An HOA fee and a CDD fee are two different bills, and many newer communities in Central Florida have both. The HOA is a private homeowners association you pay directly. The CDD is a Community Development District, a unit of local government created under Chapter 190 of the Florida Statutes, and its fee appears on your property tax bill as a separate line.
Buyers from outside Florida almost never know the second one exists until they see the tax bill. Here is what it is and how to account for it.
What a CDD is
When a developer builds a large new community, the roads, water and sewer lines, stormwater ponds, and amenities like the clubhouse and pool have to be paid for. In Florida, a common way to do that is for the developer to set up a Community Development District, a special-purpose government that issues bonds to build the infrastructure. The people who buy homes in the district then repay those bonds, plus the ongoing cost of running the district, through an assessment on their property.
It is, in effect, a loan on the neighborhood that you take on a share of when you buy in.
The two parts of the fee
- Debt service. Your share of repaying the bonds. This part is fixed, has an end date, often 20 to 30 years from when the bonds were issued, and can sometimes be paid off early in a lump sum.
- Operations and maintenance. The cost of running what the district built: the ponds, the common areas, the amenities. This part continues after the bonds are paid off, and it can rise.
Where it shows up
The CDD assessment is collected on your annual property tax bill as a non-ad valorem assessment, meaning it is a flat charge rather than a percentage of your home's value. If you have a mortgage, your lender will usually escrow it along with your taxes, so it lands in your monthly payment. This is why a home with a CDD can have a monthly cost well above what the price and the HOA dues alone would suggest.
The HOA fee is separate. It goes to the association, not the tax collector, and it covers what the association runs: enforcement of the covenants, landscaping of common areas, sometimes a gate or a pool of its own. A community can have an HOA with no CDD, a CDD with no HOA, or both.
Where you will find them
CDDs are a feature of newer, larger planned communities. In Orange County, Baldwin Park sits inside one, the Urban Orlando Community Development District, and so does Lake Nona, where the Boggy Creek Improvement District plays the same role. Vista Lakes on the east side has one as well. In Volusia County, Victoria Park in DeLand carries a district assessment. Not every planned community does: Avalon Park, for example, has an HOA but no CDD. They are rare in the established 1970s and 1980s neighborhoods of Oviedo, Winter Springs and Casselberry, which were built before this financing model became common. Our pages on Orlando and DeBary flag it for those areas. If you are not sure whether a home you are looking at has one, or what it would add to your monthly payment, we can help you figure that out.