"Not required to be shown on the Notice of Proposed Taxes but will appear on your final tax bill." That's the Lee County Property Appraiser's own language, buried in an FAQ about non-ad valorem assessments. It reads like a footnote. For a buyer closing on certain older Bonita Springs properties, it's closer to the whole story.
Most of Bonita Springs runs on central sewer through Bonita Springs Utilities. But a handful of older, still-platted neighborhoods never got the pipe. Those pockets are now being converted one at a time, and the assessment that pays for it doesn't show up where a buyer would normally look for it. It shows up after.
Where This Is Actually Happening
Sun Village Estates sits off East Terry Street just east of I-75, a neighborhood of fewer than 150 single-family homes and vacant lots with no homeowners association and no shared amenities. It's an ordinary older subdivision, the kind of place where a house can still be on a septic tank in 2026 simply because the sewer main never reached that street.
Bonita Springs Utilities and the City of Bonita Springs are running a joint project there now, along with a second neighborhood called Lake of San Souci. The city secured Florida Department of Environmental Protection grants for both: $2,050,000 for Sun Village and $950,000 for Lake of San Souci, awarded in November 2021, with the city's own announcement laying out the funding split. The work involves gravity sewer mains, manholes, service lines, and a new pump station, with existing septic systems abandoned once the connection is live.
This isn't a one-time cleanup effort. Bonita Springs Utilities has been chipping away at septic conversion since it launched a ten-year gravity expansion program back in 1995. Sun Village and Lake of San Souci are simply the current phase of a project that's been running, on and off, for three decades.
The Clock Starts When the Main Reaches Your Lot
Once BSU's sewer line reaches an adjoining property, Florida law and the city's own ordinance require the homeowner to connect within one year. This isn't a suggestion the city hopes people follow. It's written into the comprehensive plan: on-site sewage systems must connect to central sanitary sewer when collection lines have been installed immediately adjoining and service is available.
That timing matters if you're buying into one of these neighborhoods. A home on septic today, in a project area where mains are already going in, could be on a mandatory hookup countdown before your first mortgage payment is due.
What the Hookup Actually Costs
Here's where the picture gets better than the generic version of this story. National septic-to-sewer conversion guides usually put the total cost between $5,000 and $15,000, driven mostly by how far the house sits from the sewer main. In Bonita Springs, the state grant is covering half of the construction cost for the Sun Village and Lake of San Souci projects, and the city and BSU are contributing additional funds specifically to bring the homeowner's share down further, according to BSU's own project page. BSU also offers a monthly payment option for the remaining Aid-to-New-Construction fee rather than requiring it as a lump sum.
So the actual dollar exposure for a homeowner in one of these grant-funded project areas is meaningfully lower than what a national cost guide would lead you to expect. That's good news. It's just not the part of this story that catches people off guard.
Why Due Diligence Doesn't Catch It
The part that catches people off guard is timing, not price.
When a buyer researches carrying costs on a Bonita Springs property, the standard reference point is the Notice of Proposed Taxes, the TRIM notice mailed out each August that estimates the coming year's tax bill. Lee County's own property tax system separates two categories: ad valorem taxes based on assessed value, and non-ad valorem assessments for things like solid waste, fire service, and infrastructure projects such as sewer conversion, per the Lee County Tax Collector's explanation of how the two combine into one bill.
The Lee County Property Appraiser is direct about which category a sewer conversion assessment falls into and what that means for visibility. Several districts in the county levy non ad valorem assessments, and those assessments are not required to appear on the Notice of Proposed Taxes, only on the final bill, according to the Property Appraiser's FAQ. A buyer who pulls up the TRIM notice during a due diligence period, or runs an online tax estimator, can come away with a clean answer that simply doesn't include a charge that's already been approved for that parcel.
The workaround exists, but it takes a specific step most buyers don't know to take. Lee County's guidance for its special taxing units points to the same fix: review current and past property tax bills directly, not the estimator or the TRIM notice, to see what taxes and special assessments have actually been collected on a given property, as described in the county's MSTBU FAQ. For a home in Sun Village Estates, Lake of San Souci, or any similar older pocket, that means pulling the actual tax bill history on the parcel before writing an offer, not just checking the estimate.
If You're Selling Into This
An active septic tank on a property that's already inside a mandatory conversion zone is a disclosure conversation worth having early, not at the inspection stage. If the sewer main has already reached the lot and the one-year clock has started, that's a material fact a buyer will want to know before they're deep into a contract. Sellers who complete the connection ahead of listing remove the question entirely. Sellers who don't should expect it to come up.
Questions That Come Up Before Closing
Does this apply to my property if I already have public sewer? No. This is specific to the small number of Bonita Springs neighborhoods still served by septic, primarily older platted subdivisions like Sun Village Estates and Lake of San Souci that predate the area's sewer buildout.
Is there help if the assessment is a hardship? Lee County offers a matching grant covering 25 percent of an assessment for homesteaded owners under HUD income limits, and a separate deferral program for qualifying homesteaded owners, both outlined in the county's MSTBU FAQ. Eligibility and administration details are worth confirming directly with the relevant office for your specific assessment, since these programs are tied to income thresholds that can change.
Where do I check a specific address? Start with that property's actual tax bill history through the Lee County Tax Collector, not the online tax estimator. The estimator is a planning tool built on assumptions about future rates. It won't surface an assessment that's already been levied but hasn't yet cycled through a full billing year.
The number that matters here was never the size of the assessment. It's when it becomes visible to you. In Bonita Springs, that answer is: after the notice you were relying on has already told you something else.
If you're weighing a purchase in one of Bonita Springs' older neighborhoods, or getting ready to sell a home that's part of a conversion project, Chad Long can help you pull the actual parcel history before you're under contract, not after. Request a complimentary consultation to talk through what's on file for a specific address.
