During a meeting earlier today, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors presented a report that discusses “issues” with the former Reedy Creek Improvement District. During closing statements, Board Chairman Martin Garcia called on Florida lawmakers to impose new legislation on Disney World.
Chairman Garcia called for lawmakers to introduce more “reform” that would have the potential to change the landscape of Disney World property as we know it today. When it was conceived by Walt Disney back in the 1960s, Walt Disney World would’ve been a sprawling vacation destination that would be master-planned and operated by The Walt Disney Company. In many respects, that is true today. There are hundreds of thousands of guests on the property every day and tens of thousands of Cast Members that operate a vacation destination unlike anything else in the world.
One of the things that Walt Disney stressed and intended was for Walt Disney World to have enough breathing room to create an experience that wasn’t impacted by outside forces. Indeed, the Walt Disney World experience is vastly different than the Disneyland experience in terms of urban encroachment. Anyone who has visited Disneyland knows just how close city elements are to the theme parks. Disney World is different in that it is roughly 43 square miles of land that mostly doesn’t have the “outside world” abutting theme parks or vacation experiences.
In the meeting today, Chairman Garcia called on Florida lawmakers to not stop at simply granting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis the ability to take over the former local taxing district that envelops Walt Disney World but to potentially change the dynamics of the resort entirely. Here’s what Chairman Garcia called for:
The Reedy Creek Act was a pandora’s box: a curse disguised in the form of a beautiful gift. Now that the truth is out, Florida lawmakers and government officials should expel the curse with more reforms to the District. There are many referenced in the audit, in terms of reforms, that should be welcomed on a bipartisan basis. Traffic solutions, schools, affordable housing…who argues against that? Disney. So as the audit demonstrates, the District was indeed in dire need of reform. And thus, Legislature was aptly warranted in passing the new legislation this year to begin reforming the District. To begin reforming the District. This has enabled our Board to implement a myriad of reforms. We look forward to working with other government officials to continue to reform the District to serve the public good…
With Chairman Garcia calling for new development around Walt Disney World, what could the CFTOD actually accomplish? We’ll start with a look at the boundaries of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. As you can see in the District data below, it covers mostly areas North of Interstate 4, but it also contains areas south of I-4 as well. In terms of total acres owned, Orange County records show that the CFTOD owns about 3,000 acres of land. Disney World encompasses more than 25,000 acres, according to Disney’s latest annual report.
Of those 3,000 acres, most of it is already developed. In terms of top square footage, the CFTOD properties that take up the most acreage include a conservation area/solar farm, Disney Springs parking garages, public roadways, landscape maintenance areas, solid waste facilities, and canals. There really doesn’t appear to be a lot of land that would be able to support initiatives like affordable housing and schools. At least, not on land currently under the control of the District, which may be why Chairman Garcia is calling on lawmakers.
Other Board Members indicated that affordable housing would be a huge priority of the Board in 2024, but with one lawsuit in Federal court that could completely undo the current makeup of the District, and a lawsuit in State court that could restrict development rights, it’s likely that 2024 will actually be about the court system and any rulings handed down.
While the Board can’t take over Disney World land unless they utilize eminent domain, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has previously made his wishes clear: that his Oversight District should develop the land within the Walt Disney World Resort area, be it for state prisons or even other theme parks.
For more on the report that Chairman Garcia was referencing, check out our article below.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
The board says “a curse disguised in the form of a beautiful gift”. Their narrative is so ridiculous. Reedy Creek was established specifically to benefit Walt Disney World – not any other land owner. No different than Universal’s new tax district for Epic Universe was established to benefit Universal itsself. So of course that’s what any investigation of RCID would relfect of their past practices. And it seemed to have worked just fine for Florida taxpayers for 50 years. This board just has their heads up someone’s butt.
These maniacs are out. of. control. Same as their kind are everywhere in America now.
The best approach is to limit the special district to be under the thumb of the 2 counties it encompasses. Let each county have 1 or 2 board seats and the state have 3 or 5 board seats. Then limit the district to certain powers and the remainder be the sole powers of the counties or state.
What we learned so far from the audit is Disney controlled the power plant which actually is nonexistent. A complete waste of government resources. Equipment wasted away in warehouses. Disney bribed district employees with theme park annual passes and didn’t tell the district employees that their passes are taxable.