Botanica Lakes

Botanica Lakes is 685 detached houses behind a gate on Botanica Lakes Boulevard, off Treeline Avenue in Fort Myers, Lee County. No condominiums, no villas, no townhouses, nothing above two stories. GL Homes built them between 2006 and 2014, and no vacant residential lot is left, so you are buying a resale here. With 2 to 6 bedrooms each, floor plans open near 1300 square feet and stop about 3850. Prices span the $270,000s up to around $650,000.

Plan on around $400 a month. That is what the association publishes as its monthly assessment, identical for every house. The sameness is structural: with the builder's last house conveyed, the recorded declaration splits operating expenses equally across every completed lot.

What does the monthly assessment cover?

The association publishes the list itself. Bulk cable and internet, alarm monitoring, the guarded entry, professional management on site. Then the amenities, street lights and street maintenance, and lawn and landscape care for each house as well as the common ground.

The streets are private. The association owns and maintains them, along with the entry, the lakes and preserve tracts it holds, and the recreation tract.

The cable, internet and alarm aren't optional, and the recorded declaration is why. It puts the cost of any bundled television, internet and alarm agreement the association signs on every completed lot, split equally. The sales application asks for a transfer fee of around $150, and a lease registration asks the same. The rest of what is due at closing comes back on the association's estoppel.

What do you get with a lake lot?

Half the houses, 343 of the 685, sit on a lake lot, which carries a right the other half doesn't have. It runs with the lot, not with living here. "Lake Lot Owners and their family members, guests, invitees and tenants shall be permitted to operate non-motorized and electric watercraft in the Lakes. No other persons shall be entitled to operate watercraft in the Lakes." Eighteen feet is the length cap, and the boat launches from that owner's own lot. Boats and trailers can't be stored in view.

Fishing is open to the whole community, catch and release only, from the lake easement beside your own lot or a lake edge backing onto common grass. "Swimming and the operation of fuel-powered watercraft in the lakes are prohibited." Alligators are present, and the association names May and June as mating season.

What is at the clubhouse?

One single-story building of about 8,900 square feet, built in 2008, on a 6.8-acre recreation tract at 10300 Botanica Lakes Boulevard. In and around it: a fitness center, a yoga and dance studio, a social hall, a game room with billiard tables, locker rooms and dry saunas. Also on the tract: a resort pool, a spa, a splash pad, a playground, four pickleball courts, basketball and tennis courts, and a bike and jog path.

That clubhouse and the guardhouse are the only buildings on association land, and there's no second gate. A private pool comes with 152 of the houses.

How does the gate work?

A guardhouse stands at the entrance, a small 2006 building the association owns and says is staffed around the clock. Two things in the declaration belong in the same breath. "The gatehouse and/or entry gate(s), if any, may or may not be staffed, as determined in the sole discretion of the Association," the declaration says. And every owner acknowledges this: "The Owners acknowledge that the gatehouse and entry gate(s) are designed only to restrict vehicular access to Botanica Lakes and will not be able to prevent crime."

Can you rent out a house at Botanica Lakes?

Yes, four times in any twelve months, and the shape of that limit matters more than the number. "Of the four (4) times that an Owner may rent the Home in any twelve (12) month period, three (3) of such rental periods shall be for a minimum lease term of thirty (30) days, and the fourth lease term shall be for a minimum of six (6) months." So it is neither a thirty-day minimum nor a six-month one, but both in that proportion.

The whole house or nothing, with no sub-letting and no letting a room. An application, a fee and the lease go in before the tenant moves in. Gate access cards stop working fifteen days after the lease on file ends.

What else do the rules control?

Three more things before you offer:

• Parking. Garages and driveways only, and no boat or commercial vehicle outside overnight unless it is in a closed garage. Florida law caps that, and the association cannot stop an owner, tenant or guest parking a personal vehicle in the driveway, pickup truck included.
• Pets. Ordinary house pets are allowed, but "Under no circumstances shall a Pit Bull or Dangerous Dog be permitted on the Property," and Dangerous Dog is a category the declaration defines.
• Selling. No "For Sale", "For Rent" or "By Owner" sign is allowed. "Open House Events may only be held on Saturdays and Sundays, during normal business hours of 8am-4pm."

Most of Botanica Lakes is not houses. Roughly a hundred acres is preserve, buffer and conservation land the association owns, with 32 acres of lake by its count threaded through the rest. Nothing may be dumped in the preserve, and the berries growing there are not for picking.