Wildlight fees: the district, the HOA, and the lines nobody quotes.
Ask “does Wildlight have a CDD?” and you’ll get a technically-true no that costs you money to believe. The real structure is a stewardship district with phase-based bond debt, a deliberately light master HOA, neighborhood add-ons, and — at Del Webb — a second association plus a dining minimum. Every figure here comes from the district’s adopted budgets and the developer’s own disclosure sheets.
By Krista Fracke — Broker Associate, Christie's International Real Estate First Coast · 20+ years in Northeast Florida · 500+ closings · client reviews
The district that answers the CDD question
Wildlight has no Chapter-190 CDD. It has the East Nassau Stewardship District — created by the Legislature in 2017 for the 24,000-acre East Nassau planning area — and for a homeowner it behaves like a CDD: one line on the tax bill combining operations (landscape, lakes, trails, streetlights, the district’s 1,300+ preserved acres) with debt service on the bonds that built each phase. The debt follows your phase: Series 2018 for Village Phase 1, 2021 for Phase 2, 2024 for Phase 3 — whose homes started carrying debt service in FY2026.
| Phase (bond series) | Lot type | FY2026 total / yr |
|---|---|---|
| Village Phase 1 (Series 2018) | 30′ lots | $896 |
| 45′ lots | $1,319 | |
| 55′ lots | $1,587 | |
| 70′ lots | $2,021 | |
| Phase 2A/2B (Series 2021) | 40′ lots | $1,177 |
| 50′ lots | $1,419–$1,619 | |
| 65′ lots | $1,807 | |
| Phase 3 (Series 2024 — debt began FY2026) | 22′ lots | $777 |
| 40′ lots | $1,314 | |
| 50′ lots | $1,598 | |
| 60′ lots | $1,910 |
Adopted FY2026 assessments per residential unit (general fund + O&M + debt service), from the district’s published budget. Apartments and multifamily rows omitted for brevity.
The HOA stack, layer by layer
The master Wildlight Residential Association fee is deliberately light — $411 a year on the developer’s January 2025 disclosure — funding the parks, pools, and a lifestyle director’s programming. The stack builds from there: a $345-a-year pool service-area assessment for the Forest Park, Founder’s Park, and Hawthorn Park neighborhoods; a $375-a-month service fee on the maintained townhomes (landscape and exterior upkeep); and a garbage-and-recycling assessment of about $40.50 a month billed to every home. And one line unique in our region: sales inside Wildlight pay a Community Foundation transfer fee of 0.5% of the price, capped at $2,500.
Del Webb Wildlight adds its own 55+ association on top — about $3,132 a year for the Garden/Classic/Estate series, $5,700 for the maintained Villas, plus a $720 annual food-and-beverage minimum at the club. Disclosure-sheet figures carry their as-of date (January 2025 is the latest published); the association’s current schedule governs, and we confirm it per contract.
The live table: what listings report now
Median monthly association fee by recorded neighborhood, computed from active Wildlight-family listings reporting a fee (3+ listings; all cadences normalized to monthly).
| Neighborhood | Median HOA / mo | Listings reporting |
|---|---|---|
| Wildlight | $102 | 33 |
| Del Webb Wildlight | $294 | 17 |
Live from the MLS · refreshed daily.
The part nobody tells you
The phase you buy in quietly sets your district bill for decades — same community, same amenities, different bond series. A Phase 1 seventy-foot lot carries about $2,000 a year while a Phase 3 forty-footer carries about $1,300, and Phase 3’s debt line only began in FY2026, so its owners never saw the pre-debt teaser years reflected in older fee quotes. When you compare two Wildlight resales, pull each one’s actual district assessment from the tax bill rather than assuming the community has one number — because it has at least ten.
This is the work I do every week. Weighing Wildlight against Nocatee or the SilverLeaf corridor? I’ll build the true total-monthly comparison — district line, association stack, and the transfer fee your net sheet needs.
Work with Krista (904) 333-8595 Text
Broker Associate · Christie's International Real Estate First Coast · 20+ years · 500+ closings
In Wildlight right now
Common questions
Does Wildlight have a CDD?
Not a Chapter-190 CDD — but don’t stop reading there. Wildlight sits inside the East Nassau Stewardship District, an independent special district the Florida Legislature created in 2017, and it functions like a CDD where your wallet is concerned: an annual assessment on the tax bill combining operations and phase-based bond debt. For FY2026 the adopted totals run from about $780 to about $2,020 a year depending on your phase and lot width.
What is the Wildlight HOA fee?
The master Wildlight Residential Association fee was $411 a year on the developer’s January 2025 disclosure sheet — deliberately light, because the district assessment and per-neighborhood add-ons carry the load. Neighborhood layers stack on top: a pool service-area assessment for the park-served neighborhoods, a monthly service fee for the maintained townhomes, and a separate garbage assessment. The live table above shows what current listings actually report, all cadences normalized to monthly.
What does Del Webb Wildlight cost on top?
The 55+ neighborhood runs its own association: on the January 2025 sheet, roughly $3,132 a year for the Garden/Classic/Estate series and $5,700 for the maintained Villa series, plus a $720 annual food-and-beverage minimum at the club, plus the master fee and the district assessment. One widely-quoted “$681 a month HOA” figure for Del Webb Wildlight is a conflation of the entire annual stack — it is not the HOA fee, and treating it as one double-counts the district line.
Are there fees when you SELL a Wildlight home?
One that surprises people: sales inside Wildlight carry a Wildlight Community Foundation transfer fee of 0.5% of the gross price, capped at $2,500 — a community-benefit mechanism written into the covenants. Sellers should put it on the net sheet from day one; our proceeds calculator has a line for exactly this kind of item.
Wildlight homes for sale →
The corridor running Nocatee’s playbook, live.
The St. Johns County CDD map →
How the district mechanism works county-wide.
The seller net-proceeds calculator →
Where the 0.5% Foundation fee belongs on your math.
Amelia Island homes →
The island end of the Nassau story.
Want the fee truth for a specific Wildlight address?
Phase, bond series, association stack, transfer fee — pulled from the actual documents before you offer.