The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), formerly the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), is the governing jurisdiction and special taxing district for the land of Walt Disney World Resort. It includes within Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, encompassing the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista as well as unincorporated land. It acts with most of the same authority and responsibility as a county government.
The current district was created on February 27, 2023, after the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 9B to supersede the Reedy Creek Improvement Act, passed in 1967 at the behest of Walt Disney and his namesake media company during the planning stages of Walt Disney World. A major selling point in lobbying the Florida Legislature to establish the original RCID was Walt Disney's proposal of the "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" (EPCOT), a real planned community intended to serve as a testbed for new city-living innovations. The company eventually abandoned Walt Disney's concepts for the experimental city, primarily building a resort similar to its other parks.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District managed by the Disney Company had the authority of a governmental body, but was not subject to the constraints of a governmental body. That changed under the 2023 act, which gave the governor of Florida the authority to name its board members, replacing the original five-member Board of Supervisors controlled by the Walt Disney Company, the majority landowner of the District.
In April 2022, the Florida Legislature passed a law to disestablish the RCID and other special districts formed before November 5, 1968, an act that some lawmakers said was retaliation for Disney's opposition to the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by its critics. The law would have taken effect in June 2023, but it was unclear what would happen to the $1 billion in bond liabilities held by the RCID. On February 9 and 10, 2023, the state legislature voted to revert most of the changes, replace the RCID board's five Disney-selected members with five members appointed by the Governor with confirmation by the Florida State Senate, and remove parts of the district's authority, such as the power to construct a nuclear power plant, airport, and stadium. The district's name was changed the day the bill was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis on February 27, 2023. On April 26, 2023, Disney filed a lawsuit against DeSantis. Federal Judge Allen Winsor ruled in favor of DeSantis on January 31, 2024, and Disney appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. On March 27, 2024, Disney settled its state court lawsuits with CFTOD and, per the agreement, put the appeal of their federal lawsuit on hold while the company negotiates a new development agreement with CFTOD. The settlement came a day after DeSantis replaced two Disney critics on the CFTOD with two Disney supporters and two weeks after the Parental Rights in Education Act, as originally written, was substantially narrowed by a court settlement that both sides portrayed as a victory for their own cause.
History Creation Initial steps
After the success of Disneyland in California, Walt Disney began planning a second park on the East Coast. He disliked the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland, and wanted control of a much larger area of land for the new project. He flew over the Orlando-area site, and many other potential sites, in November 1963. Seeing the well-developed network of roads, including the planned Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike, with McCoy Air Force Base (later Orlando International Airport) to the east, he selected a centrally located site near Bay Lake. He used multiple shell companies to buy up land, at very low prices, that eventually would be included within the district. These company names are listed on the upper story windows of what is now the Main Street USA section of Walt Disney World, including Compass East Corporation; Latin-American Development and Management Corporation; Ayefour Corporation (named for nearby I-4); Tomahawk Properties, Incorporated; Reedy Creek Ranch, Incorporated; and Bay Lake Properties, Incorporated.
On March 11, 1966, these landowners, all fully owned subsidiaries of what is now the Walt Disney Company, petitioned the Circuit Court of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, which served Orange County, Florida, for the creation of the Reedy Creek Drainage District under Chapter 298 of the Florida Statutes. After a period during which some minor landowners within the boundaries opted out, the Drainage District was incorporated on May 13, 1966, as a public corporation. Among the powers of a Drainage District were the power to condemn and acquire property outside its boundaries "for the public use". It used this power at least once to obtain land for Canal C-1 (Bonnet Creek) through land that was developed as the Bonnet Creek Resort, a non-Disney resort which opened in 2020.
Improvement district and cities Walt Disney knew that his plans for the land would be easier to carry out with more independence. Among his ideas for his Florida project was his proposed EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was to be a futuristic planned city (and which was also known as Progress City). He envisioned a real working city with both commercial and residential areas, but one that also continued to showcase and test new ideas and concepts for urban living. Therefore, the Disney company petitioned the Florida State Legislature for the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which would have almost total autonomy within its borders. Residents of Orange and Osceola counties did not need to pay any taxes unless they were residents of the district. Services like land use regulation and planning, building codes, surface water control, drainage, waste treatment, utilities, roads, bridges, fire protection, emergency medical services, and environmental services were overseen by the district. The only areas where the district had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections. The planned EPCOT city was also emphasized in this lobbying effort.
On May 12, 1967, Governor Claude R. Kirk Jr. signed the Reedy Creek Improvement Act, adding the following Florida statutes to implement Disney's plans:
Chapter 67-764 created the Reedy Creek Improvement District; Chapter 67-1104 established the City of Bay Lake; and Chapter 67-1965 established the City of Reedy Creek (later renamed as the City of Lake Buena Vista around 1970.)
According to a press conference held in Winter Park, Florida, on February 2, 1967, by Disney vice president Donn Tatum, the Improvement District and cities were created to serve "the needs of those residing there", because the company needed its own government to "clarify the District's authority to [provide services] within the District's limits", and because of the public nature of the planned development. The original city boundaries did not cover the whole Improvement District; they may have been intended as the areas where communities would be built for residential use. To maintain full control of the district, it was important for Disney to limit the voting rights of the inhabitants, rights which were only meant to include landowners owning more than one-half acre. Since Disney owned most of the land, the residents would simply be renting their homes. But after the 1968 Avery v. Midland County case, Disney feared that they would have to eventually give everyone living inside the district voting rights, and so the population was restricted to the two municipalities Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.
Further development After Walt Disney died in 1966, the Disney company board decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city, and abandoned many of his ideas for Progress City. The planned residential areas that Walt originally advocated for were never built. Richard Foglesong would later argue in his 2003 book, Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando, that the Disney company abused its powers by remaining in complete control of the District.
In 1968, the Reedy Creek Improvement Act was held by the Supreme Court of Florida not to violate any provision of the state constitution. As the law, in part, declares that the District is exempt from all state land use regulation laws "now or hereafter enacted," the attorney general of Florida issued in 1977 an opinion stating that this includes state requirements for developments of regional impact (DRIs).
In January 1990, the RCID was granted a $57-million allocation of tax-free state bonds over an agency with plans for a low-income housing development and all additional government applicants in a six-county region, as the state distributed the bond proceeds on a first-come order. Disney was criticized for the move, with a Republican gubernatorial candidate filing a lawsuit to stop the RCID from using the funds. Also, one state legislator moved to limit the RCID's ability to apply for the program.
In 1993, the land that eventually became the Disney-controlled town of Celebration, Florida—which was built with many of Walt Disney's original ideas that had since evolved into a form of New Urbanism—was deannexed from Bay Lake and the district. This was done to keep its residents from having power over Disney by providing for separate administration of the areas. Celebration lies on unincorporated land within Osceola County, with a thin strip of still-incorporated land separating it from the rest of the county. This strip of land contains canals and other land used by the district.
Abolition On March 30, 2022, state representative Spencer Roach tweeted that Florida legislators had met twice within the past week to discuss the possibility of repealing the Reedy Creek Improvement Act and stripping Disney of its "special privileges" in the state. Roach and Florida governor Ron DeSantis later criticized Disney for the "special perks" the company enjoyed through use of the RCID. Roach said there had been previous attempts to eliminate the district. A bill analysis and fiscal impact statement for the bill was created on April 19, 2022, by Senator Jennifer Bradley. However, this analysis was unable to determine the impact the bill would have on either the residents served by the special district, or the local governments that would absorb the district's debts.
On April 20, 2022, the Florida Senate passed Senate Bill 4C (SB 4C) with a 23–16 vote that would abolish the special taxing district. If it became law, the bill would dissolve any independent special district in Florida established prior to November 5, 1968, including the RCID; the dissolution would take effect June 1, 2023.
Representative Randy Fine sponsored a bill in the Florida House of Representatives to dissolve all six independent special districts in Florida established prior to November 5, 1968 (the date of the ratification of the Constitution of Florida), including the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID).Scott Powers (April 19, 2022). "Randy Fine: Reedy Creek dissolution bill is what happens when you ‘kick the bees’ nest’," Florida Politics. On April 21, 2022, the bill was passed by the Florida House by a 70–38 vote. DeSantis signed the bill into law the following day. Some members of the Florida Legislature as well as political commentators said the bill was likely retaliation for Disney announcing its opposition to the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed by critics as the "Don't Say Gay bill". Representative Dotie Joseph dubbed SB 4C "un-American" adding that it was "[p]unishing a company for daring to speak against a governor's radical-right political agenda".