Orlando developer Kal Hussein and Highland Homes have won approval from Osceola County for a 432-home subdivision near the Harmony golf community east of St. Cloud.
The county commissioners approved the preliminary subdivision plan for the project, which is located on Old Melbourne Highway, adjacent to M/I Homes’ Bay Lake Farms community and just north of Harmony West, a D.R. Horton community. The new subdivision will have connecting roads to both of the adjacent neighborhoods.
Hussein told GrowthSpotter he began the entitlement process for the 87-acre site in 2024. “I had a different builder that jumped ship, and then Highland came in, and we got the PSP approved, so that was a big thing.”
Rj Whidden and Associates acted as the project planner and surveyor, and KPM Franklin is the civil engineer. The subdivision plan creates four different product types with a mix of detached homes and townhomes.
The plan calls for 200 front-loaded detached homesites on 50-foot lots and 93 rear-loaded bungalows on 32-foot lots. The 108 townhomes are rear-loaded and come in two sizes: 24 feet for end units and 22 feet for the internal units. The plan also creates a pair of pocket parks and sets aside a 1.36-acre tract for the amenity center, which includes a community pool and cabana and a playground.
Hussein said Osceola County’s high impact fees, combined with relatively high interest rates, make it difficult to underwrite new projects there, but both he and the builder are confident the market will be stronger in two years when the final permitting and engineering are complete. The project is on track to close later this year.
“We’re hoping that the market would come to us in the future,” he said. “So, the deal is tough to underwrite, but we’re hoping, we’re pretty much optimistic that the future will be better than what we are today. So, that’s why we’re making a big bet like this.”
He said the scarcity of available land east of Narcoossee Road makes a good bet. “This is about the last sizable piece before you really go out-out,” he said.
Highland Homes has been one of the most prolific homebuilders in the East Narcoossee submarket, with several projects on the Jones Road corridor, including the sold-out Sienna Reserve and its 100-unit townhouse community, Ralston Reserve, as well as The Crossings, which is now in its second phase of development.
Hussein was the original developer on The Crossings. He sees the Old Melbourne Highway site as a good replacement, noting that Highland will be approaching the final buildout of The Crossings by the time Old Melbourne is ready to launch sales.
Hussein also secured entitlements for Hickory Tree Estates, a nearly-800-home community on the former Triple H Ranch, and sold it to Highland Homes in 2021.
“Highland Homes is pretty savvy,” he said. “And they’re big, but they’re not public, so they have more leeway than the national public companies that have certain restrictions or corporate guidelines they have to follow.”
The homebuilder was based in Lakeland before being acquired by Berkshire Hathaway-owned Clayton Properties Group. “They’re local, so they understand the market,” he said. “They’ve been through the ups and downs, and sometimes being local, understanding the cycles of the market gets you maybe to stick your neck a little more.”
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