Orange County commission showdown for Disney’s first affordable housing project
With a critical vote scheduled for Tuesday, an affordable-housing project proposed for Disney-owned acres in west Orange County has the backing of hoteliers, a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity and a schoolteachers union, but its future neighbors are less enthralled.
“My family and I, we moved here, after an exhaustive research, knowing full well that Disney would be our neighbor,” said Alex Cabrera, whose home is less than two miles away. “We just never thought they’d be bad neighbors.”
Cabrera and many other residents of Horizon West, a fast-growing community of 50,000 people 30 miles west of Orlando, oppose the proposed development of 1,410 apartment homes along Hartzog Road on the west side of State Road 429.
Community residents say their roads are already congested and their schools are over capacity, and this new development will make things enormously worse.
“They’re trying to pack an enormous amount of density into what is essentially the size of a Costco parking lot,” Cabrera said of the proposed project at a planning and zoning board meeting last month. “It’s just way too much.”
When it was first proposed in April 2022, the Disney project was touted as a long-sought contribution from one of the entertainment colossuses that power the Central Florida economy to help solve a housing crisis at least in part of their making.
But with project reviews finally underway, it is now enduring controversy typical for such big development proposals, as officials weigh the need for the housing it provides against the impact it will have on those who live and work nearby.
The planning board acknowledged neighbor concerns and even suggested developers scale it back a bit, but the panel recommended on a 4-3 vote that Orange County commissioners push the project forward for a required review by state authorities.
Commissioners will decide Tuesday if it goes to Tallahassee or back to Disney Imagineering’s drawing board.
Both friends and foes have peppered county leaders with opinions of the project.
Where some Horizon West residents consider 1,400 more apartments a problem, others see it as a positive.
“Currently many of the businesses we represent are struggling to recruit and retain workers due to the limited supply of affordable and attainable housing in Orange County, Stephen Lewis, president & CEO of the West Orange Chamber of Commerce, said in an email. “Ensuring affordable housing is available for West Orange residents is critical to the success of our county and will help grow small businesses and bring long-awaited amenities to the residents of Horizon West.”
More than 1,000 of the units are to be rented at prices that fit the county’s definition of “affordable housing” and about 80% of those apartments will be one- or two-bedroom units. An affordable one-bedroom apartment in the proposed development would cost a low-income renter about $900 a month, roughly $650 less than the cost of the average one-bedroom unit in Orlando, according to apartments.com.
The project will help teachers, Clinton McCracken, head of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, said in a letter of support to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and all six county commissioners.
“As you are aware, while teachers and other instructional personnel are dedicated to their profession, we often find it difficult to purchase a home or afford housing on our salaries,” said McCracken, whose union represents about 14,000 educators. “Furthermore, as cost continues to rise throughout the country, but particularly in Central Florida, we would be remiss if we didn’t contemplate how the lack of affordable housing affects our students and their families.”
Leaders of several non-profits have backed the project including Catherine Steck McManus, president & CEO of Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando and Osceola County, and Derrick Chubbs, president & CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
“Root causes of hunger — like lack of affordable housing, education or chronic illness — make it nearly impossible for families to keep up with higher costs,” Chubbs wrote. “As a client recently said at one of our events, ‘the rent eats first.'”
The company will not own or profit from the project, said Tajiana Ancora-Brown, director of external affairs of the Walt Disney World Resort.
“Orange County leaders continue to identify affordable housing as one of the most significant priorities for our region, and we take great pride in bringing a plan to the table that can contribute to the solution,” she said in an email.
Disney has agreed to a 75-year lease of the land for the project to The Michaels Organization, a New Jersey-headquartered company that counts itself among the country’s most active affordable housing developers and managers.
Ancora-Brown said The Michaels Organization will build, own and operate the development.
She said the project will be privately financed and will pay all required impact fees, even though fee waivers are typically available for affordable housing. Impact fees for parks, public safety, roads and schools are estimated at more than $8 million.
Ancora-Brown said the developer also was not seeking financial help from the county’s affordable-housing trust fund
With growing demand for affordable housing, the fund was created in 2020 at the suggestion of Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings’ Housing for All Task Force. About $39 million has been committed for projects over five years.
About $29 million remains in the fund, Budget director Kurt Petersen said.
