May 12 - Reedy Creek Improvement District

Image courtesy wikiwand.com

On this day, in 1967, the Governor of Florida, Claude R. Kirk Jr, signed legislation creating the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the governing jurisdiction for all of Walt Disney World. As Walt began planning his East Coast park, he knew it had to be different from Disneyland in couple of key ways. For one, it had to be bigger, big enough that outside businesses couldn’t be seen from inside his park. Not only would it be bigger physically, but it would also be bigger in scope. More hotels, more restaurants, more shops, more of everything guests could need for an extended stay. But the more important distinction between east and west was going to be his futuristic city under a dome. EPCOT was the culmination of all of Walt’s dreams and ambitions, the banner under which the world was going to become a better place. It was going to need all sorts of specialized buildings and infrastructure, which presented a multitude of problems for Walt. His main obstacle: the fact that, under current governmental conditions, it might prove impossible to build.

Image courtesy oppaga.state.fl.us

As the Walt Disney Company went through the highly secretive process of acquiring land for the Florida Project, they ended up creating a potential headache for themselves by owning a parcel of land that straddled two Florida counties, Orange and Osceola. Dealing with one county government to obtain all the permits needed for major construction projects can be difficult enough. Having to remember two different sets of rules depending on where you’re building on your property, is a nightmare. Luckily, Disney had some pull as a corporate behemoth and was able to make that problem go away, albeit in stages.

The first step came in March 1966. All of the holding companies who had officially purchased all the central Florida land banded together and asked the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court to create the Reedy Creek Drainage District. (This is where the ethics of the whole deal begin to get murky, since those holding companies were already banded together, each being wholly owned by Disney, but that distinction pales in comparison to later ones.) A drainage district is ostensibly formed to maintain the drainage systems for an area. It’s overseen by a board and generally has the power to levy taxes in order to pay for those systems. They also have the power (at least in Florida) to use eminent domain to condemn and absorb land outside their boundaries as long as it’s for “public use.” Reedy Creek has only used this power once, to gain land along Bonnet Creek. That land is now part of the Bonnet Creek Resort, which is partly a “nature preserve” (which could be considered public use) but mostly a collection of privately held hotels (which, in my opinion, could not). The waters have become even murkier, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Image courtesy wdwnt.com

Realizing that a drainage district wasn’t going to give the Florida Project the independence it needed to do the things Disney wanted to do quickly, the company (under Walt’s guidance although he would die before his plans were finalized) petitioned the Florida State Legislature to change the drainage district to an improvement district. The distinction between the two is like night and day. The Reedy Creek Improvement District would only be beholden to the state or surrounding counties in two ways: property taxes and elevator inspections. In every other way (including land use and planning, utilities, roads, emergency medical services, waste treatment, etc.), the board of the district (which would be controlled by Disney) would have control. The State of Florida, with dollar signs in its eyes, agreed that this was the best way to go. Lawsuits against the formation of the district were of course immediately filed. At least one reached the Florida State Supreme Court, who ruled that the district did not violate Florida’s constitution, was exempt from all current and future state land use laws and could move forward.

Image courtesy wikiwand.com

Reedy Creek Improvement District is run by a five member board that is independent on paper only. The board members are duly elected by the landowners within RCID, but what does that mean exactly? The same time Governor Kirk created the district, he also signed legislation chartering two cities within the district, Lake Buena Vista (originally known as the city of Reedy Creek) and Bay Lake. Calling them cities is being kind. Lake Buena Vista has about 16 residents and Bay Lake has around 23. The problem with those residents isn’t that they are all company employees or immediate family members (which they are), the problem is that none of them own the land they live on. Therefore none of them get to vote on board members, even though it can be assumed that they would be 100% for whatever Disney wanted, considering they don’t get to live where they do without the company’s consent. The real problem here is that there are exactly five landowners within the boundaries of RCID, each owning 5 acres of land. All five are senior Disney employees and basically get to handpick their representative on the board. Naturally the person they pick is going to be someone who will do exactly what the company wants. As one of these five people, can you guess what you get to do with “your” land when you retire? That’s right. You “get” to “sell” it to the next senior employee in line. And when you receive one of the 5 acre parcels, you get to vote your proxy onto the board.

Image copyright Disney

The end result is that there is no real oversight of anything that happens within the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Now Disney will swear up and down that the board is independent (just don’t ask how that’s possible given its election process) and doesn’t just rubberstamp all their plans. It is true that they occasionally issue a token no vote on something, but I guarantee the situation is not what Florida lawmakers envisioned when they gave their consent to the plan (something current lawmakers in Orange and Osceola counties probably regret at least once a week if not once a day). Especially since Disney officials spent all their time drumming up support for the plan by invoking how great EPCOT was going to be and how the only way to make it happen was to create this special area. Walt, however, was barely in the grave before the company abandoned all plans for city building (notice how they waited a few months for a signature on that resolution though).

Would things be less underhanded (an inflammatory but not untrue adjective) in how Walt Disney World was constructed if Walt had lived longer? That’s hard to say. Plans for EPCOT would have moved forward, bringing in actual residents that would have had a say in who was on the board, so maybe. But then again maybe not. When the town of Celebration was built, all that land was deliberately removed from the RCID so the town’s residents wouldn’t have any control over the board (although Celebration does enjoy a thin line of RCID controlled property all around it as a buffer with the outside world). The bottom line is that, love it for being instrumental in creating a play land like no other or hate it for being a textbook marriage of corporate greed and governmental corruption, Disney got the deal of the century in the Reedy Creek Improvement District, they use it to their full advantage and would be remiss if they didn’t. Just notice that the government has never extended the same deal to anyone else (I think I just heard Universal snort) and they would be remiss if they did.