Disney tells Florida to F*** off

Well, none except for the couple dozen Disney employees and their families that the company picks to live there in order to provide votes to approve the bonds, elect the officials that Disney wants, and whatnot. But considering how little they pay in rent (just $75/month as of when this article was written) I doubt they feel especially exploited.

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I’m happy to believe that but do you have a citation?

The RCID charter seems to say the exact opposite.

RCID charter, s. 23 (2)

(2) Exemption from County Zoning and Regulation, State-
wide Zoning and Other Zoning Laws.-Anything in chapters
59-1646, 59-1673, 61-2592, 63-1705, 63-1716, 63-1731, 65-791,
65-975, 65-1171, 65-1999, 65-2004, 65-2015, 65-868, Florida
Laws, and any other laws of the State now or hereafter enacted
to the contrary notwithstanding, the jurisdiction and powers
of the Board of Supervisors with respect to the matters pro-
vided for in this section shall be exclusive of any and all codes,
ordinances, requirements, plans or other regulations of the re-
spective Boards of County Commissioners of Orange and
Osceola Counties or of any other agency or authority of Orange
or Osceola County with respect to zoning, building and con-
struction, planning with respect to the subdividing of land,
regulation of building safety, regulation of escalators, elevators
and other lifting or transportation devices, regulation of amuse-
ment and recreation parks and facilities, regulation of plumbing
and electrical installations and other safety or sanitary codes,
regulation of water supply wells and drainage well drilling, the
approval and vacating of plats and subdivisions and the regu-
lation of subdivisions. The District, and all land, properties and
activities within the District, shall be exempt from any and all
such codes, ordinances, requirements, plans and regulations, and
any and all requirements for building and construction permits
and licenses pertaining to the same, now or hereafter promul-
gated by the respective Boards of County Commissioners of
Orange and Osceola County, provided, however, that nothing
herein shall exempt any general contractor, electrical contrac-
tor, builder, owner-builder or specialty contractor from the pro-
visions and requirements of Chapters 65-1171, 65-791, 65-868,
Florida Laws, or of any other laws of the State, with respect
to examination and licensing, or from any of the fees and bonds
required of such contractors or builders by law. The Board of
Supervisors may by appropriate rule or regulation provide that
the District or such areas or parts thereof as the Board of Su-
pervisors may designate from time to time, shall, for such time
or times as the Board of Supervisors may determine, remain or
become subject to such county zoning, building and safety
codes and regulations, and regulations and controls with respect
to subdivisions and plats and the vacating thereof, or any of
them, as the Board of Supervisors of the District may deter-
mine. The jurisdiction and powers of the Board of Supervisors
provided for herein shall also be exclusive of any law now or
hereafter enacted providing for land use regulation, zoning or
building codes by the State of Florida or any agency or author-
ity of the State, and the provisions of any such law shall not be
applicable within the territorial limits of the District. The
Board of Supervisors may exercise the powers granted to it in
this section within the city limits of any municipality now or
hereafter organized or existing within the District, except of
the governing body of such municipality has under the terms
of its charter or under law like powers as provided for herein,
in which event the authority of such municipal governing body
with respect to the matters herein provided for shall be ex-
clusive within such city limits.

RCID-Charter.pdf (5.1 MB)

I’m sure their Codes are better than the surrounding but that appears to be a matter of choice rather than a requirement.

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I do not, it’s just how I’ve always seen it presented in reporting that dives into the details. It may be that the reporting presented it that way because their codes are better and confused that choice to make them better with a requirement that they have to be better. I’m sure I’ve read a bunch of reporting stating this and didn’t just invent it on my own. In contrast to the FL legislators tweeting that the buildings are unsafe because they’re in RCID not the county inspections.

They’ve been better since the beginning when FL didn’t really have any codes worth anything.

That’s bad on me for not digging deeper, and I’m sorry. I will admit to not reading through the entire charter. I’ve tried, but it’s so dense I never make it through.

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I certainly haven’t read the whole thing and the thought of doing so unless it’s for real money brings me out in hives… :slight_smile:

I tried to find any of the many Florida laws referred to in the section I quoted and failed to find a single one so there’s that… :man_shrugging:

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Oh, you mean leverage! |)

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Hey now, that was my favorite part of Tom Sawyer’s Island. Real “E Ticket” material.

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I’m not creative enough to come up something. But Disney doing something bad is not my point. RCID has been remarkably successful because they have (as far as we know) been mostly responsible about their management of the district.
My point is that having similar setups widespread across the country almost certainly would lead to bad actors taking advantage. You keep mentioning these rules and laws that Disney (and others) have to follow. Large (and small) companies strain these constraints all the time, and plenty of them say “fuck it” and willfully break the law, with the slap on the wrist just written off as the cost of doing business. Some loudmouth Texan has offered the MuskTwit some land to move the Twitter headquarters there. Just imagine Musk having significant governmental authority in his very own Texas playground.

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I wonder if anyone has studied lead exposure and political biases.

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Disney probably does too. I am in no way saying they’re all good.

That companies do bad things they’re not supposed to do wasn’t the point. The point was, does the RCID allow Disney to do something that normally would be bad, but because of the RCID it’s “not bad”.

Having it doesn’t mean they’ll do good. It doesn’t mean they will not break the rules it imposes either. But, in the question of “Should we take RCID away because it gives Disney something they shouldn’t get”, is the implied question that they’re getting away with something.

For example, if the RCID changed the rules and allowed Disney to pay a lower minimum wage than would otherwise be allowed and they were. Meaning they were doing something bad but because of the RCID it was allowed and considered “not bad”, that would be a good reason to get rid of it. But, it doesn’t do that. Now, if Disney was just misclassifying workers so they could avoid paying them minimum wage and skirt all the rules, that would still be bad. Having or not having RCID wouldn’t impact that at all, it would be bad either way.

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There’s a factoid I found interesting:

A couple years ago when Disney designed the Star Wars park expansions in Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios, the Imagineering team wanted to simplify and speed up the design effort by making the two projects as identical as possible. So all the building structures were designed to withstand both 110 mph Florida Hurricanes and the latest California seismic codes. I doubt there are many large construction projects in the US that are built to meet both standards.

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This warms my engineering heart.

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DF950626

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