Florida’s largest retirement community won the approval of a new plat at Monday’s meeting of the Leesburg Commission.
The approval of Plat No. 84 will allow The Villages to build an additional 121 homes.
The parcel, known as the Villages of West Lake, is located north of County Road 470 near the Florida Turnpike and eventually will contain up to 2,800 homes. It sits next to the Villages of Southern Oaks in Wildwood, where The Villages Land Company has been cleared to build up to 26,950 homes on 13,637 acres.
Construction is expected to cost between $900 million to $1.2 billion. Once completed, the city should annually collect $4.5 million in property taxes. The city is planing to use new tax dollars to expand the police department as well as to fund an increase in the number of city employees to handle the increased population. The city expects the Villages of West Lake will be finished and the property taxes on the new homes will be available beginning in 2024 as they are sold.
Previously, Leesburg, with a 2016 population of 22,419, had seen an average of 176 homes built every year for the past 15 years.
