Two buyers tour the same floor plan at Avenir on the same Saturday. Same builder, same square footage, same advertised HOA due of around $300 a month. One of them ends up with a monthly housing payment that's roughly $200 higher than the other's, and neither the sales rep nor the listing sheet explained why before they signed.
The gap isn't a builder markup or a lender error. It's the Avenir Community Development District, the special taxing entity that finances the roads, lakes, and amenities across this 4,752-acre master-planned community in Palm Beach Gardens, and it charges buyers differently depending on the lot itself, not the house sitting on it.
The HOA Fee Is Only Half the Bill
Every enclave inside Avenir, whether it's Toll Brothers' 55+ community Regency, GL Homes' family-oriented Apex, DiVosta's Avondale, Akel Homes' Solana Bay, or Kenco's Coral Isles, carries its own monthly HOA due. Market reporting on those dues puts most enclaves somewhere between $258 and $416 a month, which is the number that shows up on the listing and in the MLS field buyers scan first.
What doesn't show up in that field is the Avenir CDD assessment, a separate, mandatory charge that appears on the Palm Beach County property tax bill as a non-ad valorem line item rather than a monthly statement. The Avenir Community Development District was established on January 5, 2017 by Palm Beach Gardens City Ordinance 17, 2017, under Chapter 190 of the Florida Statutes, and it's run by a five-member Board of Supervisors elected by residents within the district. Its fiscal year runs October 1 through September 30, and the assessments it levies are split into two pieces: an operations and maintenance charge that funds landscaping, stormwater lakes, and district facilities every year, and a debt service charge that repays the bonds issued to build the community's infrastructure in the first place.
That infrastructure isn't abstract. The district's own financing paid for the roads, entry features, and wetland mitigation work that make Avenir look finished before a single closing happens, and it's the same mechanism that funded the Avenir Town Center, which opened this past summer with more than 200,000 square feet of retail anchored by a Publix that opened in May, alongside Walgreens, H&H Bagels, and close to 20 businesses total, all reachable by golf cart.
Why Lot Width Changes the Math
Here's the part that catches buyers off guard during due diligence: the CDD doesn't charge a flat rate per house. The district's own fiscal year 2025/2026 budget shows assessments that vary by parcel and, in some cases, by lot width, which means a 60-foot lot and a 70-foot lot in the same enclave can carry meaningfully different annual CDD loads even under identical floor plans.
Reported figures for that per-home charge vary depending on the source and the phase of the community you're looking at. Some market reporting puts the CDD's annual bond assessment as high as $3,400 to $8,800 per home depending on lot, while other estimates cite a narrower $1,200 to $3,500 range. Both can be accurate at once, because Avenir hasn't financed its infrastructure in one lump sum. The district raised $95.77 million in tax-exempt bonds in 2021 to fund the original build-out, and additional bond series have since been issued for newer parcels as the community expands, including a 2024 series tied to Parcel A-18, developed by Kenco Communities at Avenir II. A buyer closing on an original-phase home and a buyer closing on a newly released parcel are, in effect, repaying different debt with different payoff timelines, which is exactly why one flat "Avenir CDD fee" doesn't exist.
What This Looks Like on Paper
| Community layer | Recurring cost | What it actually covers |
|---|---|---|
| Enclave HOA (Apex, Avondale, Solana Bay, Coral Isles, etc.) | Roughly $258 to $416 per month | Neighborhood landscaping, gated entry, deed restriction enforcement |
| Avenir CDD assessment | Roughly $1,200 to $8,800 per year, billed on the property tax bill | Bond repayment for roads and infrastructure, plus ongoing O&M for lakes, trails, and common areas |
| Panther National club membership (custom estate homes only) | $500,000 initiation ($400,000 for Panther National homeowners), plus dues in the low $30,000s annually | Access to the Jack Nicklaus and Justin Thomas-designed course and the 55,000-square-foot clubhouse opening this fall |
For context, HOA dues elsewhere in Palm Beach Gardens, in communities that were never built with CDD financing, generally run in the $350 to $700 monthly range with no separate district assessment at all. That's the real comparison a buyer needs before assuming Avenir's advertised HOA due is competitive with the rest of the city. It might be lower on paper and still cost more once the CDD line lands on the tax bill.
The Incentive That Expires
Builders inside Avenir know this confusion works against them at the closing table, so some have started offsetting it directly. DiVosta has advertised paying the majority of the CDD fees on homes at Avondale at Avenir for a limited time, a promotion explicitly tied to current inventory rather than a permanent community-wide waiver. That's worth flagging to any buyer comparing incentives across enclaves: a builder credit that covers your CDD assessment this year says nothing about what you'll owe once the promotional window closes, because the underlying bond obligation is attached to the parcel, not the sale.
The bond portion of a CDD assessment retires over roughly 20 to 30 years and eventually drops off the tax bill entirely. The operations and maintenance portion never expires. It gets set annually by the district's board and can increase from one fiscal year to the next.
Why This Matters Before You Get to Underwriting
Florida Statute 190.048 requires that any initial sales contract for property inside a CDD disclose the district status and the outstanding bond balance attributable to that specific parcel. That disclosure exists for a reason: lenders count CDD assessments, alongside HOA dues, as part of a borrower's monthly housing obligation when calculating debt-to-income ratio. A higher CDD load on one lot versus another can move the maximum loan amount a buyer qualifies for, sometimes without either the buyer or the agent catching it until the file is already in underwriting. And unlike a homestead exemption, which caps how much a property's assessed value can rise for tax purposes, a CDD's non-ad valorem assessment isn't reduced by homestead status. It's billed the same whether the home is a primary residence or not.
Before You Write an Offer at Avenir
- Ask for the specific parcel's current CDD assessment, not a community-wide estimate, since lot width and phase both affect the number
- Confirm whether any advertised CDD credit from the builder is temporary or built into the base price permanently
- Request the outstanding bond balance for that parcel, which the seller or builder is required to disclose under Florida Statute 190.048
- If you're looking at a custom estate near Panther National, separate the golf club's initiation and dues from the HOA and CDD entirely. They're billed by different entities for different purposes
- Share the CDD and HOA figures with your lender before writing an offer, not after, since both factor into your debt-to-income calculation at preapproval
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Sign
Does the CDD assessment ever go away? The bond portion does, once the underlying debt is retired, typically 20 to 30 years after issuance. The operations and maintenance portion continues for as long as the district operates.
Can I prepay the bond to get rid of it faster? Some CDDs allow a lump-sum bond payoff, but it's a district-specific process handled through the Avenir CDD directly, and it doesn't touch the O&M portion of your assessment either way.
Is club membership required if I buy near Panther National? The golf club and the HOA/CDD are separate obligations billed by separate entities. Confirm directly with the specific enclave and builder whether membership is mandatory for that parcel before assuming the club cost is optional.
Avenir is one of the more transparent master-planned communities in Palm Beach Gardens about where its fees come from, since the district publishes its budgets and bond documents publicly. The challenge isn't secrecy. It's that the real number lives across three different documents, a listing sheet, a tax bill, and a bond disclosure, and most buyers only see the first one before they fall in love with a floor plan.
If you're comparing homes in Avenir or anywhere else across Palm Beach Gardens and want the full carrying-cost picture before you write an offer, Stacey Carey can walk through the parcel-specific numbers with you. Let's connect.
