Citrus Authorized 2,102 Housing Units in 2025. The District Projected 14,845 Students.

Citrus County authorized 2,102 new privately owned housing units in 2025, and Citrus County Schools' January 27, 2025 preliminary projection put 2025-26 enrollment at 14,845. The permit total is the Census Bureau's final annual Building Permits Survey for the county, the same figure QuickFacts prints as Building Permits, 2025. The student total is a headcount rolled forward from December 2024. The facilities work plan beside it is a capital budget, adopted January 14, 2025, whose official forecasted COFTE for 2028-29 is 14,666.

This page pairs that 2025 county permit total with the district facilities work plan and the January 27 preliminary enrollment projection. Census QuickFacts population clocks are the separate people-and-schools briefing. Florida's August housing-unit authorizations are the separate monthly permit note.

Statewide context stays on Florida markets. A purchase or a sale sits on residential. The weekly rate a buyer is quoting this month is Freddie Mac's October 8 survey, 7.40 percent on the 30-year.

The 2025 permit file

The Census Bureau released final annual 2025 estimates of housing units authorized by building permits on May 14, 2026. The county file, co2025a, and the state file, st2025a, are that release. QuickFacts carries the county unit total onto the Citrus page as Building Permits, 2025.

Citrus County, Florida, FIPS 12017, prints these units for calendar 2025:

• One-unit buildings: 2,082 buildings and 2,082 units, construction value $511,229,584.
• Two-unit buildings: 7 buildings and 14 units, construction value $2,155,806.
• Three- and four-unit buildings: zero.
• Five-or-more-unit buildings: 1 building and 6 units, construction value $1,508,100.

Add the units and the county total is 2,102. Add the construction values and the survey's valuation for those units is $514,893,490. That valuation is the permit file's construction value. A sale price is the contract on a particular house. The ACS 2020-2024 median value of owner-occupied units on QuickFacts, $245,500, is the multi-year owner-value already written up in the people briefing.

The same county row prints a reported subset. Reported one-unit activity is 1,385 buildings and 1,385 units, valued at $356,057,450. Reported two-unit activity is 6 buildings and 12 units, valued at $1,860,000. The five-or-more building, 6 units and $1,508,100, is entirely in the reported columns. Reported units add to 1,403. The 2,102 figure QuickFacts prints is the survey total, which is the number to use when the question is how many units the annual county estimate contains.

Four annual totals, one survey

The same county annual layout for earlier years gives the path a buyer can actually compare:

• 2025: 2,102 units. One-unit 2,082. Two-unit 14. Five-or-more 6.
• 2024: 2,443 units. One-unit 2,415. Two-unit 24. Three- and four-unit 4. Five-or-more zero.
• 2023: 2,202 units. One-unit 2,196. Two-unit 2. Three- and four-unit 4.
• 2022: 1,628 units. One-unit 1,620. Two-unit 8.

The 2025 total sits 341 units under 2024, which is 14.0 percent lower. It sits 100 units under 2023. It sits 474 units above 2022, which is 29.1 percent higher. One-unit buildings are 2,082 of 2,102 units in 2025. The county's annual authorization file is a single-family file with a thin edge of duplexes and one small multifamily building.

Florida's matching annual state file for 2025 authorizes 178,297 units: 111,173 one-unit, 2,644 in two-unit buildings, 1,405 in three- and four-unit buildings, and 63,075 in five-or-more-unit buildings. Citrus is 2,102 of that state total. The state file is heavy with five-or-more-unit buildings. The Citrus row is heavy with one-unit houses. A reader who treats the county as a smaller copy of the state mix is reading the wrong column.

August's Florida authorization count, 13,980 housing units, is the separate monthly Building Permits Survey written up in the August permits briefing. That month includes the Homosassa Springs metropolitan area, which is Citrus County on that metro table. The August metro line and this full-year county line are two vintages of permit data. Keep the year on the sentence.

National starts are a third machine. Census and HUD's August construction release, CB26-147, put privately owned housing starts at a 1,275,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate. A Citrus permit is a local authorization in an annual county total. A start in that release is a national sample expressed as an annual rate. The July house price index is a repeat-sales price tape. None of those three files absorbs a Lecanto street.

What the district wrote about 2024 permits

The Planning and Growth Management memorandum dated January 29, 2025, PGMM-2025-01, from Chuck Dixon to the School Board and the Long Range Planning Committee, describes county residential permit activity in the district's own words. From January 1, 2024, through December 2024, the memorandum says county residential building permit activity increased by 1,811 units, calls that a 35 percent increase over the previous year, and calls it the highest number since 2005. Earlier in the same memorandum the district says county residential permits increased to over 1,800 new units in that period.

That 1,811 is the sentence in the school memorandum. Census's annual county total for calendar 2024 is 2,443 units, and the 2025 total on this page is 2,102. The memorandum and the Building Permits Survey are both official. They count on different instructions. Use 2,102 when the question is the Census annual estimate for 2025. Use 1,811 when the question is what the district wrote, in January 2025, about 2024 residential permit activity.

The memorandum also says brick-and-mortar enrollment growth was concentrated in the Citrus Springs and Central Ridge area, where many new homes were being built, and in the Rock Crusher area. It says overall enrollment growth peaked before December 2024 alongside a rise in home-school enrollment and other educational options, including Family Empowerment Scholarships, during the same period the district was watching permits. A permit authorizes a unit. A student shows up if a household with a school-age child occupies a unit and chooses the district's brick-and-mortar roster. The memorandum treats those as two clocks the planning office watches together.

14,845 is the preliminary headcount

The same January packet contains the Preliminary Enrollment Projection Report dated January 27, 2025. The posted PDF filename marks the year-end report approved March 11, 2025. The projection method rolls elementary, middle, and high school forward from the last enrollment report of 2024. It holds kindergarten flat at the prior year. Pre-K follows projected staffing and classroom availability. The district says the sheet is a starting point for school-level projections and for 2025-26 FTE projections, and that county and city population work may still be folded in before those projections are final.

The printed 2025-26 preliminary totals:

• Elementary: 7,033, down 222 from 7,255.
• Middle: 3,324, down 12 from 3,336.
• High school: 4,488, up 72 from 4,416.
• District: 14,845, down 162 from 15,007 in December 2024.

Last year's preliminary change in that series, the memorandum says, was +41. This year's was −162. The note under the table says the preliminary elementary figures leave out birth-rate changes for kindergarten and pre-K, and leave out growth from residential occupancy, at that point in the process. The 14,845 is a January starting headcount. It is the number in the queue because it is the number the district printed for 2025-26 before occupancy was folded in.

As of January 27, 2025, the memorandum projects 2025-26 high school facility utilization at 90 percent, middle school utilization at 77 percent, and elementary enrollment at 91 percent of capacity. For 2024-25 the projected high school enrollment had been 4,621 and the final enrollment was 4,416, which the memorandum calls 205 fewer students than projected. For 2025-26 the high school projection of 4,488 is the 72-student increase above that 4,416. Lecanto High School, in the same paragraph, is projected at 101 percent, compared with 99 percent at the end of 2024. The memorandum says high enrollment there can be addressed by limiting new students through open enrollment.

On the December 16, 2024 enrollment report, the memorandum says Homosassa Elementary, Rock Crusher Elementary, and Lecanto Primary averaged 96 percent of capacity, and that travel time keeps those three from being rezoned the way other elementary schools can. The southwest part of the county is the place the memorandum says needs an alternative plan while a new elementary is still a later project.

The work plan's student forecast is COFTE

COFTE, capital outlay full-time equivalent, is the student unit the facilities work plan uses for capacity. It is a different series from the 14,845 headcount. The PDF on the district planning page is the 2024-2025 Work Plan, adopted by the School Board on January 14, 2025, submitted January 15, 2025, certified by Superintendent Dr. Scott Hebert and Chief Financial Officer Tammy Wilson, with Chuck Dixon, Director of Planning, as the point of contact. The plan covers fiscal years 2024-25 through 2028-29. The district site labels the page 2025-2026 Work Plan. The document inside the page is the 2024-2025 work plan.

Under total COFTE students projected by year, the plan prints 14,899, 14,865, 14,779, 14,715, 14,666, and 14,785. The capacity section identifies 14,666 as the official forecasted COFTE total for 2028-29. The school-by-school projected COFTE for that year adds to 14,636. The plan states that those two 2028-29 figures have to match before the section can be completed, and it prints a balancing line that places 31 COFTE on the high school row. The balanced high school line and the grade-level official forecast sit next to each other in the document: elementary (PK-3) 4,468, middle (4-8) 5,970, high (9-12) 4,229, summing to the official 14,666.

Read the path as a decline in the capital-outlay student count across the five fiscal years, from 14,899 to the official 14,666. The January headcount of 14,845 for 2025-26 sits near the work plan's 14,865 COFTE figure in that same year. Near is the right word. One is a rolled-forward enrollment sheet. The other is the COFTE series inside a capital plan adopted two weeks earlier.

District capacity on the tracking table, for 2024-25 actuals, is 19,055 satisfactory student stations and 18,449 FISH capacity, against 14,936 COFTE for 2023-24, 914 classrooms, an average class size of 16, and utilization of 80.96 percent. The new-student-capacity column and the new-rooms column on that table are 0 at every school and at the district total. Projected 2028-29 utilization on the summed school COFTE is 79.33 percent.

A few schools carry the pressure the district total smooths out. Hernando Elementary shows COFTE of 755 on FISH capacity of 754, utilization 100 percent. Citrus Springs Elementary shows 812 on capacity of 810, also 100 percent. Crystal River Primary is at 96 percent. Lecanto Primary is at 92 percent. Lecanto Senior High shows 2023-24 COFTE of 1,614, utilization 93 percent, and a 2028-29 projected COFTE of 1,581 at 92 percent. Floral City Elementary shows capacity of 418, 2023-24 COFTE of 370 at 88 percent, and a 2028-29 projected COFTE of 475 at 114 percent, with the tracking table's new-capacity column still at 0.

Students in relocatables are 76 in each year of the plan, 1 percent of projected COFTE. Pleasant Grove Elementary accounts for 22 of those relocatable stations each year. Leased classrooms are three at Citrus Springs Elementary, 54 FISH student stations, owner Vesta, still three classrooms and 54 stations at the end of the five-year window. The plan says no school closures are planned. It says the district will review capacity every year, use attendance boundaries, new construction, or relocatables for growth, and may use impact fees and proportionate-share agreements to accelerate a project when a particular residential development creates the demand.

The five-year budget is balanced at $125,496,957

The work plan's own test of balance is simple. Net available revenue minus funded project costs should leave remaining funds of zero. The plan prints remaining funds of $0 in each year. Revenue and project costs match:

• 2024-25: $33,369,480.
• 2025-26: $20,075,140.
• 2026-27: $21,101,876.
• 2027-28: $25,351,436.
• 2028-29: $25,599,025.
• Five-year total: $125,496,957.

Impact fees received, inside that revenue, are $7,213,799 in the 2024-25 budget, $2,987,794 in 2025-26, $675,294 in 2026-27, and $50,294 in each of the last two years. The five-year impact-fee line is $10,977,475. The value of the 1.50-mill capital outlay levy actually levied is $24,461,209 in 2024-25 and $138,361,000 across the five years. PECO new construction revenue is $0 in every year of the plan. Proportionate-share cash revenue is $0. Certificates of participation proceeds are $0. The first-year maintenance, repair, and renovation subtotal from the expenditure schedule is $7,608,066, and the five-year maintenance subtotal on that schedule is $17,188,066.

The capacity projects the plan marks funded, and places in 2024-25, are three Floral City and Lecanto lines:

• Floral City Elementary, new classroom wing: $7,163,505, 181 student stations, 12 classrooms, 22,600 gross square feet. The plan marks it impact-fee fundable.
• Floral City Elementary, kitchen and dining expansion: $801,000, 6,202 gross square feet, and 0 student stations.
• Lecanto Middle, first-floor redesign: $1,069,480, 44 student stations, 2 classrooms, 6,021 gross square feet. The plan marks it impact-fee fundable.

Those lines sum to $9,033,985, 225 student stations, 14 classrooms, and 34,823 gross square feet. The year-end memorandum describes the Floral City expansion as an increase to 599 student stations. The tracking table's FISH capacity at Floral City is 418. Adding the funded wing's 181 stations to that 418 equals 599. The tracking table still shows new capacity of zero and a 2028-29 utilization of 114 percent on the unexpanded station count. Both prints are in the district's January 2025 papers. A reader using the wing uses 599. A reader using the tracking table's 2028-29 column uses 418 stations and a projected COFTE of 475.

Two later projects are printed with the Funded column set to No. Rock Crusher Elementary access and internal traffic circulation, aligned to a new development entrance, is $5,000,000 in 2028-29. A public-safety annex at the Lecanto educational complex, for the Withlacoochee Technical College range the plan ties to flooding at the county landfill site, is $5,000,000. The plan says the 2024-25 document leaves out new residential developments that still lack a final local development order.

Where the district says the houses and the classrooms meet

The January 29 memorandum's staff recommendation is to readopt elementary, middle, and high school attendance boundaries for 2025-26, and to adopt the 2025-26 controlled open enrollment plan. It tells the board to monitor development approvals in the Rock Crusher Canyon area and the Crystal Glen area, which it describes as close to the Suncoast Parkway and suited to workforce housing. It tells the board to monitor the Central Ridge area, including Citrus Hills, and south into Lecanto, and it names residential development around the Suncoast Parkway and around the Cardinal Road interchange, where it says multifamily apartments are likely from proposed county land-use work. The interchange map for that CR-486 / Norvell Bryant node is the separate October 26 briefing.

The memorandum's project list for COFTE and permitting activity puts the Floral City stations and cafeteria in 2024-25, a Rock Crusher campus master plan in 2024-25, additional parking and circulation at Crystal River Middle and Inverness Middle in 2026-27, a Citrus High and Inverness Primary master plan in 2025-26, and Rock Crusher access plus relocatable infrastructure in 2028-29, which it labels a currently unfunded project. It says the district will work with FDOT District 7 on traffic at Crystal River Middle, and on the planned four-lane improvements to US-41 in front of Inverness Middle. Those are coordination lines in a school memorandum. A construction cost and a letting date live on an FDOT project page when one is cited. This memorandum cites the partnership and the four-lane description.

Named residential projects in that memorandum, as the district described them in January 2025:

• Southern Woods Phase V, Sugarmill Woods: a 40.6-acre project of 160 additional single-family units near the Sugarmill Woods school site. The county improvement-plan status for that later village is the separate Phase V briefing.
• Betz Farm, Crystal River: 1,466 single-family homes on 357 acres, under sufficiency review by county staff at the time of the memorandum.
• Post Oak Ranch, Crystal River: 1,750 single-family homes on 541 acres, also under sufficiency review in that memorandum.

Sufficiency review is a review status. The memorandum prints the unit counts the district was tracking. An improvement plan that can start dirt, and a plat that is filed, are the county application files. Crystal Ridge is the Lecanto planned unit development the August 18 county list cleared for infrastructure, with plats still open. Black Diamond Town Center is the CR-486 commercial subdivision that list already calls under construction. Those two are dirt and a commercial plat. They are individual files inside a county that authorized 2,102 units in the Census year.

The ten-year and twenty-year sheets

Beyond the five funded years, the work plan prints a ten-year capacity sheet and a twenty-year capacity sheet. Ten-year maintenance and renovation, years 6 through 10, is $19,400,000. The capacity projects on that horizon:

• Rock Crusher campus expansion, additional student stations and core capacity, at 814 S Rock Crusher Road, Homosassa: $52,500,000, marked impact-fee fundable.
• New elementary, Pine Ridge future school site, 4255 W Norvell Bryant Highway, Lecanto: $52,500,000, marked impact-fee fundable.
• Phase 3 of the Crystal River High campus renovation, including a gym, ROTC, and replacement classrooms: $17,400,000.

The two $52,500,000 lines are followed in the plan by $105,000,000. On the ten-year grade-level table, elementary capacity to be added is 991 student stations, middle 44, high 450, and the district add is 1,485. Actual 2023-24 COFTE on that table is 14,936.10. Projected 2033-34 COFTE is 14,866, and projected utilization is 74.58 percent, against 2023-24 utilization of 80.96 percent. The plan says the 450 high school stations may be part of a combination school in Citrus Springs, and may be unnecessary if a high school charter is available in that area. Combination schools are grouped with middle schools on the table because both use a 90 percent utilization factor.

The twenty-year maintenance line, years 11 through 20, is $132,951,085. A new high school or combination school adjacent to the Central Ridge Elementary campus in Citrus Springs is $94,500,000. Projected 2043-44 COFTE on the twenty-year table is 14,848, and projected utilization is 74.49 percent. The infrastructure note for years 6 through 10 describes Rock Crusher as a larger campus or multiple schools, with a bus garage relocated from Crystal River Middle because of flooding, and two entrances from Rock Crusher Road. It also describes a fair-share contribution to signalization on CR-486 / Norvell Bryant Highway for two existing entrances at the Pine Ridge site if a signal is warranted. Years 11 through 20 add infrastructure for another school and sports facilities at the Citrus Springs campus.

The long-range COFTE totals stay in a band. 14,936 actual for 2023-24. 14,666 official forecast for 2028-29. 14,866 projected for 2033-34. 14,848 projected for 2043-44. The January headcount of 14,845 for 2025-26 sits inside that band. The capital plan's classroom additions on the ten-year sheet, 1,485 stations, sit beside a projected COFTE that stays inside that band. The houses in the Census file are a 2,102-unit authorization year. The student forecast the district adopted for facilities is a flat-to-lower COFTE path, with the crowded schools named one campus at a time.

How to use 2,102 and 14,845 on a house

For a buyer, 2,102 authorized units means the county's 2025 permit year was still a one-unit year, 341 units under the 2024 Census total and well above 2022. It means new houses are in the pipeline as permissions. The price still comes from the house on the street and from current sales of similar houses. The payment is the October 8 Freddie Mac survey at 7.40 percent and 6.73 percent, the tax bill on the parcel, and the insurance quote on that roof. The school question is local. Districtwide preliminary enrollment is 14,845, down 162 from December 2024, with the drop in elementary. Lecanto High is the campus the memorandum projects at 101 percent. Homosassa Elementary, Rock Crusher Elementary, and Lecanto Primary are the three the memorandum says averaged 96 percent and cannot be rezoned away. Ask which campus the address zones to, and ask whether open enrollment at that campus is still accepting students. The Lecanto home guide and the Citrus market overview are the street-level companions. A written quote starts on the mortgage page.

The Sixth District housing sentence in the October 14 Beige Book is the separate Florida sales note: home sales improved moderately, and more homes sold below the asking price, especially in Florida. September contract cancellations, including Tampa at 18.8 percent, are the separate pending-sales note. The homestead arithmetic, school mills and non-school mills, is the separate tax note. Those files describe the contract, the concession, and the bill. This file describes how many units Citrus authorized in 2025 and how many students the district projected.

For a seller, a permit year of 2,102 is competing new product over time, as those authorizations become houses, and it is a smaller Census year than 2024. Price the house against current sales of similar houses. The work plan's COFTE path, from 14,899 toward 14,666, is a reason to describe the actual zoned school and its utilization, and to skip a countywide classroom-boom paragraph. Floral City's funded wing, Lecanto High's projected 101 percent, and a southwest elementary that is already near full are three different sentences. Use the one that matches the address.

For an owner of a building or a pad, the commercial geography in these papers is the Suncoast corridor, the Cardinal Road interchange, and the schools that need circulation money. Impact fees in the adopted plan step down from $7,213,799 in 2024-25 to $50,294 in each of the last two years. The ten-year elementary the plan sites at 4255 W Norvell Bryant Highway, and the Rock Crusher expansion at 814 S Rock Crusher Road, are impact-fee-fundable projects on a horizon past the balanced five-year budget. Commercial is the service layer when the question is a bay or a corner. The people living in the houses are still the July 1 Census estimate and the April 1 BEBR estimate, a county QuickFacts lists as 38.1 percent age 65 and over.

The pair to keep

Citrus authorized 2,102 housing units in the Census annual file for 2025, 2,082 of them one-unit, after 2,443 in 2024. Florida authorized 178,297 in the same annual release. The district's January 27, 2025 preliminary enrollment projection is 14,845, down 162 from December. The facilities work plan adopted January 14, 2025 balances $125,496,957 over five years, funds 225 new student stations in that first year, forecasts official COFTE of 14,666 for 2028-29, and places the next elementary and the Rock Crusher expansion on the ten-year sheet at $52,500,000 each. Growth in these two official files is a permit count and a road-and-school capital plan. The student forecast stays in a narrow band while the permit file keeps authorizing houses.

Bridge Point will read a Citrus address against the zoned school, the permit vintage, and a current payment. Call 352-515-0226 or start at contact.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, final annual 2025 estimates released May 14, 2026, county file co2025a and state file st2025a, with Citrus County 2025 units 2,102 (one-unit 2,082, two-unit 14, five-or-more 6; construction value $514,893,490) and reported units 1,403; the same county files for 2024 (2,443), 2023 (2,202), and 2022 (1,628); Florida 2025 annual total 178,297; Census QuickFacts, Citrus County, Building Permits, 2025, 2,102. Citrus County Schools, 2024-2025 Work Plan, adopted January 14, 2025, submitted January 15, 2025, including five-year revenue and project costs $125,496,957, impact fees $10,977,475, COFTE figures, FISH capacity 18,449, and the funded Floral City and Lecanto Middle capacity projects. Citrus County Schools Planning and Growth Management memorandum PGMM-2025-01, January 29, 2025, posted as the 2024 year-end report file named approved March 11, 2025, including the Preliminary Enrollment Projection Report of January 27, 2025 (14,845). Freddie Mac PMMS of October 8, 2026, the October 14, 2026 Beige Book, and Census/HUD CB26-147 are separate tapes.