor.

"I think it's wonderful that Mrs. Robinson is joining the Obamas," Angelo said. "It may be the best family decision they make in the White House."

Whether Robinson stays after her trial visit remains to be seen. Aides have said they wouldn't be surprised if she bought her own place in Washington, so she could maintain her independence and still care for her granddaughters when needed.

"I love those people, but I love my own house," Robinson told People magazine in November. "The White House reminds me of a museum. How do you sleep in a museum?"

Robinson's aversion to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is in keeping with her no-frills persona, family and friends say. Widowed in 1991, she has long valued her independence, opting to stay in her blue-collar neighborhood and to continue working despite the success of her two Ivy League-educated children and famous son-in-law.

About a week before the inauguration, many homes along Robinson's street still have "Obama-Biden" signs hanging in the windows. Robinson's, though, remain bare with no sign of her son-in-law's prestige, save the security system warnings posted in the front yard."She doesn't like a lot of fuss around her," Barack Obama told "60 Minutes" in November, explaining why she may not live with the family. "And like it or not, there is some fuss in the White House."

www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-first-granny-12-jan12,0,1549998.story

Interesting Article from the SJ Mercury News about the Rebirth of the Extended Family

2009-01-12T04:11:00.005-05:00

With more generations under one roof, U.S. families no longer shrinking, census data shows
By Mike Swift -- Mercury News -- 01/10/2009

Lynn Fielder moves haltingly between the kitchen island and the cupboards in her Palo Alto home, intent on preparing a pot of coffee for her mother, Sondra Erickson, and a guest.

In a nearby alcove, Fielder's jewelry-making workshop is cluttered with her work. A guitar on the wall belongs to Fielder's 16-year-old daughter, Maya, who is asleep in a room off the kitchen. Erickson's mother, 94-year-old Alice Roberts, is out back.

This is not a special holiday gathering. All four women — all four generations — are home.

Even as Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, makes headlines as the "first granny," returning extended-family life to the nation's most famous house, a quiet revolution is beginning to transform America's families, as the "traditional" nuclear family becomes less universal.

After nearly half a century, the chronic shrinking of the American family has stalled. Fueled by more extended families living under same roof, the nation's families may be growing for the first time since the early 1960s. The trend is particularly visible in areas that combine high housing prices with high numbers of immigrants, like Silicon Valley, where the average Vietnamese, Filipino or Mexican family already has more than four relatives sharing a home. The Census Bureau defines a family as a group of people related by birth, marriage or adoption who live together.

But while Asians and Latinos still have the largest families, average family size grew most among whites and African-Americans since 2000. New data says that is true in Santa Clara County and the United States. The change corresponds with a surge in the number of parents like Sondra Erickson and Alice Roberts living with their adult children.

"It wouldn't work for everyone," Erickson said of their four-generation living arrangement, based on health needs as well as Palo Alto's extreme housing costs. "But it works for us."

Immigration, housing prices and the economy are all factors in the expansion of families. But some demographers and sociologists say other social changes are pulling generations closer, and broadening the template for the American family.

'Shift in family life'

"There is a rediscovery of intergenerational ties," said Stephanie Coontz, director of research for the Council on Contemporary Families. "I think it's a very significant shift in family life."

For Lynn Fielder, 46, the four-generation household started as an economic arrangement — a common story due to the Bay Area's housing prices. At a time when she worked for a nonprofit agency in San Jose, she and her husband, Kurt, were able to afford a neighborhood where the residents include uber-techies like Steve Jobs and ex-49ers star Steve Young by building a bungalow behind her grandmother's house.

Then came Maya, and a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease for Lynn Fielder. Wanting to be close to their new grandchild and help their daughter, Sondra Erickson, a retired nurse, and husband Jim Erickson, a contractor, returned to the house where she had grown up in the 1950s.

Jim helped convert the house to be handicapped accessible. He and Sondra live upstairs and help care for the generations — younger and older. Lynn, Kurt and Maya live on the ground floor in the main house, with great-grandmother Alice moving to the bungalow out back.

Her parents are "a big help with a disease like this," Lynn said.

Families like the Fielder-Erickson-Roberts clan are becoming more common. There are about 3.4 million parents sharing a home with their adult children in the United States, according to census data released in December, up from 2.1 million in 2000.

There also has been an increase, both nationally and locally, in the number of adult brothers, sisters and other relatives including cousins, aunts, nephews or in-laws living together.

Charles Wong, who was born in Vietnam, is part of a four-generation household in Milpitas. He lives with his mother, his 33-year-old daughter, her husband and their two children, and the arrangement feels normal. The average Vietnamese family has more than four people in Santa Clara County, census data shows, compared with 3.03 people for whites.

"In Vietnam, we usually live together with the parents, unless we have different jobs that are far away," Wong said. In California, it's also a way to share culture, especially home cooking, "so we don't have McDonald's every day," he said. It made sense, Wong said, to take in his daughter and son-in-law when they had job problems.

Wong, a real estate agent who wants to retire but whose income helps support the family, views the arrangement as temporary.

"I want to help my daughter for awhile, until they are able to move out," he said. "At my age, I want more quiet."

California has the second-largest family size in the U.S. at 3.52 persons per family, behind only Utah.

In California, family size "is certainly driven more by immigration than by economics, but they are both responsible," said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California.

After World War II, the average American family peaked at 3.72 persons in 1966, before dropping steadily through the 1970s and 1980s. Family size reached an all-time low of 3.13 persons in 2003. But average family size has not declined for the past five years, for the first time since World War II, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.

Meanwhile, a Census Bureau survey that covers a much larger share of U.S. households indicates the average American family is actually growing — particularly white and African-American families. Contrary to stereotypes, average family size for Latinos and Asians is shrinking.

First (extended) family

In Washington, the Obama family has determined that the new first lady's mother will live in the White House.

"Mrs. Robinson has been a rock for the Obama family and an active grandma for the girls, especially over the last year while their parents were campaigning," said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a transition spokeswoman for the family. "Mrs. Robinson will be coming with the family to help the girls get acclimated, and she will determine in the coming months whether or not she wants to stay in D.C. permanently."

A century ago, extended-family households were common in America. Today, beyond economic stresses and immigration, other forces are also reshaping American families.

With young people waiting longer to marry, and parenting styles becoming more "democratic" over the past 30 years, baby boomers' adult children are likely to have closer relationships with their parents, Coontz said. More young adults get to know their parents as equals.

The increase in extended-family households is a well-developed trend, "but people haven't recognized its implications," said Coontz, author of "Marriage, A History."

Even the Fielder-Erickson-Roberts family struggles to explain why their arrangement works.

"For the married-ons, for the husbands in our case, it takes a great deal of understanding to live with your in-laws," Sondra Erickson said. "I think it takes a special person to do it and be comfortable with the situation."

Sitting at their dinner table, Lynn Fielder, a Planned Parenthood executive in San Jose before Parkinson's forced her to retire, agrees.

Recovering from brain surgery in October to stabilize her motor function, Fielder can focus on creating her jewelry in part because her mother drives Maya and her to appointments. Just now, she is working on a Parkinson's fundraiser this month at Vino Locale, an art gallery in downtown Palo Alto.

Because of the family's closeness, Maya gets to have special family experiences like playing music with her great-grandmother.
And Roberts, a vibrant nonagenarian who rides an exercise bike, quips that she won't break up the family.

"I love it," Roberts said of her living arrangement. "I promised Maya I would be around for her high school graduation, so I have another year to go."

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http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11409089?nclick_check=1
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reader email

2008-12-23T09:25:00.000-05:00

I read LEISUREVILLE in less than two days, and enjoyed almost every minute of it. (The sexual exploits of some of the retirees were less than inspiring, realistic though the descriptions may be.) My underlying response was one of sadness at the virtually secular, self-centered life and outlook of the residents.

My husband and I, aged 75 and 67, have lived for almost 30 years in a house built in 1926, in a neighborhood which doesn't change much. We are within walking distance of church, schools, stores, downtown (which still exists despite the existence of a mall and larger shopping area a couple of miles to the north). Two of our children, and three of our grandchildren, live nearby. Two daughters live overseas and visit once a year or so.

While the temperature today is 12 degrees and the week's snow hasn't melted, and more, with high winds, is coming, I would rather be snowbound here than live in a retirement village of any kind. We have a very good senior center, with delicious lunches every weekday, and many activities, and when I am old : - ) I may make use of its offerings.
I think it unwise to live in a cocoon, when we still have so much to share with the world, and our neighborhoods.

Christine