Cape Coral, a boomtown that shouldn’t exist | Hacker News Reader

Cape Coral, a boomtown that shouldn’t exist

politico.com

85 pointsfmihaila59 comments

I grew up in Lee County, FL, and currently live in Cape Coral while saving up to buy land and build my dream home elsewhere in the state.

The thing they don't tell you about Cape Coral is that Code Enforcement is the unofficial religion of the city. It's basically an oversized Home Owners' Association.

A lot of retired folks come down here and, with nothing better to do with their golden years, decide to annoy their neighbors with petty complaints in an attempt to raise property values. Whether or not it's a good investment, mots of the people are chronically annoying to the point of toxicity.

What part of the state do you want to move to?

This is the first place I read about Lee County:

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/8/17/suburban-pover...

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

I live just a little south of you in Naples and I completely agree with you. These HOA nazi have nothing but time and money to harass the younger families. I don't live in a terrorist HOA community zone any longer because its a nightmare in SWFL.

However, when I visit friends in HOA community its usually the same feeling unless you are over 60. They will give you a citation or stick these very hard guerrilla stickers on your vehicle or property for the dumbest things.Such as not having your garbage can properly aligned , your garage door was open for to long, visitors stayed to long in the visitor parking,etc.

They are typically old, cranky , miserable , and rude.

Once you calm back down after the old geezers charge you like you just committed a felony for leaving your garage door open while you put the grocery away , it becomes hard to not feel bad for their horrible miserable existence.

Seriously review your bylaws and don't dismiss any of them no matter how stupid,outdated, or insignificant they sound in SWFL. They will not only harass you for the little things, they look forward to it in their boring life.

Any time they can bring out the tape measure to see if your garbage can is within the acceptable distance from the street they will.

I have lived in HOA communities in central Florida and it wasn't an issue. However, down here in geezer ville its their passion to harass you.

My father lived in an HOA community approximately once, and that community was in Florida. He gets very animated and upset whenever the topic of HOAs comes up based on his experience with them...the word "Nazis" usually comes up somewhere in his rant. I've heard similar stories from other ex-Floridians.

I've lived in both in my home states (mid-Atlantic area) and have found them to be a useful local governing group in most cases, minor annoyance in others, but nice to have when the local county can't be bothered.

Is there something particularly toxic about Florida HOAs? Is it really the retirees with nothing to do?

I think it's mostly that you have an unusually good experience (or take on it). HOAs are seriously hated by a lot of people. Google "HOA hate", and check out the results.

This is a great photo:

http://static.politico.com/ce/b4/b97e9c2c4b7bbe65a225751c7f6...

It's so good that it looks fake like a screenshot from SimCity or another simulator!

>“Cape Coral was brilliantly orchestrated and terribly planned,” says Florida historian Gary Mormino, author of Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams. “They built an instant city on steroids—with none of the stuff you need to make a city work.”

Classic.

It's a small portion of the article, but the contrast of Cape Coral to Babcock Ranch was super interesting.

https://www.babcockranch.com/

It actually brought to mind "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" style of burbclave.

If they want to build without restriction, I say let them fail without restriction.

Still seems a lot better than building with restriction and getting earthquakes, mud and fire in return.

At least hurricanes are predictable.

they have other problems apart from hurricanes: water shortages, floods, water pollution to name a few

Don't forget flesh eating bacteria!

It's the predictability of hurricanes that makes the situation even more perplexing.

The same thing can be said with earthquakes and much of California. It's only a matter of time until a devastating earthquake hits, at least with hurricanes you have time to evacuate.

Devastating earthquakes are not a once-per-decade event in California (more like once in a century). Devastating hurricanes in certain areas, on the other hand, kind of are.

No, the same thing can't be said about earthquakes. People have been predicting that we'd have a huge quake in the Northern California ever since the one in '89. But we've lived for more than a quarter century without one. We had a 68 year quiet period before that. They may be devastating when they happen, but the serious ones are rare. So rare, that we've spent the past 25 years upgrading our construction to anticipate a serious earthquake and we've yet to see that preparation tested.

Hurricanes, on the other hand, are so much more common. They happen every year and even have a season when you can expect them. It seems unfair to conflate a natural disaster that people may only experience once or twice in their lifetime to one that you can basically plan an annual vacation around.

I'd have more agreement if you talked about the kind of fires we saw in the North Bay recently. In addition to the earthquake in '89, I also remember the Oakland Hills firestorm in '91. Forrest fires are a natural part of the ecosystem in California and we do a lot to try to prevent them happening on a small scale. So when they do happen, they happen a lot larger than they normally would. And when they happen in populated areas, a lot of people get hurt. They're much more an expected part of life here than earthquakes are.

Hurricanes don't strike the same place every time. Savannah hasn't had a devastating hurricane in nearly 40 years.

You're sort of right, I suppose, but I'm not trying to make comparisons. I don't live in California but from what I understand there are building regulations to ensure new buildings are likely to survive an earthquake.

But if that's not true and the same could be said about California then I'd say it too. It's just that this article happens to be about Florida.

Except these folks are likely politically active and connected therefore the USG will end up backstopping the reinsurance claims.

Essentially their loss will be publicly shared.

Unfortunately for everyone, Florida is a swing state. So no-one is going to let them fail any time soon.

Grew up on SWFL. You can tell when you enter into cape coral because the trees disappear and you start seeing empty fields with a couple of houses on top of mounds.

I don't miss SWFL.

Just went for the first time to buy a replacement monitor. It's shocking how accurate the above statement is.

I have lived in SWFL and Central florida most my life and have never been to Cape Coral. Anytime you mention cape coral in Naples peoples eyes light up in fear, like its some horrific place. The news in Naples is pretty suppress and the only thing you ear bad that occurs come from Fort Myers or Cape coral.

However, I have been fighting the temptation to purchase a decent sized house on their on the water. The same house in Naples would easily go for several hundred thousands more. We have some friends that live their and they swear its not as bad as people say? One of these days I need to make it out there.

Oh yeah, my dad pays $500 a year in property taxes for a house on a creek with gulf access. Pretty cheap! But the con is, there's no tech work around. That's the reason I ended up leaving.

Plus I wanted a life change. And sticking around the kids I went to high school with wasn't going to provide that :P

Wow, it looks like Mitch & Murray finally got in some closers.

my grandmother lives there, it's nice

I'm a Florida native. Many of the issues in Cape Coral are common to other cities and regions in Florida. I've been toying with the idea of suggesting that we deny political franchise to immigrant residents (e.g., retirees). We should allow voting only to those born here and those who have made a commitment to the state beyond their own lifetimes (e.g., raising children here). I'm 45. For my whole life, every issue around infrastructure is politicized between retirees on a fixed income who are not willing to pay taxes for infrastructure from which they will largely not benefit and younger people who want more infrastructure (e.g., because they have jobs to go to and would like better roads or they have children and would like better schools). The baby boomers and other retirees simply outnumber the active citizens, so such measures get voted down. These demographics are changing, but it will still be decades before matters improve.

I've never heard the idea floated of denying the right to vote to state residents. That's pretty reactionary

I don't think such a proposal would get any support. I'm not even sure it's a good idea. But I do think it is a useful gedankenexperiment. The political franchise should not be given to those with no skin in the game.

You have reinvented Jim Crow laws, one of our greatest national shames. The fact that you think this is OK is fucking horrifying.

I meant this in the same vein as Swift's "Modest Proposal" to prompt discussion. You can be less fucking horrified.

So you were just trolling. Why bother?

A Modest Proposal was humorously highlighting a real problem.

I am sincere in my attempt to humorously highlight a real problem.

I think that's one of the arguments for originally only allowing property owners to vote.

Search "voter suppression" for what's being done now in this regard.

This is an interesting idea; it would certainly appeal to Bay Area NIMBYs.

They find themselves in essentially the opposite position as what you describe. They are more organized and actually vote, despite being (presumably) vastly outnumbered by transplants in the Bay Area.

But, this is theoretically the process "working". Power goes to people who show up. So it doesn't really matter what people want if they don't bother to take part in the political process. (Or if they vote fair and square and are just not in the majority)

There are minority protections in our system. But, it's really tough to get them right. For example, rules that were supposed to protect the minority in the Bay Area are now being used to block any housing development or infrastructure projects.

But, I'm honestly interested to hear your thoughts. Why should we weigh living in a place for a long time heavier? Isn't the retirees voting down infrastructure serving the needs of the majority of residents (by keeping taxes low)?

You make a good point that it is the will of the majority. I just think it isn't fair to the children who attend overcrowded schools and the people who have to get to jobs and want better roads.

The same (concerns) can be said of other ways of life though. For example, I live in an area that used to be basically all farmland. Slowly but surely, city people have moved out and crowded out all the farmers. Those new suburbanites voted/continue to vote to increase taxes for roads, rail, great schools, etc. But from the perspective of the farmer, I can imagine many of them are bitter that they had to sell their multi-generational family farm.

Given that and many other similar scenarios (ex. gentrified city neighborhoods), the broader problem is that...

- Different groups of people have different interests (some want low taxes, some high. some want single family houses with nice back yards, others mixed use walkable urban utopias)

- Groups (mostly ones with more money) can swiftly move to a new area and disrupt the previous political power structure

It's definitely possible that the old residents can move to a new place. In fact, I think that this is the only real answer.

Anything else comes off as a violation of people's basic rights. You can't really expect to take people's votes away. You can't really prevent people from selling their property to who they want (except in an HOA scenario).

Actually, maybe that is a way out. More aggressive HOA communities that make sure residents have a shared vision for their town.

That is a great counterexample. My inclination is to agree with you that the only equitable way to resolve such issues is more local government and less power at the state level.

Better yet: don't let anyone over 60 vote, regardless of where they're from. People don't get to vote for the first 18 years of their life, i suppose because they don't know enough to do so responsibly, so why should they get to vote in the last 18 years of their life, when they evidently don't care enough to do so responsibly?

I don't know. I think the residents here who have grandchildren and adult children who also live here are less likely to vote down any improvements.

That seems like a reasonable heuristic. I'm not really educated on the subject, but I think it has been used in the past (trust is conferred to countrymen with children, since they have skin in the game).

It fascinates me how much we hate our elderly when some societies did(/do?) consider them their most valuable minds. Are people living too long? Or maybe adults need restricted screen time too?

I am not sure who you mean by "we". I don't hate the elderly. Do you?

I think immigrant retirees to Florida are acting rationally, seeing a benefit in the free market of real estate and taxation regimes. I'm pointing out that this creates externalities and perverse incentives.

Actually... I think it comes from the "everyone fights for their own interests against others" - way of thinking. In Europe it's a bit different, I guess. Here, it's more about collaboration and the realization that society is a common ground that needs to be cared for.

As the saying goes, you can vote with your feet.

Yes, I could emigrate. That doesn't solve the problem I see with the region.

Extrapolate what the region looks like when everybody who can relocate elsewhere and get a better quality of life has done so.

It looks pretty much the same, in my estimation. The service industry employees remain to serve the retirees. The children of those employees continue to attend overcrowded schools.

Why do the service industry employees remain, if their kids can't go to good schools?

Because it costs a lot of money to to move, and poor people (service employees) don’t have that money.

> suggesting that we deny political franchise to immigrant residents (e.g., retirees).

You could do that if you seceded. Otherwise it sounds kind of disenfranchising. We already have too much of that going on in the U.S. for other kinds of prejudice.

Florida tried to secede once. In this part of the Land of the Free, I don’t think anybody wants a modern version of Sherman’s March to the Sea.

South Florida was unsettled marshland back then

Lots of Florida is still unsettled marshland. I don't see how a bigger population makes secession more viable.

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