Deed Restrictions and ARCC — Barefoot Bay, Florida

Barefoot Bay's deed restrictions are the Amended and Restated Deed of Restrictions for Barefoot Bay, a covenant on every lot that the Barefoot Bay Recreation District enforces instead of a homeowners association.

The document in force was amended and restated as of October 25, 2022. Every ARCC application asks the owner to initial that the Guidelines and the Deed of Restrictions of Barefoot Bay Recreation District, Amended and Restated as of October 25, 2022, are known and accepted (BBRD ARCC application). The Barefoot Bay Recreation District answers the common question directly: Barefoot Bay does not have a Homeowner's Association, and the annual assessment collected by Brevard County with property taxes funds the district (BBRD FAQs).

Barefoot Bay calls itself the largest unincorporated, deed-restricted manufactured home community and recreation district, located in southern Brevard County, and it became a special recreation district with a charter from the Brevard County Commissioners in 1984 (About Barefoot Bay). State law gives a mobile home park recreation district of this kind the power to adopt rules and regulations not inconsistent with existing deed restrictions and to use district funds in the administration and enforcement of such rules, regulations, and deed restrictions (Section 418.304, Florida Statutes).

Article II of the deed covers architecture: what may be built, how homes are installed and the setbacks. Article III covers the condition and use of each lot, including parking. The ARCC applies Article II through its Guidelines for Use by the Architectural Review & Control Committee, dated November 2025, which reprint the Article II text and add the committee's promulgated rules (ARCC Guidelines). The Barefoot Bay Recreation District Policy Manual lets homeowners and residents obtain one free copy per calendar year of the Charter, the Deed of Restrictions and the ARCC Guidelines, among other documents (BBRD Policy Manual).

In Barefoot Bay an ARCC permit is required for every home placed on a lot, every addition, nearly every renovation and every replacement air conditioning unit.

The Guidelines list the only exceptions to the renovation rule: awnings for windows, replacement of A/C pads, and minor repairs without modification to existing construction, not exceeding $500 (ARCC Guidelines, page 3). Everything else, from a new driveway flare to a screen room, starts with the BBRD form titled Application to Erect, Place or Alter Home or Structure in Barefoot Bay Mobile Home Subdivision. Starting first is costly: any homeowner that starts work without an approved ARCC permit will be issued a Stop Work Order (ARCC Guidelines, page 8).

Short-lived items are covered too. The Deed of Restrictions requires that all temporary, portable, or freestanding structures installed for longer than 48 hours require an approved ARCC permit, and the ARCC requires them, playgrounds included, to sit in the back yard and be anchored (ARCC Guidelines, page 12).

The ARCC permit does not replace county approval. The district's own county permit sheet lists garages, carports, room additions, screen enclosures and Florida rooms, utility buildings, fences and privacy panels, and re-roofs of a carport or utility room as work that needs a Brevard County permit, and a Notice of Commencement (NOC) is required if the job value exceeds $2,500.00 (BBRD county permit information).

A Barefoot Bay ARCC permit is decided by a five-member committee of lot owners that meets every other Tuesday morning and returns reviewed applications at 625 Barefoot Blvd. on the following Thursday.

The Board of Trustees of the Barefoot Bay Recreation District appoints five voting members of the ARCC, all of whom shall be Lot owners, each for a three-year term, plus two alternates who vote only when needed for a quorum (ARCC Guidelines, page 3). A quorum will exist when a simple majority of three (3) voting members are present, and a simple majority of those present decides each item; the committee picks its chairman and vice-chairman at an organizational meeting soon after January 1 (ARCC Guidelines, page 4). The Resident Relations Department publishes an agenda seven days before each meeting (ARCC Guidelines, page 3), and the committee's page on the district site gives its meeting address as 625 Barefoot Blvd., Sebastian, FL 32976, a Sebastian mailing address for a Barefoot Bay building (ARCC committee page).

Timing is set in writing. The form states that the application will be acted on at a regularly scheduled ARCC Committee Meeting, that the meetings are held bi-weekly on Tuesday morning, and that the reviewed application is available at 625 Barefoot Blvd. on the Thursday after the meeting; permit questions go to arccpermits@bbrd.org or 772-664-3141 (ARCC application, page 3). The deed also protects an owner from delay: in the event the ARCC fails to approve or disapprove an application within thirty (30) days after the complete application has been submitted, the application is deemed approved, and a dispute over how the ARCC reads a requirement is resolved by a majority vote of the Barefoot Bay Board of Trustees (ARCC Guidelines, page 5).

In Barefoot Bay a shed must be an attached utility building or a single small plastic storage unit, a carport needs an 11 by 18 foot slab, and additions are capped by the size of the original home.

Freestanding sheds of the usual backyard kind do not fit the Barefoot Bay rules. The ARCC defines a utility building as storage for household tools and equipment whose base must be a concrete slab and which must be structurally attached by full roof to the mobile home or carport at eave level; the minimum size of a utility building is 48 square feet, and T-111 siding is not permitted (ARCC Guidelines, page 13). The only detached option is a single prefabricated plastic unit placed adjacent to the home, no larger than thirty-six (36) square feet, on a concrete slab and strapped or anchored (ARCC Guidelines, page 15).

Carports follow the deed's installation standard: a carport roof with two unobstructed sides over a covered concrete slab with a minimum unobstructed area of eleven (11) feet by eighteen (18) feet, or a garage of the same minimum size (ARCC Guidelines, page 5). The minimum unobstructed car parking space on the slab, between side steps and post, is 8 feet 4 inches, and an enclosed carport may not be used to store an R.V. (ARCC Guidelines, page 9).

Additions are limited by the home as delivered. No addition or combination of additions and accessory structures shall exceed 50 percent of the square footage of the originally delivered double-wide mobile home, or 100 percent of a single-wide, and the base unit itself may not be structurally expanded except by factory construction to HUD standards (ARCC Guidelines, page 8). Page 13 adds a list of banned items: trampolines larger than 6 feet in diameter, all tents and portable shelters, car canopies and detached garages, and all pop-up structures are banned from Barefoot Bay lots (ARCC Guidelines, page 13).

Barefoot Bay's deed requires each manufactured home to be no more than four years old when installed, at least 600 square feet, fully skirted, set back from lot lines and fitted with a lit lamp post.

The installation list in Article II, Section 3 is specific. Each home needs a patio roof, a garage or carport, a patio slab, a poured and reinforced concrete driveway from the carport slab to the curb with a flared approach, skirting that encloses the base, central water, sewer and electricity, landscaping, and tie-downs to code; no manufactured or modular home installed on any Lot shall be more than four (4) years old (ARCC Guidelines, page 6). A lamp post approved by the ARCC must stand in front of every Barefoot Bay residence and be illuminated from dusk to dawn at a minimum of 460 lumens (40 watt), and address numbers on the carport or garage must be at least three inches high.

Size and spacing follow the plats. No more than one manufactured or modular home may sit on each lot, every home must connect to public sewer and water, and newly installed homes must have a minimum size of 600 square feet (ARCC Guidelines, page 7). Interior lots require a 7 1/2 foot rear setback, a 7 1/2 foot side setback and a 10 foot front setback; on a corner lot the rear and adjacent-lot side setbacks are 7 1/2 feet, and the owner chooses whether the front line or the remaining side line takes 10 feet, with 15 feet on the other.

Materials are listed by name. Skirting may be stucco, stone, stucco finished block or Hardie Board, and vinyl skirting and wood framing are not allowed; approved roofing materials are shingle, metal, vinyl, foam, and membrane (ARCC Guidelines, page 12). Seasonal practices are covered as well: hurricane shutters must be removed by the end of hurricane season, residents arriving after December 1 remove them as soon as possible, and boats of any size are not allowed to be stored outside on a Barefoot Bay lot (ARCC Guidelines, page 15).

Barefoot Bay deed restrictions are enforced by the district's DOR Enforcement staff in Resident Relations, with suspension of amenity privileges as the main penalty for repeat violations.

The FY27 Adopted Budget describes the job: DOR Enforcement is responsible for inspection of all BBRD properties to ensure compliance with the DOR and ARCC permits, processing violations when necessary, and supporting the Architectural Review Control and DOR Violations Committees (BBRD FY27 Adopted Budget). The DOR line in the Barefoot Bay Recreation District budget is $299,182 in the FY27 adopted budget, up from $273,775 adopted for FY26 and $260,523 actually spent in FY25 (BBRD FY27 budget summary).

Penalties hit the badge rather than the bank account. Under the Barefoot Bay Recreation District Policy Manual, three posted notices within any thirty (30) day period for parking on the lawn, grass, or landscaped area of a lot, a breach of Article III, Section 3 (D) of the deed, automatically suspend all social, family and golf memberships tied to the lot for thirty (30) days; a further posted violation within a year brings six months, and later ones one year each (BBRD Policy Manual, page 25).

State law sets limits the Barefoot Bay deed cannot override. Florida provides that a deed restriction, covenant, declaration, or similar binding agreement may not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on renewable resources, although the approving body may pick the roof location facing south or within 45 degrees east or west of due south if that does not impair the panels (Section 163.04, Florida Statutes).

Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Barefoot Bay Recreation District website, against the ARCC Guidelines and permit application.