The home of no cutbacks

This development finds itself with ample revenue.

By ROBBYN MITCHELL, Times Staff Writer
Published November 2, 2007

Tampa Palms is ready "and able" to work on improvements.
	[Melissa Lyttle | Times]

TAMPA PALMS - Times are tough. Governments are slashing budgets. Taxpayers want relief. It seems as though no one has enough money.

Except, perhaps, in Tampa Palms.

Here in this master-planned development, where houses average nearly $500,000, the local quasi-governmental community development district supervisors voted Thursday for a plan that will replace 43 blue-tile signs with 43 nicer ones. Black granite with gold lettering is the current favorite for the new design, but the official choice will be made later.

It's all part of a $3-million, five-year plan to make the neighborhood more competitive in the tough new real estate market.

"What makes this community stand out from our neighbors is the superior money management of the CDD," said Andrea Braboy-Dixon, who has lived in Tampa Palms for four years. "That's why when others are cutting corners we're able to enhance."

For years homeowners in Tampa Palms' Areas 1 and 2 paid Tampa and county taxes and assessments plus those of the community development district, which has been paying off the developer's debt.

Once that debt was paid, the district's board kept on collecting. The total payment is now about $1,050 a year per home.

"We've always had a tax rate well below what we could have levied," said Gene Field, the district's chairman.

[Last modified November 2, 2007, 00:53:32]