Westchase CDD Fees: What Homebuyers Need to Know
September 10, 2026
September 10, 2026
"This is 200 acres in the middle of Westchase. It will benefit us all."
— CDD Supervisor Greg Chesney, as reported by Westchase WOW
He made that case at a packed Westchase Community Development District workshop back in February, describing the community's golf course and the argument for buying it outright. The room was full because the board was floating something that touches every homeowner in Westchase, whether their lot backs up to the fairways or sits three villages away: a possible district purchase of the Westchase Golf Club.
If you're comparing Westchase to other Tampa Bay master-planned communities right now, you've probably already seen the Westchase WOW report on the 2026 WCA budget vote, which puts the WCA master assessment at $477 a year, a little under $40 a month, plus village-level sub-HOA dues that vary by neighborhood. Those HOA assessments are separate from the CDD assessment. Westchase just ran two very different capital-project conversations back to back, and the gap between what they would have cost homeowners is the real lesson for anyone about to write an offer here.
The golf course conversation isn't new. Consultant Greg Christovich told the February workshop he was first brought in by the CDD board back in 2018 to evaluate a purchase. At the time the course was losing money and carrying roughly $1.3 million in deferred maintenance, the asking price was $2 million over what Christovich's assessment supported, and the board walked away.
The course has been owned since 2005 by Nick Neubauer through the Sano Corporation. According to Supervisor Reggie Gillis, the current owner recently expressed interest in selling again, unprompted, which is what reopened the discussion this year. Christovich told the board the timing tracks a broader pattern: private equity and institutional buyers have been acquiring community golf courses at a pace the industry hasn't seen in 35 years, and recent nearby sales in Cheval and Lakewood Ranch are shaping what sellers now expect to be paid.
As of the most recent Voting Members meeting in June, nothing had actually moved. The meeting notes describe the conversation as still in the fact-finding stage, with no official steps taken by the CDD toward a purchase. Gillis has asked for a standing placeholder on future workshop agendas so the discussion continues, but that's a request to keep talking, not a signed offer.
To understand why this matters to your closing costs and not just to golfers, you need the split that every Westchase resale package spells out. Westchase WOW's government primer describes the Westchase Community Association as the HOA, which runs the two swim and tennis centers and enforces the deed restrictions in the CCRs, and the Westchase Community Development District as responsible for maintaining conservation areas, retention ponds, rights of way, and the roadway medians and monuments you drive past every day. WestchaseWCA.com says CDD assessments appear as a non-ad valorem line on your Hillsborough County property tax bill, not as a separate HOA invoice.
Some villages layer a third assessment on top. Neighborhoods including Berkeley Square, The Enclave, Glencliff, Saville Rowe, Stonebridge, The Vineyards, Woodbridge, and the Villas of West Park Village each carry their own sub-HOA dues and deed restrictions. That's why the all-in monthly carrying cost across Westchase spans a wide range depending on which village you're in, not because the master assessment itself is unpredictable.
This is the part a median-price search will never show you. The comparison below draws on the Tampa Beacon's reporting about the trail proposal. In the same twelve months, the CDD board weighed two large capital ideas, and their cost to an average homeowner landed nowhere near each other.
| Project | Status | Estimated annual cost impact per household |
|---|---|---|
| Golf course purchase | Fact-finding stage, no official action as of June 2026 | Roughly $30 a year |
| $18 million wetlands trail/boardwalk expansion | Unanimously killed by the CDD board on September 9, 2025 | Would have required an estimated $11 million bond, adding hundreds of dollars a year |
The trail project died at a packed meeting at the Maureen B. Gauzza Library after residents organized against it, partly over cost and partly over how it had been introduced. Community surveys conducted in November 2023 and August 2024 asked residents about a potential golf course purchase but did not ask directly about the trail expansion. The board later brought a fully scoped $11 million bond proposal to a vote. One resident's line to the Tampa Beacon after the vote summed up the disconnect: nobody had been asking for the trail, and plenty of people were fine with the golf course idea.
That's the mechanism worth understanding before you compare Westchase to a neighboring community on fee alone. The CDD assessment isn't a ceiling. It's a snapshot of what the district happens to be funding this year. Whether the next line item adds thirty dollars or hundreds depends on what the district ultimately approves.
Villages like The Greens and Harbor Links/The Estates run directly along the Westchase Golf Club's 213 acres. Supervisor Gillis has said plainly that the board sees the course's condition as tied to property values across the district, not just for homes that front the fairways. That argument cuts both ways for a buyer.
If the CDD does eventually take on the course, golf-adjacent lots stand to benefit most directly from whatever the district invests in turf and maintenance. If the purchase never happens and the course changes hands to a private buyer with different plans, the resale value most exposed to that outcome again belongs to the golf-fronting villages first.
Either way, a buyer weighing a golf-course lot against an interior one in Westchase is pricing in a governance decision that hasn't been made yet, not a settled amenity.
A few concrete steps take this from theoretical to useful:
None of this changes what Westchase offers day to day: a public golf club, a walkable West Park Village core, two swim and tennis centers, and a layered governance structure that's been running the community since 1991. It just means the number on the listing sheet is a starting point for a conversation, not the end of one.
Is the Westchase CDD fee guaranteed to increase? No decision has been made on the golf course purchase as of the CDD's most recent public update, and the board has taken no official steps to buy the property.
Does the HOA fee cover the golf course? No. The Westchase Golf Club is privately owned and operated as a daily-fee public course.
Why do some Westchase homes have three separate fees? Villages with their own sub-homeowners associations, such as Glencliff or The Vineyards, carry an additional assessment on top of the WCA master fee and the CDD's non-ad valorem tax line. Not every village has this third layer, which is why total carrying costs vary by address even within Westchase.
Understanding how Westchase's fee structure actually moves, and where the next decision might land, is exactly the kind of local groundwork worth having on your side before you compare listings or write an offer. If you're weighing a golf-course lot against an interior village, or Westchase against another Tampa Bay master-planned community entirely, Vincent Zeoli can walk you through what the current numbers actually mean for your specific address. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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