Tomoka Reserve

Tomoka Reserve is an approved 254-lot single-family community planned for the 147-acre former Tomoka Oaks Golf Course in Ormond Beach. The city commission adopted the development order in March 2026. The land is an enclave: it sits entirely surrounded by the existing Tomoka Oaks subdivision, which is the source of both its appeal and its controversy. Nothing is built, no builder has been named, and nothing is for sale.

Both things are true and they are not contradictory, so it is worth being precise. The city adopted the ordinance on second reading in March 2026 by a three to two vote. Because this is a development order rather than a comprehensive plan amendment, there is no state review and no further legislative step, so the city's part is complete. Separately, the Tomoka Oaks homeowners association and residents filed a petition for writ of certiorari challenging the approval, reported in May 2026. Per that reporting the approval remains in effect while the challenge is pending and the project has not been halted. We could not retrieve the case number or the court, so we are not going to publish either, and we are certainly not going to predict how it comes out. Treat it as a real, live and unresolved risk.

Well documented, and worth reading before you decide how you feel about this community. As reported, the challenge raises the procedural handling of the quasi-judicial hearing, the single point of ingress and egress, the roughly 390 feet between the main entrance and a three-way stop, water system capacity with something on the order of 46 percent more customers, construction traffic, and the absence of a separate construction entrance. At the hearings themselves more than fifty people spoke, the homeowners association was represented by counsel and asked for the matter to be sent back to the planning board, and the city was already in active litigation with the developer at the time of the vote.

254. Several figures circulate and only one is the approval. The adopted ordinance authorises 254 single-family detached lots, and that is the number that governs. The developer's own website still advertises 272 units. Press coverage described a 317-home option the developers pursued after compromise talks with the neighborhood broke down. At the hearing a resident asserted the prior development order carried 122 units, and city staff said that if the approval lapsed and zoning reverted, conceptual plans showed around 300 homes. All of those are either superseded, hypothetical or someone's argument. The ordinance says 254.

Nobody yet. No homebuilder is named anywhere in the record. The applicant is a development partnership that bought the golf course in 2021, and its representatives at the hearings were attorneys rather than a builder. On a 254-lot site with an adopted development order, a builder announcement is the natural next milestone, and it is exactly what the interest list on this page exists to catch.

The approval sets minimums rather than describing houses. Perimeter lots, meaning those backing onto the existing Tomoka Oaks homes, are a minimum of 80 by 120 feet. Interior lots are a minimum of 60 by 120. Overall density is about 1.72 homes per acre, which is genuinely low for new construction in this market and is a direct consequence of the site being carved out of a golf course inside an established neighborhood. The larger perimeter lots exist to buffer the existing homes. Architectural standards attach to the development order, which staff pointed out would be lost if the approval lapsed and the land reverted to its underlying zoning.

Possibly, and we would rather flag it than let you find out later. At the March 2026 hearing a commissioner asked directly about rentals. The city's planning director stated that there were no restrictions on ownership of the properties, and that rentals were allowed if longer than six months. So the entitlement is for detached single-family lots with no build-to-rent designation, and nothing in it obliges anyone to sell to owner-occupiers either. Until a builder is named and a program is announced, that question is genuinely open, and it is a fair one to ask when it is.

It is a question people are asking, and here is precisely what is on the record and what is not. Residents raised concerns at the hearings about airborne toxins connected to chemicals historically used on the course. Soil testing is being handled by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection rather than by the city, and the city's planning director told the commission he could not confirm what had been completed, and that the city could not withhold its permits based on state permits. A preliminary environmental and wildlife study was done and a full one is required before preliminary plat. What we will not do is either dismiss the concern or assert a finding, because no published finding exists. Ask for the completed FDEP results before you contract.

No, and this one is unusually clear. The city's planning director confirmed to the commission, and the mayor clarified on the record, that there are no wetlands in the project area. That is worth stating plainly because golf course redevelopments frequently do carry wetland constraints and this one does not.

Several conditions that shape the finished place. The developer must install a traffic signal, and sidewalks are required. The buffer between the new community and the existing neighborhood was set at a commercial-grade standard with irrigation added, and staff described the reduced lot count plus that buffer irrigation as the two changes that moved them from not recommending the project to recommending it. Access is a single main entrance plus an emergency access easement approved by the fire department, and staff confirmed the emergency access will not be used during construction. We are not publishing a dollar figure for the traffic signal, because the figure that appears in press coverage looks like a typographical error and we cannot confirm it from the order.

No, and the two are physically interlocked, which makes this the most important distinction on the page. Tomoka Oaks is the existing, long-established subdivision that surrounds this land on all sides, and its homes resell on the open market today. Its homeowners association is the party challenging this approval. There is also Tomoka Oaks Golf Course, which is the former use of this land, plus Tomoka State Park, the Tomoka River, a Tomoka landfill and Tomoka Elementary. Tomoka Reserve is the 254-lot approval on the old course, and it has no homes. If what you found has an address, it is Tomoka Oaks.

The land is inside Ormond Beach city limits, so buyers here would pay city millage in addition to Volusia County millage, the school board, the water management district and other special districts. No community development district exists for this project, which is unsurprising for an infill site of this size, so the recurring cost is more likely to be HOA dues than a CDD assessment. No HOA figure has been published. Florida has no state income tax, which is often what starts this arithmetic for relocating buyers.

No date has been announced. The city's planning director told the commission the next step is preliminary plat, and that the full environmental study and the FDEP soil results would come in during that stage. The unresolved legal challenge sits over all of it. Treat any date you encounter as a target rather than a commitment, and treat this community as carrying more timing risk than most.

Join the interest list on this page. We read Ormond Beach's commission agendas, action reports and minutes directly, which is how the adopted unit count, the rental question and the state of the environmental testing ended up documented here rather than in a brochure.