Fishhawk Ranch..

[mary54mi]

Hillsborough county is currently upgrading and expanding the roads that lead in and out of Fishhawk Ranch. FH has adequate roads but getting there was so congested that they are now creating a 4 lanes on Boyette Rd. http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/pwprojects/pdf/InfoSheetPublicMtgBoyetteRd072010.pdf (broken link)

[MortonR]

There are several issues with Fishhawk, and none of them are new....

Traffic is nothing short of a nightmare. Unless you work from home or travel/commute at non-typical times, you better plan for a lengthy commute no matter where you are going. A development with many thousands of homes, and only two lane roads in and out, feeding to arterials that aren't much larger. Even during the non peak hours traffic, especially to the west via Bell Shoals and Boyette, will take you a good 10 minutes to get out of the immediate area.

Home values are good there, but be careful about the CCD fees, which are currently around $2,000 a year per home. These are not negotiable and will only go up over time. These are in addition to your property taxes, so you're already starting out with nearly $200/month in escrow.

There is definitely a caste system within the community. While the row houses that surround the now defunct community center are relatively inexpensive ($200k) they are considered the "slum" by many of the residents.

The schools are very good, but some redistricting needs to be done to alleviate the crowding at Fishhawk Creek, which has an enrollment well over 1000 at present. Bevis is much better, and Stowers, the newest school, is also lower.

The current construction project to expand the roads to the west are slated for completion by 2014, so this is not going to be a "quick fix" by any means.

Fishhawk is a nice community, but unless you can afford to live in one of the nicer areas, and don't have a situation that requires you to deal with the traffic, I would look elsewhere...

RM