Paver Installation in The Villages, FL

The Villages is a census-designated place of 79,077 people at the 2020 count, up from 51,442 in 2010, spread across 32.65 square miles and three counties at once - Sumter, Marion and Lake. It runs on roughly 750 miles of private road plus a separate network of multi-modal paths, and at least 80 percent of homes must have a resident aged 55 or older. That combination produces a very specific hardscape market. Almost every home has a lanai, a large share have screen enclosures and pools, nearly all have a golf cart that needs somewhere to sit, and the housing stock is uniform enough that the same four or five paver problems repeat across thousands of addresses.

The rule layer is what makes this different from any other town nearby. Exterior modifications go through an Architectural Review Committee for the district the home sits in, and the published manuals are specific. In the manual covering Districts 13, 14 and 15 - the Villages of Southern Oaks inside Wildwood city limits - walkway extensions are capped at a maximum of six feet wide, extensions have to be affixed to the walkway or driveway the developer originally built, front walkways may be widened only to the width of the front entryway and not pushed toward the street, patio villas may widen a driveway no more than two feet on each side, and courtyard villa driveway extensions are not permitted except on end lots.

Three Counties, Seventeen Districts, and a Manual That Decides How Wide Your Driveway Gets

Which manual applies to you is a function of your street, not your postal address. The community is administered through seventeen community development districts, and each residential district publishes its own architectural review manual with its own numbers. The Southern Oaks manual covering Districts 13, 14 and 15 caps a golf cart garage driveway at six feet wide. The manual for the Lady Lake and Lake County side sets the maximum permissible width of a golf cart garage door at eight feet and states that the committee does not review applications for driveway painting, coating or pavers on standard homes at all. Both manuals permit driveways and walkways to be painted or paved, both restrict colour to what is similar to the surrounding neighbourhood, and both prohibit hot, electric, neon or bright colours. Getting the right manual first is the difference between an approved plan and a modification you have to take back out.

Timing has its own rules. Architectural Review Committee groups meet weekly on Wednesdays, results are posted on the district website the following Friday after 2 p.m., and the manuals state that an approved application is valid for nine months from the date of approval with one request for additional time available. Nine months sounds generous until you factor in a snowbird calendar and a wet season. An approval granted in March for a pool deck can expire while the household is north for the summer and the installer is working around June-to-September afternoon storms. The practical sequence in The Villages is to have the layout drawn against the survey first, submit that drawing, and schedule the work inside the approved window rather than applying and then deciding what you actually want built. Community Standards handles the applications and can be reached at 352-751-3912.

See The Villages, FL on Google Maps — we cover the whole area from Wildwood.