Streets lined with lush landscaping wind through what was once open ranchland, now transformed into a luxury community.
At the entrance, royal palms rise in perfect formation, flanking an ornate Spanish Mediterranean guard house.
Manicured lawns stretch across acres of greenery, where hundreds of trees cast shade over quiet sidewalks and upscale homes.
This is Gran Paradiso, a neighborhood within the master-planned community of south Sarasota County’s Wellen Park — formerly known as West Villages — that models a postcard version of Florida.
But behind the picturesque facade, a bitter legal battle is unfolding — one that has divided neighbors, threatened property values and exposed the extent of control wielded by developer-run governments.
At the center of it now is the fight over a 100-year water deal residents say they never agreed to and fear could cost the entire district billions of dollars over its lifetime.
The West Villages Improvement District is a special-purpose government controlled by Toronto-based developer Mattamy Homes that oversees the community’s future construction phases and maintenance of its existing neighborhoods, like Gran Paradiso.
Last month, the governing board cut off irrigation to Gran Paradiso, isolating the neighborhood’s pipes from the development's broader system and threatening more than an estimated $1 million worth of tropical landscaping.
What’s happening in Gran Paradiso isn’t just a neighborhood dispute over water; it’s a window into who holds the power in Florida’s fastest-growing communities and what happens when the homeowners organize to push back.
Across the Suncoast, more and more neighborhoods like Gran Paradiso are governed not only by city and county officials, but by community development districts and other government bodies created, and controlled for years, by the real estate developers profiting from these projects.
Florida law requires sellers to disclose when buying into these privately-run governments, with upfront information about the costs and financial obligations. Legislation regulating these entities have been on the books since at least the 1980s, with more than 2,000 special-purpose districts throughout the state — up from about 600 in 2010, according to state data.
They have the power to take out massive municipal bonds, assess residents for repayment and then control the public infrastructure they build with the money. While designed to fund roads, drainage and sewage systems in their respective communities without burdening city or county budgets, they also raise questions about transparency and accountability.
“This is a classic David and Goliath case,” Joseph Herbert, an attorney representing Gran Paradiso residents, said in court. “There’s nothing they can do at the local level to stop West Villages.”
The conflict began when Gran Paradiso residents questioned a steep hike in irrigation fees tied to a water agreement approved by the Mattamy-run district in 2018 that doubled what homeowners were paying.
When the West Villages Improvement District refused to renegotiate, residents took them to court — setting off a series of actions by the developer and its proxies that residents say were aimed at maintaining control.
First, when residents protested, the district threatened to cut off irrigation water to Gran Paradiso.
Then, after the judge in the case called the water agreement “obscene” — comparing it to a nearly $3 billion annuity for the developer — Mattamy attempted, unsuccessfully, to have him removed from the case.
Next, the improvement district turned to Tallahassee, spending more than $100,000 on a lobbyist to push new legislation on how and when residents can take control of the district’s governing board.
Under the Florida law that established the district, Mattamy must turn over control of its governing board to the residents once 51% of its development is considered “urbanized” — meaning a certain population is living in areas with completed infrastructure like roads and utilities. The district is now pushing to simplify the law to a basic count of voters living within its boundaries, a move that critics argue could result in longer developer control.
Meanwhile, Gran Paradiso homeowners are paying both sides’ legal fees in the irrigation fight and the lobbyist through assessments levied by their own property owners association and the broader district.
“We’re paying to defend ourselves, and we’re paying to fight ourselves, and now we’re paying to hire a lobbyist so we can’t get these additional seats on the board,” said Pam Kantola, the treasurer for the Gran Paradiso Property Owners Association. “It should be criminal.”
The district's board defended the decision to turn off Gran Paradiso’s irrigation water supply, saying it was necessary to avoid violating a permit with the state while blaming residents for overuse and underpayment.
“For over four years, the residents of one neighborhood, Gran Paradiso, have dramatically and consistently violated the permit by exceeding their allocated irrigation water quantities, which is unfair to other residents,” a spokesperson for Mattamy said in a written statement to Suncoast Searchlight.
Suncoast Searchlight asked the state agency with oversight — Southwest Florida Water Management District— to confirm the allegation that Gran Paradiso had overused irrigation water and that this jeopardized the improvement district’s permit. The agency declined to comment, citing the litigation.
In a separate statement, the West Villages Improvement District said that its established rates were “publicly vetted” and that community members were given ample opportunity for input. The statement notes that since 2018, the district has been operating irrigation services at a net loss.
The district also argues the legislation aimed at changing board turnover requirements will provide more opportunities to residents to participate in community decisions.
“Being an improvement district allows the WVID to take a long-term, measured approach to developing key public infrastructure,” according to the statement, which was emailed by District Manager William Crosley. “This system also reduces the burden on taxpayers, by encouraging developers to fund the development of critical infrastructure and ensuring that growth pays for growth.”
But many living in Gran Paradiso fear the situation will only stifle buyer demand in the community, leading to a double-digit drop in property values should the water saga continue.
“One of the biggest things that is hurting us is word is getting out that Gran Paradiso is a troublemaker,” Bill Kelly, a board member of the Gran Paradiso Property Owners Association, said in an interview before the water was turned off. “Who’s going to want to move in here?”
How Gran Paradiso fell under developer control — and why it matters now
Before the paved trails, pocket parks and palm-lined boulevards, this was ranch country: Cattle grazed beneath sprawling oak hammocks, and sandy trails cut through palmetto scrub and sawgrass. The only sounds were wind, birds and the occasional lowing of livestock.
The transformation took decades, several different real estate developers and help from a Florida law establishing the improvement district’s authority over its residents.
For years, developers pitched lofty subdivisions then backed away over the economics. It wasn’t until 2002 that developer Stanley Thomas purchased a majority of what was then known as Taylor Ranch for $78 million. More than half of Taylor Ranch had been annexed by the city of North Port with plans in motion for large-scale development by pursuing the creation of a special-purpose government.
Rather than rely on North Port to fund roads, drainage and utilities, this special district would borrow millions of dollars through tax-exempt bonds. Homeowners — not the developers — would then pay off the majority of that debt through long-term assessments on their property tax bills.
With the city’s support, lawmakers passed a bill in 2004 that was signed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush to establish the West Villages Improvement District. Each district of its kind must be formed through either a local ordinance or new state law designating its powers.
Under Florida law, the board of supervisors governing the district is appointed by the largest landowner — not elected by residents. That meant Thomas controlled not only the development, he also controlled the government.
Construction in the West Villages stalled during the Great Recession, though, after which the land changed hands through a string of new developers. National homebuilder Lennar bought the unfinished Gran Paradiso community in 2013, property records show.
Mattamy and a local development and investment company bought most of the remaining land the following year for $86.3 million. In doing so, they inherited full control over the district’s governing board, including authority over those living in the Gran Paradiso subdivision.
Mattamy bought out the other company in 2019, becoming majority owner and, in 2020, rebranded West Villages as Wellen Park. It has continued to push forward with sprawling new developments, like a downtown hub and the spring training facility for the Atlanta Braves.
Since its inception, the improvement district has been authorized to tap at least 10 bonds totaling $805.8 million. It carries about $200 million in debt as of the most recent audit in 2023.
The developer also put its own money into the project, citing $170 million in unreimbursed contributions.
Despite Wellen Park's explosive growth over the years, its five-person board still consists of four representatives who are affiliated with Mattamy and just one homeowner.
“In how many decades are we going to get this done?” said Victor Dobrin, a homeowner who represented residents on the district’s board from 2018 until 2022, referring to the timeline for residents to take control of the board.
While these special governments are often framed as efficient tools for building infrastructure, experts say they come with serious accountability concerns.
“They make these decisions and this minutia that seems insignificant at the time,” said Jon Thaxton, a former Sarasota County commissioner who serves as director of policy and advocacy for the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, speaking about special-purpose governments in general. “Then here we are, 20 years down the road, and it damn sure is something to worry about.”
Because major decisions are made before residents get a say on the management board, that masks the accountability baked into more traditional governments, researchers Gina Scutelnicu Todoran and Sukumar Ganapati concluded in a 2014 study published in Economic Development Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal.
Their research cited multiple cases where developer-run governments made questionable financial decisions — including one in which a developer sold land valued at $1.1 million to its own Florida district for $31 million.
“They pose accountability issues to the residents they serve because of their financial and managerial powers,” Scutelnicu Todoran said in an email to Suncoast Searchlight.
She also noted that in recent years, there appears to be more transparency than when she conducted her research during the Great Recession.
“Most of them have websites where they are required to report on their finances and budgets, board composition, meeting minutes among other things,” she wrote.
Gran Paradiso homeowners challenge 100-year water deal
For Gran Paradiso residents, the water deal is a case study in what happens when big decisions are made without anyone at the table to represent the homeowners footing the bill.
In 2009, when Gran Paradiso’s property owners association was still under the control of its previous developer — Sam Rodgers — it entered into an agreement to pay 37 cents per thousand gallons of reclaimed irrigation water.
The deal was simple, and according to residents, fair. It excluded markups, prohibited fees for improvements that didn’t benefit them and ensured they would pay only for the water that they used.
That all changed in January 2019, when the property owners association — this time overseen by Lennar Homes — signed Gran Paradiso onto a 100-year irrigation agreement the West Villages Improvement District had approved the previous year. The deal raised the rate to 66 cents per thousand gallons and added new charges, including a capital recovery fee and a “well availability” fee.
The two parties signed an updated agreement in December 2020 — less than three months before Lennar ceded control of the property owners association to residents.
When Gran Paradiso homeowners later found out, they said they were stunned. Not only had they been left out of the process, but the new terms nearly doubled their irrigation bills and added extra charges to cover the cost of irrigating land outside the Gran Paradiso community.
Residents said they sought a meeting with the West Villages board to discuss the irrigation issue in 2022 but were turned away.
So Gran Paradiso residents instead began paying the old rates and set aside the additional, disputed charges in a separate bank account to be given to the district should their efforts to negotiate a new deal fall flat.
This led to threats from Mattamy — through the arm of its government — to shut off the water, said John Meisel, a Gran Paradiso homeowner and the only elected member on the district board of supervisors.
“We had hoped it would force them to come to the table and come to some amicable resolution or solution,” Meisel said. They “gave us a shut off notice.”
Seeing no other option, the property owners association sued West Villages Improvement District, Lennar Homes and two entities controlled by Mattamy — The Ranch Land Operations and Thomas Ranch Intangibles — in 2022.
In their lawsuit, residents argued the 100-year contract violated state law, which bars developer-run associations from locking in long-term service agreements unless the terms are “fair and reasonable.” They claimed the new deal was anything but, describing it as a backdoor payout to the master developer, Mattamy, which stood to collect billions in fees over the agreement’s lifetime.
The judge in the case seemed to agree.
At a hearing in 2023, Circuit Judge Hunter Carroll called the agreement “obscene,” blasting the district for including terms that weren’t in the public interest and ruling that Gran Paradiso would likely prevail at trial on a potential violation of Florida’s open government laws.
He issued an injunction that prevented the district from applying any of the agreements that stemmed from the apparent violation, with Gran Paradiso placing into escrow the disputed fees plus 20% to cover potential attorney’s fees. The district, according to court documents, continued collecting some fees and put them into escrow as well.
Carroll’s injunction also forced the district to hold a new public meeting and reconsider the rates.
But the redo didn’t go the way Gran Paradiso residents hoped.
The district approved yet another rate study and ratified a new pricing structure that included a similar well availability fee. According to residents, the updated terms still locked them into inflated fees — and failed to address the concerns the judge had raised.
The fallout has only deepened tensions.
Arguments have spilled into Facebook groups and local board meetings, where residents have been kicked out for speaking up. Factions have formed within the neighborhood.
The latest blow came on March 31, when the district cut off Gran Paradiso’s access to the irrigation system and, in effect, attempted to render the entire legal case moot.
Attorneys for West Villages Improvement District noted that because Gran Paradiso’s lawsuit requested the irrigation agreement to be declared null and void, the move to cut off water gives residents there exactly what they wanted.
“I’m not really sure why we’re here at this point other than Gran Paradiso is not happy, not happy with the fact the agreement they were trying to terminate is terminated,” Joseph Brown, an attorney for the district, said at a recent court hearing.
Fight over control of West Villages board moves to Florida Legislature
The water fight is just a symptom of an even deeper problem, residents told Suncoast Searchlight: They had no real voice when the century-long contract was signed — and still don’t. Now, the developer who controls the board is pushing to rewrite state law in ways critics say would make it even harder for homeowners to gain control.
Under Florida law, developers must turn over control of a special-purpose government through additional seats on the board once development is well underway.
In the Wellen Park, some residents argue the threshold has varied widely through the years. For example, the district’s engineer determined 20% of the master community was urbanized in 2021. But after more homeowners moved in a year later, instead of going up, that ratio fell to 6.6%.
The district has argued that the higher urbanization figure from 2021 mistakenly included property that shouldn’t have been counted, which explains the sharp drop the following year.
The developer hired a lobbyist to advance proposed legislation, now working its way through Tallahassee, to alter the calculation from the current method to a straightforward count of qualified electors — which are residents who live there and who can vote in local elections.
Meisel said he supports changing to a count of residents but takes issue with the thresholds and believes the current legislation sets the bar too high.
At full buildout, Wellen Park will have nearly 40,000 registered voters living in the community before all five board seats are filled by residents, according to the proposed legislation.
But as of now, there are 9,972 registered voters there who would count toward the new baselines, according to the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections.
Meisel drove six hours to Tallahassee in March to oppose the bill, sponsored by state Rep. Danny Nix Jr., R-Port Charlotte.
“The numbers are artificially inflated to ensure we never get a seat on the board,” Meisel told the legislative subcommittee.
Nix, listening to some of the resident concerns, has amended the original bill to reduce the thresholds by about 5,000 voters with residents gaining a majority of board seats occurring when 26,397 voters live there.
Meisel argued that even with a reduction, it still will be difficult for residents to ever achieve a majority on the board given the number of snowbirds and seasonal retirees who don’t live in the community year-round.
We must “get this done and stop the opportunities where they have to go through litigation,” Nix said. “That's never good for the community. We want them to have an opportunity to heal.”
Legal fight over Gran Paradiso water deal heads back to court
Angry Gran Paradiso homeowners sardined themselves into a small courtroom in downtown Sarasota on April 11, some sitting right on the ground once chairs were full — prompting the courthouse to open an overflow watch room.
Many in the crowd drove an hour to attend the hearing, part of the ongoing litigation over irrigation water, which they have been without since the district cut it off.
They wanted Carroll to hold the district in contempt of court over the move.
Herbert, Gran Paradiso’s lawyer, channeled the residents’ frustration. He argued the district broke the judge’s 2023 order when it disbursed the escrowed fees to Mattamy Homes in late 2024.
The district argued Carroll’s order did not prevent it from disbursing those escrowed funds, because it had fixed the potential sunshine violation; it has been operating under the new rates adopted at a public hearing in April 2023 and not under the 2018 agreement from which the order stemmed.
Both sides agreed on one thing: Carroll could not order the district to turn the water back on.
Carroll has yet to rule on the contempt motion. Other legal issues will have to be resolved through mediation or a trial that’s scheduled for December.
“For these people,” Herbert told the judge, “some amount of accountability for West Villages would go a really long way.”
Suncoast Searchlight Deputy Editor/Senior Investigative Reporter Josh Salman contributed to this report.
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
