I for one cannot wait to watch your progress on this project. Please keep us posted with pictures!
While I personally would love to have access to water and boats like this, I wouldn't want to be crammed in with a bunch of neighbors competing with these same resources with their own opinions on how/when it should be used. Just not my bag, I like my privacy. It just makes me think of a small version of a Disney resort I wound't mind visiting, but living there full-time would get old quick for me. I am sure and know others who would enjoy this.
I was thinking about the white sand issue: you have something going good for you, is the wave action from the boats. The waves will keep the sand more or less clear. However, the sand will also move despite the shallow 1:16 slope. I was wondering if there was a product like a plastic erosion material, cell-like, that could be laid down to contain the sand. Place that down, and lay enough sand to cover it up, but the sand can never wash away below the surface of this material, preventing subsoil from being exposed and ruining the water quality.
I understand your sentiments on population density, but I think you'd be very surprised how it actually feels.
First, the lots with homes on them will average 0.5+ acres. Some are 1.5-6.0acres. There are some smaller lots that are only 0.30-0.33 acres, but many of these won't be built on. They will be purchased as a daytrip getaway for non-resident owners. So the feeling in the end is actually that of reasonably large homes on large lots with a lot of space in between them because the average lot size is already larger than normal suburban subdivisions, and the fully landscaped but vacant lots feel like extra parks and green space.
Second, there will not be a theme park feel. It isn't a free for all where everyone is waiting in line to get a ride. We use sophisticated scheduling applications that allow people to make reservations for their sets, but disallow anyone from commandeering the boats for extended periods or numerous peak usage times. For example, sets are 15 minutes long and cost $20 each (to pay for fuel, equipment, driver, etc). The usage fee alone prevents a large amount of scheduling abuse because blocking out hours a day gets expensive. A single household can only initiate 3 reserved sets more than 2 weeks out, at the standard rate. 4 sets within 1 week. 5 sets within 2 days. Additionally, you can only schedule 30 minutes consecutive time without at least a 30 minute gap between reservations.
A resident is able to exceed these limits, but will pay a large premium to do so. For example, your kid is having a Sweet 16 party on July 7th and wants to do a boating/pool party out of the lakeside clubhouse. You want to block out 4 hours of boat time from 11am-3pm during the party. 45 minutes of that can be pre-booked for $60, but then the fee will increase at a rapid rate for each additional consecutive 15 minute set. Hypothetically, $40 for the 4th set, $60 for the 5th, $80 for the 6th, etc... in the end it would cost a bit over $2k for the blocked out time. Similarly, a resident can prebook 2 sets every Sat 10-10:30am, but would have to pay a significant premium to block everyone else off that slot for the whole season.
It's actually more sophisticated than that in reality, because the app adjusts for peak demand and low demand. So the rate of increase is slower in low times and higher during peak times. We've done extensive analysis of other lakes throughout the nation. Even at this population density, you'll still be able to get 80-100 hours of boat time per season if you want at the standard rates. That is a ton of boat time when you don't spend any of it cruising around in search of smooth water, and you don't have to spend any time trailering, docking, fueling, washing, etc. That many hours would be similar in experience to taking the family out boating for a full day twice a week for the entire summer.
