Street Economics

Winter Park, Florida

HJR 1 Homestead-Exemption Tax-Base Exposure

Orange County . 2025 final assessment roll

Snapshot

The Winter Park read

Winter Park fits the Balanced / Diversified archetype: a genuine mix of residential, commercial, and other uses with no single category overwhelming the base, which is the healthiest profile a Florida city can carry into this amendment. At full phase-in in 2028, 14.3% of the non-school taxable base is exposed, stepping through 7.8% at the 2027 threshold. The residential share takes a hit, as it does everywhere, but the commercial and rental base cushions the blow and keeps the headline number well below the statewide median for cities. Winter Park ranks 310 of 404 cities by exposure, meaning 309 cities face a larger share of base at risk.

Of 14,455 residential housing units, 54.3% are owner-occupied, 7.6% are owned by out-of-state owners, and 38.2% are non-homestead but Florida-owned. That 38.2% Florida-owned non-homestead share is the structural story here: a large slice of the housing stock is held by in-state landlords and second-home owners, not absentee out-of-state investors, and that rental and non-homestead inventory sits outside the amendment’s reach. The out-of-state ownership figure is not elevated enough to trigger a special flag, and the city’s rental market reads as a local-ownership story, not an absentee-ownership one.

Land-use composition

Share of taxable value by category, Winter Park, 2025 roll:

The commercial category is notable: while it represents 14.5% of total value, 23.0% of that commercial value is out-of-state owned, and the industrial slice, though small at 0.8% of total value, carries 35.9% of its value in out-of-state hands. Both categories sit entirely outside the homestead exemption regardless of ownership origin.

What the exposure band means

Band: Low exposure. The base is already substantially non-homestead. The amendment is a manageable headwind. Focus on protecting the diversified base that provides the insulation.

Looking ahead

Neither of the following changes the exposure figures above; both shape how Winter Park grows its base after the amendment takes effect.

First, beginning January 1, 2027, the annual assessment-increase cap on non-homestead property drops from 10% to 5%, covering commercial and industrial real property and small residential rentals of nine units or fewer. Because a capped property’s assessed value can rise only 5% per year, the primary engine of base growth in these categories shifts to transactions: a sale or change of control resets the property to market value, so transaction velocity in the commercial and rental inventory matters more to base growth than it did under the old cap.

Second, new Florida residents who did not maintain a Florida permanent residence as of December 31, 2026 phase into the larger exemption over five years rather than receiving it immediately. This cannot be read from the assessment roll, so the 14.3% and 7.8% figures above assume full application of the exemption to every qualifying homestead. Near-term exposure could run slightly lower than modeled in years where a meaningful share of recent arrivals are still inside their five-year ramp window.

Where the opportunity is

These recommendations are based solely on the tax roll’s land-use composition. They do not account for whether local land development regulations and zoning permit the uses described, whether there is local obstruction, or the political dynamics that typically decide what actually gets approved. This is a starting point for a conversation, not a development plan.

• First, maintain the balance deliberately, because it is what provides the cushion. Residential growth that outpaces commercial and rental growth quietly erodes the diversification that keeps exposure low, and that erosion happens one approval at a time without anyone calling it a policy choice.
• Second, use the diversified base as a recruiting advantage. A city that can absorb the amendment without a services crisis is a more stable operating environment for businesses and investors than one facing a 30% or 40% base reduction. That stability is itself an economic-development signal worth communicating to site selectors and developers.
• Third, target the next increment of growth toward whichever non-homestead category is thinnest. In Winter Park’s case, industrial at 0.8% of total value and multifamily at 2.1% are the thinnest non-homestead categories. Adding density in either, even incrementally, broadens the base rather than tilting it back toward the residential share that the amendment does touch. Arterial corridors, underutilized commercial frontage, and any parcels currently sitting in the Other/Vacant bucket at 1.6% of value are the logical locations to absorb that growth.
• Fourth, steer commercial, rental, and industrial growth into the established commercial core and corridors, where new investment reinforces the diversified base rather than scattering it into areas that are harder to service efficiently.

Watch-out: diversification erodes quietly if every approval is another subdivision. Winter Park should carry an explicit composition target, not just a general preference for balance, so that the cushion the city has built does not drift away through incremental decisions that each look reasonable in isolation.

Source and scope

All figures are drawn from the Florida Department of Revenue 2025 final assessment roll, the most recent certified roll in the state’s possession. The roll is used here as a structural proxy for tax-base composition, not as a dollar forecast for any specific budget year. HJR 1 / CS-HJR 1F is on the November 2026 ballot; the 2026 roll is the assessment roll in place when voters decide. If the amendment passes, the first roll affected is the 2027 roll at the $150,000 exemption step, followed by the 2028 roll at full $250,000 phase-in. When the 2026 and later rolls are certified, the analysis re-runs on the new data.

Ownership shares are measured on a residential housing-unit basis. The out-of-state ownership figure is a mailing-address proxy: it counts units whose owner’s mailing-address state in the roll is a non-Florida state or country. It undercounts true outside ownership because an out-of-state owner using an in-state mailing address or LLC counts as Florida-owned, and it does not prove where any individual owner actually lives. This is a land-use-composition starting point, not a full fiscal, economic, or legal analysis.

Place: Winter Park