DeSantis appointed board outlines its reasons for declaring Disney's last Development Agreement with Reedy Creek null and void

Apr 24, 2023 in "Reedy Creek Improvement District"

Posted: Monday April 24, 2023 1:00pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors will meet on Wednesday to declare the February 8, 2023, Development Agreement and Declaration of Restrictive Covenants entered into by the Reedy Creek Improvement District and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts void and unenforceable.

The Ron DeSantis appointed board will meet on Wednesday April 26 to move to nullify Disney and RCID's February 8 agreements

Ahead of the meeting, the board has released pages of legislative findings regarding the February 8 agreements that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District will use to vote to nullify them.

Signed into effect on February 8, just as the Florida House passed the legislation to take control of Reedy Creek Improvement District, the new Developer Agreement gives Disney significant control of the RCID landing and prevents the new board making any changes to the agreement.

As previously mentioned by the board's lawyers at the last public meeting, much of the findings relate to Reedy Creek posting notices of the new Developer Agreement, including their timings and reaching all interested parties.

An example refers to Reedy Creek posting notices in the Orlando Sentinel.

Prior to the January 25 and February 8 Board meetings, the District published notices of intent to consider a development agreement in the Orlando Sentinel. The notices were published on January 18 and 27, respectively. The Orlando Sentinel is a newspaper of general circulation and readership in both Orange and Osceola Counties. Such notices published in the newspaper did not fully inform the public or other property owners of the purposes or contents of the development agreement and how other property owners and the taxpayers of the District were affected by such proposed agreement.

The document goes on to say that "The benefits of the development agreement are entirely one-sided," and that, "The District receives nothing in return. The only theoretical benefit to the District in the text of the development agreement is that, when Disney obligates the District to construct public facilities that require land that Disney owns, Disney will not 'request payment for the land in excess of fair market value.'"

The final page of the legislative findings, point 92, is "Neither the development agreement nor the restrictive covenants are in the best interest of the District or the taxpayers or public, and the Board has no desire to readopt or ratify such instruments."

You can read the full text here, beginning on Page 8.

On Wednesday, the board will vote to approve the findings and will direct the litigation counsel to have Disney's agreements with Reedy Creek declared void and unenforceable and have them stricken from the public records of Orange and Osceola Counties.

Disney is yet to comment publically on the recent developments.

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josiah mazelin11 days ago

I said basically. You just listed two rides at each park. My point is proven

Goofyernmost12 days ago

With the kind of promotion that they once were famous for were to be used, they can get all the hype they need and spend a hell of a lot less to do it. They have to make what they have be exciting and not worry about what others might be doing. They stayed on top for about 60 years doing that and then, I assume to give bigger bonuses to the executives, they stopped producing those things and even if they don't admit it, they are running scared at the moment, in spite of increased profits. They have to make that dominance last, but I don't see them doing that unless they fill up those empty buildings and put something good in them and promote, promote, promote. That is second only to location, location, location.

Sirwalterraleigh13 days ago

Galactic spirit Halloween was sorta in that ballpark

Sirwalterraleigh13 days ago

Nah…they’ve crossed the Rubicon on “attracting middle class families”. They’re well past that price point to make any such endeavor turn out to be anything but a “loss” to the stock wonks. That strategy was their philosophy for many years…expansion to create more traffic and sell more product across all business was Eisner 101 - essentially, but they dumped that 15-20 year ago. Limiting investment and all but eliminating expansion to cap overhead and then attempting to make more revenue/profit off what was already paid for. That strategy is incompatible with “expanding/pricing to make it more accessible”

JoeCamel13 days ago

It's non-sensical too, increase your costs to get less money per guest and do huge capital outlays? Bob sez nyet

Tha Realest13 days ago

There’s no evidence 1) this is happening, or 2) they intend to do this.

ChrisFL13 days ago

They had a 5th gate and they closed it..................DisneyQuest :p

Advisable Joseph13 days ago

Disney needs land to expand. Pulling guests from the Magic Kingdom and Epcot (or otherwise unceasing attraction supply for the guests), then lowering prices to increase volume (and income) and accessing middle-class families, while building out the other parks, is the idea. Would you consider a Magic Kingdom Colony across the Lagoon or part of the current parking lot, which guests could access with Magic Kingdom tickets, a "5th gate"? How about parking, so the park can expand into the old parking lot?

gwhb7513 days ago

Agree with this. The only unfortunate thing is that "expanding existing parks" doesn't get the same hype as "a whole new park". Now if we could only have a true expansion of existing parks (i.e. just add new things (like villains land) and not take things away first (like tropical americas in AK)).

JoeCamel13 days ago

I think a lot of the salivating over a new park is fatigue with the same offerings year after year or a dribble of something new. Stale has a stench. Fans have "done" everything in the parks time after time so they want new and "damn the cost it's what I want". Does not have to be logical or make sense it is a want and I need my wants fulfilled ipso facto TDO is going to build me a new park. Seems to point to someone who has never run a business nor cares if that business thrives to feed the stockholders

monothingie13 days ago

Forget the tremendous capital expense to build a new park. The most important thing to Disney is YOY growth. The quarterly earnings mean EVERYTHING to Bob and Wall Street. Key amongst that is that Disney cares tremendously about operational costs and maximizing LL revenue streams. While a new park may be tremendously popular, it also increases operational expenses significantly. It is also very likely that it will cannibalize a large portion of the existing guest base. LL brings in a tremendous amount of revenue for Disney. It works best for Disney with full parks, adding a new park will dilute LL revenue at the existing parks. If a new park was going to justify the build cost and not affect the OI for WDW, then shovels would have been in the ground already. They've done the analysis, and a new park is not financially viable at this point.

lazyboy97o13 days ago

Planning permission and building permission are two separate things. You need planning approval first. Comprehensive Plans (along with Master Plans, Future Land Use Plans and Zoning Plans) are also not set in stone and quite malleable.

Dranth13 days ago

I disagree with him on a number of things, but he isn't wrong on this one. They have underbuilt parks that can absorb a LOT more people if they expand them. Those parks have existing infrastructure which makes it easier and cheaper to develop and build out vs. an entire new park. They understand their main audience has limited vacation time and already know people are unlikely to extend their vacations but instead sacrifice one thing they would have done for something else. They have a strained employee pool that has never recovered from 2020 and staffing new builds in existing parks is WORLDS easier than trying to staff an entire new park. Even an entire parks worth of attractions built over the four current parks would require less staffing than the same number of attractions in a brand-new park once you factor in employees for back of house, support, utilities, security, transportation, etc. Sure, nothing is impossible, and I'll gladly admit to being wrong on this if it does happen, but it would be business malpractice to do so in Florida anytime soon. I would expect most of the other locations around the world with room to get a new gate before Florida.