This has nothing to do with the Developer or unsold lots. Please take the time to watch the presentation linked above to learn how this maintenance fee works and where the increase is coming from.

The developer has done a great job building this place but he is a businessman first.

Thanks! Screen scraped the text below:


The Developer will pay an additional $1.8 million to the Eastport CDD through the Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee and $200,000 to the Middleton Downtown CDD through the Middleton Maintenance
Advisory Committee.

The extra contribution will allow for the number of households in each of the districts to catch up to the amount of new infrastructure being turned over to the districts for maintenance, Blocker said.

The original proposed budget for CDD 14, which includes the villages of Newell, Lake Denham and Dabney, included $2.4 million in maintenance assessments, an increase of $864,000.

The maintenance assessment for Middleton residents was originally budgeted at about $2.1 million, an increase of $480,000.

Residents in CDD 15, which includes the villages of Moultrie Creek and Shady Brook as well as future villages of Well Point, Waters Edge, Lakeside, Edenfield, Oak Hollow and LaGrange, will be paying a maintenance assessment for the first time on their tax bills this year.

The final budgets for all community development districts will be approved following public hearings in September.

The Middleton CDD board meets at 10 a.m. Sept. 6 at Everglades Recre-ation, 5497 Marsh Bend Trail.

The CDD 14 meeting is 1 p.m.
Sept. 12, followed by CDD 15 at 2 p.m., both at Everglades Recreation.

Managing Editor Keith Pearlman can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5347, keith.pearlman@

Did the links not work for you?

They were good - thanks again

Some people don't click on links, or have problems with PDF files - trying to help.

The turnover is from The Developer to the residents. The increase is based on the added infrastructure. A year ago, CDD 14 was Newell and a relatively small amount of Lake Denham. They are complete now - as is Dabney. So now there are more ponds, more grass, more weed killer...

I agree with you, it shouldn’t be relevant and I have been trying to figure out the logic behind this additional contribution. I had a conversation with Mr. Blocker yesterday morning about this, he compared it to the turnover of the Hogeye preserve area in CDD12 a few years ago where the increase was deferred over a 3 year period, but it’s not the same thing. I’m still trying to put the pieces together on this one and have a few more stones to turn over.

Some things are certain:
1) this is only a deferral of the increase, the developer won’t pay it again, so an increase will come again next year.
2) next year there will be an outcry over the increase and people will expect the same or greater contribution by the developer again.
3) no matter what the developer does, nothing is ever good enough for some people, as is evident by many of the posts on this thread and elsewhere.

These costs will go up 5-20% a year simply on rising maintenance costs - CDD 13 was 15% this year. The reason this is a one-time fix is next year the Developer will not have financial control - the CDD will. By then, the CDD will be comprised of 5 residents of CDD 14 (I believe CDD 15 went up 18%). The maintenance fee after the 56% would have been (for my house) $837 a year ($70 a month). This is $4 more than CDD 13. I hope the increases are limited to 20% as we "catch up" and they are maintaining the quality as much as possible.

I understand why the increase, I don't understand what it has to do with "population". The cost is the cost, regardless of how many people live there.

You mean maintenance of fairly new facilities that because the houses aren’t all sold the fees are distributed over fewer number of residents.

The cost is shared by the people who live there less people the higher the cost. What I don’t understand is why did we take them over before the area was built out.

The more people there are that use something, the more wear and tear it gets.
The hope is that the increased revenue from the increased number of people offsets that. When it does not due to bad inflation from the last 3 years, the fee has to go up to cover it.

It’s kind of like when they sent out those stimulus checks during the Covid era. People thought it would never end. Much like a dependency. So your #2 comment makes perfect sense and my guess ToTV will be the ‘beneficiary’ of that outcry!

Please watch Don Wiley's video on this subject before you post so you actually understand what the fee is, why it went up, etc. He explains things pretty clearly, especially in the Q&A section where he answers EVERY QUESTION! I sent a PM to him asking if we're paying for the "family district, schools, and Eastport commercial areas." I also asked if each CDD pays its own way once established or do we share cost with all future CDDs, and he kindly sent the following reply:

"The commercial CDDs also will pay into EMAC. Family CDDs are not a part of the EMAC, neither are the schools. Each member CDD pays a proportional amount of the total EMAC expenses. Costs will ultimately go up due to inflation, the goal is to mitigate the impacts by volume buying. If they were to do away with EMAC you would see a large increase due to higher contract costs and higher administrative overhead costs. The risk mitigation of EMAC is the big winner for all - if there's a huge expense (fire, lightning strike, sink hole, etc) that occurs with the EMAC serviced properties then that risk/cost is spread to all districts. while you may pay a little more next year because something happens in another CDD under EMAC, if it happens in your CDD the next year you don't have to absorb all the costs, it keeps the assessment from yo-yoing every year."

Whether landowner elected when the only landowner is the Developer or landowner elected when the landowners are the homeowners or resident elected, the CDD is in control of the finances now and will be in the future. I don't know when the residency requirement kicks in for the supervisors but sure, it's likely they are not all residents now.

This is a one-time fix because it was a generous donation by the Developer. The Developer could donate again next year but that would be even more surprising than this donation.

Maintenance fees do not increase every year. My fee increased last year and will not be increasing this year. I have no idea what might happen next year. They increase as expenses change. My guess is CDD13 had not increased in a few years. CDD14 is relatively new and this might be their first increase. From the looks of the assessment documentation, CDD15 may not have had a fee last year (may not have existed).