Opponents of a manufactured home community at the Grand Oaks equestrian resort were shocked when Lady Lake officials cast a decisive vote on the controversial project.
The emotional meeting of more than four hours Monday night was the culmination of a nearly year-long battle waged by Grand Oaks neighbors to preserve their rural way of life.
The overflow crowd at Lady Lake Town Hall was so large that those attending had to park their cars at the nearby Miller’s Ale House restaurant at Lady Lake Commons. Lady Lake police, with squad car emergency lights activated, provided pedestrian passage across Fennell Boulevard to ensure safe access to those attending the meeting. Dozens of chairs were set up outside to accommodate the spillover crowd. A town official cranked the thermostat down to 60 degrees to accommodate the body heat generated by the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd lucky enough to score a standing-room-only spot inside.
The owner of Grand Oaks wants to create an 895-unit manufactured home community on 358 acres at the equestrian grounds, long seen as a crown jewel of the area.
When the plan was initially unveiled in 2023, it prompted neighboring property owners to organize against the planned development. Those residents, wearing red in a show of solidarity, began attending all meetings of the commission and planning and zoning board, even when the Grand Oaks proposal was not the agenda. The anti-Grand Oaks forces fought to keep their case – front and center – before Lady Lake officials. Their persistence was an occasional irritant for commissioners, who frequently had agendas calling for their attention to other matters.
Anti-Grand Oakers hired Orlando attorney Alison Yurko, who has forcefully represented their interests. On Monday evening, she reminded commission members of the risks they would be undertaking by annexing a non-contiguous development that could bring with it monumental costs for water and wastewater treatment.
“I caution you on the floodgates that could be opened by this annexation,” Yurko said.
She pointed out the “non-contiguous annexation” would be “pretty extraordinary” in Florida.
She said the manufactured home community could present “60 times the density” of the surrounding area and on the existing Grand Oak property.
“Your radar should be up on this,” Yurko warned the commissioners.
Commissioner Mike Sage staked out his opposition early in Monday’s meeting. He took on the argument of “affordable housing.”
Sage, who lives on the Historic Side of The Villages, said he was looking at the math as a “Dad.”
He said that $175,000 for a manufactured home would require a $35,000 down payment and a loan for $140,000. With taxes, insurance and $700 in monthly lot fees, he questioned how any parent could recommend such a decision by a child.
“That is not ‘affordable,’” Sage said.
He also described his worries that the high-density housing, coupled with all of the other development on the table, would push the town’s wastewater capacity over the limit and Lady Lake would find itself in the difficult costly, situation that has Wildwood backed up against a wall.
Commissioner John Gourlie came down firmly on the side of Grand Oaks.
“I am pro-growth,” said Gourlie, who works in the truss plant at Ro-Mac Building Supply.
Commissioner Ed Regan has consistently voiced concerns about school capacity and traffic. He was easier to read by the anti-Grand Oaks vote counters.
However, Mayor Ed Freeman and Commissioner Treva Roberts have been sphinx-like, and their votes were harder to predict.
In the end, the vote was 4-1, with Gourlie casting the lone vote in favor of annexation.
The anti-Grand Oaks residents were overjoyed with the vote, embracing and even shedding tears in the parking lot.
