But the question was, is that a reason that RCID should be reformed specifically instead of all districts? Was that reason unique to RCID and why RCID needs reform and not all districts or was that same thing available to all districts?
The law that dissolved RCID did dissolve ALL special districts in the state that were given unlimited power and are not compliant with laws and regulations that set barriers to what special districts could do, that was created at a later date. RCID was not the only one dissolved, its just the only one people care about because they feel Disney needs special tax breaks on top of what everybody else gets.
Replacing the property taxes that Disney paid to RCID with impact fees would be a terrible deal for Orange and Osceola counties given the burden that RCID carried for them. Disney pays HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS PER YEAR to CFTOD. Impact fees don’t come anywhere close to replacing that revenue. Would you rather have your property taxes doubled or pay impact fees? I thought so.
If Disney took private ownership of the ultimately private facilities such as parking garages and the roads that only serve Disney properties (what RCID pays for), Disney would pay for those facilities directly AND have to pay impact fees. That would not get to evade any of the current costs, AND they would have the pay impact fees that everyone else has to pay.
The next time you build a large development, you should. Look into creating a special district. It’s an option available to you. Then you can avoid the impact fees and instead pay your new district extra additional property taxes. You’ll get to maintain the infrastructure yourself and pay the extra district taxes forever as a bonus. Assuming you’re selling any of it, make sure it’s clear you will retain ownership of a majority of the land, so you keep your majority district control. Also, write into all the deeds that you get control over how the buyers make changes. See how those two things impact your sales, costs, and long term requirements. Depending on your business plan, this may be better or worse. It’s available to you as an option.
I have looked into it, it would not be legal for me under current law to retain ownership of the district, I HAVE to turn it over to homeowners subject to a set of requirements. It would not be legal for me to write into the deeds to void Florida's laws on how to make changes to special districts. There is nothing like what RCID was that is available under current Florida law to anyone.
It's not about the taxes, it's about being able to manage and control the infrastructure on their timelines and to their standards. It's not about the savings, although the bonds do help in some situations, it's about being able to build public infrastructure to the standard they want.
Yup, and usually that comes with private ownership, and paying property taxes and impact fees. They could build the infrastructure to their standard even with CFTOD, they just can't do it while evading taxes anymore, they have to pay taxes on all future improvements that they want.
That's the thing most people forget about here - not only does Disney pay full property taxes to Orange and Osceola county, they don't use any county services that those taxes would normally provide by default. No road maintenance, police, fire, rescue, etc that their property taxes would normally entitle them to - those things are paid for by Reedy Creek.
@UCF - when you pay impact fees and pay for roads, etc. - do you get police service? Rescue? Fire fighter coverage? Road maintenance? Because Disney does not get these things from the counties. They pay *extra* taxes for Reedy Creek to provide those services to them.
And when they do use services from the counties, such as sheriff coverage, Reedy Creem contracts that out and pays the counties *extra*.
Your again mixing up impact fees and property taxes. Impact fees are to add NEW facilities OFF of your property to minimize your traffic impacts to neighboring residents and pay them back for the impact you have to the infrastructure that is being used off property. Needless to say, Disney does not pay line items of property taxes that they do not receive, and paying for fire rescue and police are separate line items on a normal tax bill that Disney does not pay for. Disney pays RCID for these services INSTEAD of the county. Presumably, Disney is doing this for one of two reasons: 1) The contract that RCID has with the police is cheaper then they would typically pay in taxes, or 2) they are getting extra services over what the normal tax line item would provide.
Typically companies that get service from the police department would have to pay the normal property tax line item AND pay for a contract for extra service on top of it, which is quite common. Its unheard of for them to be able to do that INSTEAD of paying the property tax line item.
Do we really know Disney was going to redevelop it anyway? Maybe the math didn’t work without the district stepping in and they were thinking of just closing the whole thing. It’s not like Disney never let a property just sit unused if they decided it was more trouble than benefit. Not that it matters either way, since we’re already clear, it was a decision the district was free to make for either outcome.
If the math didn't work out, the tourists checkbooks would have went to other tourists destinations such as I-Drive and Downtown Orlando, which used to be a tourist destination prior to Disney Springs (and City Walk) basically cannibalized all of DTO's tourism business. If Disney let that property sit and rot, other projects like Otown West and other projects we never heard of, because its hard to compete with Disney's tax exempt development, would have picked up the slack. Disney really wanted to figure out a way to make sure guests stayed on property and spent all of their vacation money at WDW instead of splitting it between other local businesses, so its likely Disney Springs wouldn't be any different then today, except they would have paid their fair share in taxes.
