Mirada CDD and HOA Fees: What a Listing Price Misses

Two homes in Mirada list for close to the same price. Same builder tier, same square footage, same short walk to the lagoon. One of them will cost its owner a few hundred dollars more every month for as long as they hold the house. Nothing on the listing sheet tells you which one.

That gap doesn't come from a pricing mistake. It comes from how Mirada is actually built underneath the marketing. The community runs on two separate Community Development Districts, layers HOA dues differently depending on which section you buy into, and bills lagoon access through a company that has nothing to do with either district. Once you see that structure, you read every Mirada listing differently.

Mirada Runs on Two CDDs, Not One

Most buyers hear "CDD fee" and picture a single line item. Mirada has two districts: Mirada CDD and Mirada II CDD, each with its own budget and its own assessment schedule. The published FY2026 Mirada CDD budget lists a single-family annual assessment of $1,543.99 per unit. Separately, a Homes by WestBay disclosure for one of its Mirada product lines lists a CDD example of $3,723.03 annually, more than double the first figure, for a home in the same master plan.

Mirada II tells a similar story. Its adopted budget shows roughly $1,666.46 per equivalent residential unit for operations and maintenance alone, with debt-service add-ons reported in the $675 to $1,600 range depending on lot type. Add the two together and a Mirada II single-family assessment can land anywhere from about $2,300 to $3,300 a year, well above the base Mirada CDD figure.

None of these numbers is wrong. They describe different districts, different lot widths, and different points in each district's bond schedule. But if you're comparing one Mirada listing to another using price per square foot alone, you're missing the number that actually moves your monthly payment.

What Changes Once You Pick a Section

Mirada spans roughly 2,000 acres with a long-term plan for about 5,000 homes, split across townhomes, single-family homes, larger estate lots, and a dedicated 55-plus enclave. Builders including Casa Fresca Homes, Homes by WestBay, Lennar, D.R. Horton, Maronda Homes, DRB Homes, Dream Finders Homes, Ryan Homes, and LGI Homes each build within different sections, and each section carries its own fee stack on top of the CDD assessment.

Eagles Cove at Mirada is the estate-home section, built by DRB Homes with single-family homes starting from $549,990. Isla Mirada is DRB's gated townhome section, and it stacks fees in a way that surprises a lot of first-time Mirada buyers. On top of whichever CDD assessment applies to the lot, Isla Mirada owners pay a section-level townhome HOA reported around $300 or more per month as of July 2026, covering exterior grounds, structure maintenance, pest control, and cable or internet. Then there's a separate Mirada Master HOA, listed at $237.01 per quarter on the 2023 fee sheet, covering the master-planned common areas that sit outside any one section. A 2023 fee sheet for Isla Mirada townhomes showed CDD totals ranging from $950.51 a year, when only O&M was owed, up to $1,693.01, once debt service applied. Reporting from mid-2026 puts current totals higher than either 2023 figure.

Medley is Mirada's 55-plus section, with its own Medley Clubhouse, fitness areas, and recreational spaces built specifically for that age group. As with any Mirada section, ask what portion of its fees funds amenities only Medley residents use, separate from whatever CDD assessment applies to that part of the community.

Three sections, three different combinations of CDD, section HOA, and Master HOA. The listing price tells you almost nothing about which combination you're buying into.

The Lagoon Sends Its Own Bill

Here's the detail that catches even buyers who've done their CDD homework. The 15-acre Mirada Lagoon, the amenity the whole community is built around, is independently owned and operated. It is not part of any CDD assessment and not part of any HOA fee. Metro Places' own HOA and CDD disclosure sheet states this directly.

Practically, that means lagoon access shows up as a third, entirely separate charge. The 2023 fee sheet listed a $35 monthly membership fee plus tax, along with a one-time initiation fee of just over $1,000 plus tax for townhome buyers at closing. Whatever HOA dues and CDD assessment you've already budgeted for a Mirada home, the lagoon membership sits outside both, billed by a different entity on its own schedule. Confirm the current 2026 pricing before you assume access is bundled into anything you're already paying.

Why the Money Isn't Just Overhead

It's easy to treat CDD assessments as pure friction, a tax on living somewhere new. The mechanics explain why that framing misses something. A CDD assessment has two parts: a debt-service portion that repays the bonds used to build roads, utilities, and stormwater systems, and an operations and maintenance portion that funds ongoing upkeep. The debt portion is fixed by the bond schedule and eventually retires. The O&M portion is set by the district's board every year and tends to move up rather than down.

Right now, that O&M money is doing visible work. The Mirada CDD's own site notes that staff identified a void near pond 27 and brought in the district engineer for additional ground-penetrating radar testing before any repair work proceeds. The community's feature fountains are also mid-repair, with a tentative target, subject to change, of returning all but one fountain to full CDD operation by the coming January 1. Neither item is dramatic, but both show a district actively managing physical infrastructure rather than a name that only shows up on a tax bill.

Zoom out and the assessment starts to look less like overhead and more like a stake in a growing corridor. Mirada sits inside Pasco County's Connected City program, and in 2022 the county approved Pasco Town Center about three miles away: a 965-acre project set to bring 4.7 million square feet of industrial and corporate office space and nearly 6,000 jobs to the area, with the developer's stated target of completing construction by December 2028. That kind of investment doesn't guarantee anything about a specific home's resale value. It does mean the infrastructure your CDD dollars help fund sits inside a part of Pasco County the county itself is actively building around.

Before You Write an Offer

The fix for all of this isn't avoiding Mirada. It's asking for the right documents before you get attached to a floor plan.

• Ask which CDD district the exact lot falls under, Mirada CDD or Mirada II, and request a buyer-specific assessment letter rather than relying on a builder's general community example
• Get the current HOA structure in writing for that section, including whether a section-level HOA sits on top of the Mirada Master HOA
• Price the lagoon membership separately, including the current monthly fee and any initiation cost due at closing
• Ask whether the CDD's debt-service portion has been prepaid on that lot, since a prepaid bond changes the math for whoever buys next
• Check the non-ad valorem assessment section of the county tax bill for the address, which is where the CDD figure actually shows up

A Few Follow-Up Questions

Does the CDD assessment ever go away? The debt-service portion retires once the bonds are paid off, typically over 20 to 30 years. The operations and maintenance portion continues for as long as the district exists and is reset annually.

Is lagoon membership required if I buy in Mirada? Lagoon membership is billed separately from HOA and CDD fees by an independent operator. Confirm current terms directly, since access and pricing can differ from what a builder's marketing materials imply.

Why do two Mirada listings quote different CDD numbers for what looks like the same product? They may sit in different districts, on different lot widths, or at different points in each district's bond schedule. A builder's posted example is a reference point, not a guarantee for a specific lot.

Where do I verify the actual number for a specific address? The non-ad valorem assessments section of the Pasco County property tax bill shows the current CDD total for that parcel. The Pasco County Tax Collector's office also publishes background on how CDD collections work countywide, and the Mirada CDD's own site posts current district updates and budget information.

Mirada's lagoon and its "starting in the $200s" headline get the attention. The district structure underneath is what actually decides your monthly number. If you're comparing Mirada to another Pasco community, or comparing one Mirada section to another, that's the math worth running before you fall for a floor plan.

Ashley Albertson and the team at Platinum Property Collective work Mirada listings section by section, CDD letter by CDD letter, so the number you plan around is the number you actually pay. Schedule a free consultation to walk through a specific address before you write an offer.