Official: Economy spurs Lake tax roll to 9 percent

Fruitland Park and south Lake County continue to be nerve centers for growth, helping fuel a “substantial” 9 percent increase in the county’s tax roll, Property Appraiser Carey Baker said Thursday. The increase in his preliminary tax-roll report is bigger than last year’s nearly 8 percent rise, which was called a “massive boost.”

“It appears in Lake County the economy is going well and that is reflective in all aspects of real estate,” Baker said. “You travel the county and you see new businesses being built, you see new neighborhoods going online … There’s just a lot of activity going on in Lake County.”

Fruitland Park once again led Lake cities in growth, posting a 32 percent gain, thanks to 719 hew homes in The Villages of Fruitland Park, which calls for more than 2,000 homes. Among south Lake cities, Minneola led with a 21 percent increase, Baker said. Not far behind were Groveland, which saw a 17 percent increase; Mascotte, up 14 percent; and Clermont, Lake’s largest city, which recorded an 11 percent hike. New construction accounted for about 3.7 percent of the increase in the tax roll, which rose a total of $692 million to $20.5 billion, Baker said, while existing properties increased about 5.5 percent overall.

“Where there’s great demand you’ll have rising values,” he said.

The county added 3,347 new residential homes to the tax roll this year, a 9 percent increase from 3,074 new homes last year.

Lake’s nine other cities also saw increases of varying size: Howeyin-the-Hills, 17 percent; Tavares and Montverde, 9 percent; Mount Dora, 8 percent; Leesburg, 7 percent; Eustis, Lady Lake and Astatula, 6 percent; and Umatilla, 4 percent. This year’s increase is the highest since the tax roll peaked at $22.4 billion in 2007 in the realestate market run-up, Baker said.

He doesn’t see a slowdown on the horizon: “Things seem to suggest that we’re going to have continued growth in the future.”