Ranch IDA advances plans for website

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Even before Eva Rey was offered her position as the executive director of Lakewood Ranch Town Hall, she knew communication would be at the top of her priority list if she got the job.

“When I was researching the community, I was surprised to find no governance website,” Rey said. “Here I was trying to research the community, read governance documents — they are public records — and I couldn’t access it unless I was a resident.”

Three months after starting her new job, Rey officially has garnered support from CDD supervisors to move forward with creating a new governance website, www.lakewoodranchgov.org.

Supervisors on the Inter-District Authority Board voted Oct. 20 to contract with Association Voice for Web-hosting services. After the new site is launched in January, it will provide information about Lakewood Ranch’s CDDs, HOAs, governance structure and more.

“This is part of that process to provide better communication between HOAs, the CDDs and residents,” IDA Chairman Tom Green said. “This is a major objective of the IDA.”

The site also will have a link to Lakewood Ranch Community Activities Corp.’s website to address the social aspect of the community.

“We’re working closely with (Community Activities) to make sure all (Lakewood Ranch’s) clubs’ needs are met,” Rey said. “We’ve got a couple of ideas floating around (about how to do it), and we need to vet those.”

Town Hall will host several public workshops, likely in December, Rey said, to discuss the website and its format with residents.

Rey said Lakewood Ranch’s CDDs currently have no official governance website in place. A contract with Resident Interactive, the company responsible for Digital Village, is between Resident Interactive and Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch. As the districts and HOAs have no contract with the company, Rey said, they have no rights to information contained within the site.

If Digital Village is replaced, Rey said she expects to save about $60,000 annually, although less the first year.

Lakewood Ranch’s homeowners associations have shown support for the new site, but ultimately the HOA boards will decide whether their residents will continue paying $10 annually for Digital Village or end services with the company.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].