A resident from Ocala recently submitted a letter to share her thoughts and concerns regarding the topic of Ocala/Marion County’s growth.
“We moved here to Ocala in 2021 from beautiful and diverse Hunterdon County, New Jersey. We lived there 37 years, raised our family, and watched it grow from being safe and peaceful with five-acre zoned housing, horse country, farms, and wine country into five times the population with crowded townhouses on top of each other, traffic, overbuilt commercial store fronts (most are now empty and neglected), crowded low-income housing, too many cars, pollution, and soaring private home prices.
We moved to Ocala for beautiful countrysides, horses, the World Equestrian Center, quiet people, diversity, and pride in homes. Now we hear that our access road of SW 60th/SW 80th Avenue, which has horse farms and more than enough traffic, will be adding hundreds of additional houses. Should this come to pass, we will be leaving in a year or so.
We are active seniors, own horses, and love this community. We deal with the current State Road 200 nightly drag races, the local crime issues, and taking 50 minutes to go 8 miles during rush hour. But I did not sign up for two-story crowded houses looking into my house, taking 15 minutes to get out of our development, road rage, constant traffic, more crime, etc. All of this so builders can fit 100 cheaply built houses onto 50 acres.
I pray this doesn’t happen, but there is always someone with more money that waves it in the face of county politicians who will build until the county bursts. Cities and apartments are where hoards of people choose to live. When they gather their earnings and decide to move to the countryside, I pray there will still be beauty and a countryside to go to.
My husband and I grew up in crowded New York City, worked all our lives, and lived with crime (surrounded by crime and victims of crime). We earned the ability to choose where we wanted to raise our family and, eventually, where we would retire. It isn’t fair to kill the options of how and where to live for the generations that follow. God bless and help beautiful Marion County.”
Catherine Alfonzo
Ocala resident
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