News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

[Eeyorenot74]

One of the reasons I got sucked into the site a while ago was finding out that local politics about OC/Disneyland was actually interesting reading.
Hope the same doesn't happen at on the other coast. Boring is better. Also when I go to the parks I'd rather be escaping and not entering into the center of social/political drama.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

So we're going from it being unfair that Disney has special status to planning ways Disney can be specially targeted for taxation?

Not Disney. Theme park complex operators who use a disproportionate amount of public services. The same way gasoline taxes fund highway maintenance.

 

[lazyboy97o]

This is incorrect. There are tons of ways to raise revenue without raising sales or property taxes. For example, the Florida toll authority could place a gigantic toll booth in front of every entrance to the resort and charge $20 to enter the property. Alternatively, Orange County could change its permit fee schedule to charge per man hour used in the permit application process (by which Disney will far outscale any other entity in the county). They could further astronomically raise permitting fees solely for businesses the size of Disney (by employee #s or customer #s), which would ultimately only apply to Disney.

Has no one in this thread ever worked for government before? This stuff is basic.

You just keep proposing things that are blatantly illegal.

Neither the Turnpike nor CFX can just drop tolls wherever and doll out the money to counties.

There is no way to make permit reviewers take longer to review Disney applications. The requirements for a permit are not some unknown. If the documents are in order then they are in order.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

It time to focus Anaheim as a flagship. Drop WDW and leave FL in dust.

They've been doing that for almost twenty years!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Orange and Osceola residents whose own taxes will be raised and support the changeover,

This is a lie. I'm not saying you're lying, I'm saying you were lied to.

 

[AdventureHasAName]

They could also raise property tax rates across the board... and then offer a homeowner tax credit or small business tax credit or some such thing.

It's like... Congress can't raise taxes just on childless people. But they CAN raise taxes on everyone... and then increase the Child Tax Credit.

I'm not sure why you said "this is incorrect." I was agreeing with you.

No, I agree with you. I was saying that what the guy in the tweet was saying was incorrect.

 

[lazyboy97o]

This is a lie. I'm not saying you're lying, I'm saying you were lied to.

And yet nobody will give the specifics of these taxes that Disney will now pay to the counties.

 

[Lilofan]

This is a lie. I'm not saying you're lying, I'm saying you were lied to.

If one thinks the local taxpayer taxes won't be raised one is living in Fantasyland.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

And yet nobody will give the specifics of these taxes that Disney will now pay to the counties.

It's not a magic switch that Disney will automatically start paying. The counties will need to design the new tax regime.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

If one thinks the local taxpayer taxes won't be raised one is living in Fantasyland.

DISNEY is the local taxpayer!

Nobody's crappy stucco McMansion in Dr. Phillips is going to see massive tax increases to subsidize potholes on Western Way.

 

[Animal_Kingdom_09]

What is EMMA?

Electronic Municipal Market Access

The link opens a word doc, not a pdf.

RCID Statement

 

[lazyboy97o]

It's not a magic switch that Disney will automatically start paying. The counties will need to design the new tax regime.

Ignoring that previously claimed it was a magic switch and differences in property appraisal, that still means the state plan that exists right now is to drop the liability on the county taxpayers. The counties coming up with a solution afterwards doesn’t make the state plan and present situation a lie. It doesn’t help that many of the proposed solutions being bandied about are in fact highly constrained or just illegal.

 

[Lilofan]

DISNEY is the local taxpayer!

Still does not cover the costs. Give it a year

 

[Lilofan]

The Colorado governor offered Disney the opportunity to relocate to Colorado. I'm looking forward to watching a parade during a hard Colorado February blizzard.

He probably has been smoking too much of that legalized recreational bud.

 

[the_rich]

I read it and basically they are saying this law won't really do anything to them. Other than scoring political points.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Still does not cover the costs. Give it a year

Disney's current tax payments to RCID fund RCID services and finance RCID debt. If Orange County needs to take on the services and the debt, they'll find a way to increase taxes on Disney roughly in line with what Disney will no longer be paying to RCID.

 

[Tha Realest]

Bonus is that this might finally cost Bob Cheapscape his job though.

We’ll see. I think stock price and profits/revenues will seal the deal for him.

Wild prediction? If/when things cool off, and it looks like this RCID won’t disappear, and stock price/D+ continues to flounder, expect Chapek to leave, Iger comes back as interim CEO, while a full search for permanent CEO takes place.

 

[Lilofan]

We’ll see. I think stock price and profits/revenues will seal the deal for him.

Wild prediction? If/when things cool off, and it looks like this RCID won’t disappear, and stock price/D+ continues to flounder, expect Chapek to leave, Iger comes back as interim CEO, while a full search for permanent CEO takes place.

Wildest scenario is that if the board were to sell the company to the highest bidder one would have come up with approx $250B. When Comcast tried their hostile bid takeover , the Disney Board said their offer was too low.

 

[Animal_Kingdom_09]

Sorry if I'm being stupid, But after googling that exact law, and what you said above, that still means basically the new law is recognizing the fact that they can't really dissolve anything without a majority vote of the landowner's?

Well, when used in a contract, notwithstanding means that the items following the word are exceptions to the other clauses in the contract. In this case, the legislature is overriding the 189.072 paragraph. Whether they can actually do that will probably be decided by the Florida Supreme Court.

 

[AdventureHasAName]

The Reedy Creek Improvement District created a permitting process and building codes that were almost nonexistent. Florida did not get a uniform state building code until 2001, prior to which the EPCOT Building Code was a model code local jurisdictions could adopt for their own use.

Even today, permitting through Reedy Creek Improvement District is not an easy process. The District is known for being very strict and more rigid than the counties or City. This is not just in regards to the EPCOT Building Code which must be more restrictive than the Florida Building Code but also in terms of the actual bureaucracy of how things are done. You follow the District’s rules, no exceptions and they dictate to Disney how to have documents prepared.

Walt Disney Imagineering is not a large company and they are the legal owner of all new projects. Any threshold they would hit would be hit by many others, and that’s ignoring the potential of shell companies.

The pain in the is not adhering to the building codes or drawing plans that adhere to the building codes. The pain in the is waiting for the permits to be approved. That is the primary service that RCID provided to Disney; fasttrack permit approval. If they have to go through the same process every other company in the county has to go through, progress will grind to a halt.

I run a non-profit in huge city that owns and manages a four acre park open to the public. It's basically grass, tennis courts and a parking lot. I just spent two years waiting for the city to approve our permit for resurfacing the parking lot asphalt. Then, when it was approved (after two years), we went back and said, "You know, we have more money now, can we just have the permit approved to surface the new lot with paving stones that will look nicer?" and the city responded by saying we'd have to start the permit approval process all over again.

This is for a single 10 car parking lot. If Disney has to go through this for everything that changes at the resort, it will crush them. They know this. That is why management is silent right now.