A new residential development in Florida City is set to bring 446 homes to a vacant 77.1-acre site at the northeast corner of Southwest 336th Street and Southwest 192nd Avenue/Tower Road. Zamora Corporation, led by Rosa Zamora, is behind the project known as Old Town Floridian.
According to filings with Miami-Dade County and information on the project’s website, the development will include 178 villas, 160 townhomes, and 108 single-family homes. The homes are planned around two existing lakes on the property, which currently has an agricultural land-use designation.
To finance part of the infrastructure for this large-scale project, Zamora Corporation has established a Community Development District (CDD), a structure often used in Florida for similar developments. CDDs are quasi-governmental entities that help fund and maintain infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer systems, sidewalks, and other amenities. These districts are overseen by boards initially composed of representatives from the developer. They issue bonds that are repaid through special assessments paid first by developers and later by homebuyers.
Florida City commissioners approved the creation of the Old Town Floridian CDD in 2020, followed by approval from Miami-Dade County commissioners in 2021. Capital improvements within the district are projected to cost about $12 million, including $6.8 million for roads, $2.6 million for sanitary collection systems, nearly $2 million for water connections, and $937,000 for stormwater management. To support these costs, the CDD plans to issue an $8.6 million bond.
The use of CDDs has been common in Florida since the early 2000s for suburban housing projects across the state’s west coast. Major homebuilders like Lennar and D.R. Horton have frequently utilized this financing model.
Recently, South Florida has seen increased adoption of CDDs due to a surge in large-scale developments across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. For example, developers Art Falcone and Nitin Motwani partnered with CIM Group to establish a CDD for Miami Worldcenter—a $6 billion project spanning ten blocks in downtown Miami—which sold $74.1 million in tax-exempt bonds in 2017.
In another instance from 2023, Sunrise city commissioners approved a CDD for Metropica at 1800 Northwest 136th Street in Sunrise—a master-planned community with up to 3,300 residential high-rise units—allowing developer Joseph Kavana to issue up to $65 million in bonds for infrastructure improvements on part of the site.
Additionally in Sunrise, officials approved creation of the Solterra Community Development District to help finance infrastructure for Armando Codina and Jim Carr’s planned 900-home project at 7400 Northwest 24th Place.
“CDDs are quasi-governmental agencies installed to help pay for the construction and maintenance of roads, water and sewer pipes, sidewalks and other infrastructure at massive developments,” according to Zamora’s filings.
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