Bellehaven

Bellehaven is a new single-family community planned for about 500 homes across four phases on nearly 220 acres off SE Baseline Road in Belleview, inside the city limits in Marion County. The community's development district was established by the Belleview City Commission in the fall of 2024, and local coverage in mid 2026 reported the project moving forward with no homes built yet. Casa Fresca Homes is named as the builder in the listing feeds for the community. Pricing, floor plans, the site plan and HOA dues have not been published.

No. As of September 2026 it does not appear on the builder's own list of Ocala-area communities, there is no sales office, no model, no published pricing and no plans released. Third-party listings carry it as coming soon with no address assigned yet. That is normal at this stage, and it is why getting organized now matters: the first release is when lot selection and introductory pricing are actually decided, and that is a conversation you want representation for.

This is the most important number on this page, and it is already published even though pricing is not. Bellehaven has a community development district, which is a special-purpose local government that issued bonds to build the roads, drainage, utilities and amenities. It repays those bonds through an annual assessment on your home. For the district's 2027 fiscal year, the budgeted assessment is roughly $2,890 a year on a 40 foot lot and roughly $3,463 a year on a 50 foot lot. Each of those is about $600 of operations and maintenance plus the rest in bond debt service. The bonds run to 2055, so plan on the debt portion for roughly three decades.

No, and this catches people out. The district budgets this assessment as off-roll, which means the district bills you directly rather than collecting it through the county tax notice. If you budget from a property tax estimate alone, you will miss it completely. Two more things worth knowing. The operations portion is brand new for the 2027 fiscal year, because in the prior year operations were funded by a developer contribution instead. That developer contribution is still partly in place, which means the operations portion is likely to rise as it rolls off. And the district's irrigation runs on city potable water, which is an expensive way to water landscaping and a real cost escalation risk. Ask for the current adopted assessment for your specific lot width, in writing, before you contract.

Less than you would expect, and this one is genuinely counterintuitive. For 2025 the total millage inside Belleview came to about 16.63, against about 15.35 in unincorporated Marion County. That is a difference of roughly 1.3 mills, not the several-mill gap buyers usually assume, because the city levy largely replaces the county law enforcement levy that unincorporated residents pay instead. You get city services in exchange. Where the real money sits at Bellehaven is the district assessment above, not the millage.

Small, and honestly, more highway than main street. Belleview is a city of roughly 5,500 people about 10 to 12 miles south of Ocala, and its commercial life runs along the US 441 and Baseline Road corridors rather than through a walkable downtown. There is a historic residential core near Lake Lillian, but you should not come here expecting a DeLand or a Mount Dora. What you get instead is a low cost of living, a genuinely quiet setting, and Ocala close enough to be your city. Ocala is 15 to 20 minutes north and has two hospital systems, real retail and the World Equestrian Center.

Be careful with what you read elsewhere on this, because it changed recently. Marion County Public Schools was graded a B for 2024-25 and then dropped back to a C for 2025-26. The district serves roughly 46,700 students across about 64 schools. Two things are actively in motion near Belleview: a new high school opened south of here in August 2026, drawing students from zones that previously fed several over-capacity high schools including Belleview's, and two Belleview elementary schools have been recommended for consolidation. Attendance zones here are genuinely unsettled. Confirm current assignment directly with the district and do not rely on any third-party lookup, including ours.

The Cross Florida Greenway trailhead is on Baseline Road, the same road as the community, and that is the local hook. The Greenway runs more than 100 miles from the Gulf to the St. Johns across 70,000 acres, with something like 300 miles of trail and a land bridge that carries hikers, riders and black bears over Interstate 75. Beyond that you are surrounded by the best spring country in Florida: Silver Springs, where the glass bottom boat was invented, Rainbow Springs, and the Ocala National Forest, which at 366,000 acres is the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi. Lake Weir is a 5,600-acre sandy-bottomed bass lake with a public beach and waterfront dining. And the World Equestrian Center north of Ocala is a 2,000-acre venue with year-round events.