Avalon Park is the BEST!

[eastorlandolife]

Juana,
I feel your frustration. Many people consider other communities as if they are part of Avalon Park.
From Colonial and heading down Avalon Parkway, there are several communities passed before you reach Avalon Park. The ones off the top of my head are:
The new 'luxury' apartment homes, The Reserve Apartments (sec. 8), Waterford Trails, Waterford Lakes East, Spring Isles, Avalon Lakes, and the Timber Springs development. Not until you pass each of these, do you reach Avalon Park.
I am a Realtor and I do blame other Realtors, in part, for the miscommunication. On several occasions do I see a home listed as if it were located in Avalon Park, when really it is in Avalon Lakes- 2 totally separate communities designed by 2 different developers.

[surfer boy]

Avalon Park is nice, and most of its surroundings, even if it isnt "IN" Avalon Park because one hasnt crossed the circle yet. But either way, it has good points and it has it's bad. A police presense is needed. And I live outside of the "circle" and I pay just as much property taxes as the next person, and the Toll Brothers houses are just as nice as the one's the Ryland built "IN" Avolon Park. The only difference is I live a little closer to 50/Colonial and the Avalon Reserver Apts, which, by the way, someone was murdered at lastweek.

[davidalf]

I spent several years researching an area to relocate to from New York City. Avalon Park offers an excellent blend of diversity, design (TND) and it is fairly close to places of work. I am used to commuting 1 hour + which is fairly common in large cities. Until you have lived in a "LARGE" metropolitan area it is hard to appreciate what a wonderful community AP IS and WILL BE.

I am concerned over some of the comments people have made on these boards regarding "Section 8" tenants. I understand their concern about "white flight" and influx of crime but this is truly a mis-understanding of the underlying issues. The days of concentrated poverty are gone. No city planner with any competence would approve a subsidized housing project that is not mixed income. Current social research indicates that mixed income housing helps the high need tenants, specially children. We need people of all income levels to live in a neighborhood. Many parts of the country, Dade and Broward County, for example are struggling with finding and retaining city employees due to high cost of housing. This is called "work force housing". Unfortunately, the lack of education in our civic leaders and ignorance of old time residents of Florida have prevented them from making progress. Hence, Borward counties population decrease of 70,000 people last year. Consider the implications of a population implosion to central Florida.

We can no longer design cities that segregate populations by race, income and level of education. I recommend doing some reading regarding what the future of america's city planning will look like so you can be better prepared. Here's a good site on TND that would be helpful.

Lesson 6: Neo-Traditional Neighborhood Design

p.s. I own several properties and some of my tenants are section 8. I much prefer sec. 8 tenants since the rent is always on time. It is VERY difficult to get on this program and tenants MUST follow strict guidelines to stay in it or they loose the voucher. What most of you are concerned with is housing projects that are no longer being built and are in fact being torn down accross the country, inlcuding in NY, where they are being phased out.

[RelocatorNYtoFL]

It's very unfortunate that the Realtors use these forums for marketing. We really need the honest truth... I'll probably live in a Hotel for a month and make my own decision... I believe traffic and those crimes are a concern...

[UofMGrad92]

Originally Posted by davidalf

I
p.s. I own several properties and some of my tenants are section 8. I much prefer sec. 8 tenants since the rent is always on time. It is VERY difficult to get on this program and tenants MUST follow strict guidelines to stay in it or they loose the voucher. What most of you are concerned with is housing projects that are no longer being built and are in fact being torn down accross the country, inlcuding in NY, where they are being phased out.

Take a look at this article.

American Murder Mystery

Section 8 might work for some people, but it seems the destruction of the housing projects and subsequent displacement of the residents to other areas has a detrimental affect on both the people and the areas they move to. It has taken a not so great area (Memphis, my hometown) and made it worse, and it would appear it is taking a very nice area (Orlando) and spreading crime in areas it never would have touched before in any significant way.

Oh well, guess there is no way to put that genie back in the bottle...