Disney buys 1000 acres near Celebration

[rteetz]

Disney Purchases Nearly 1,000 Acres of Land Near Celebration for $23 Million

 

[umichigan10]

If I’m not mistaken Disney has to keep a balance of conservation land vs developed land. So maybe they bought it in order to develop land they already have that is currently being conserved?

 

[nkosiek]

That's approximately a 4% jump. Not bad. It certainly gives them wiggle room on the main property now.

 

[dm1996]

So if you combine the other property they bought with this, you are looking at about 700+ acres of land they are Asking for permission to develop over the next 30 years.
Plenty of room there for parking and another park. Lol.

 

[rteetz]

If I’m not mistaken Disney has to keep a balance of conservation land vs developed land. So maybe they bought it in order to develop land they already have that is currently being conserved?

Correct and thats what is said in the article. They did this a few years ago. They bought 3000 acres off property. Its to offset wetland they have in order to develop down the road.

 

[Dfan79]

Hopefully this means they will build a 5th park on their already existing property. They can just stick all those endangered species in people's backyards. Bald Eagles can also deliver the mail and news papers. Their image afterall is being used for the Postal Service logo anyways. Let them earn that privilege.

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

Hopefully this means they will build a 5th park on their already existing property. They can just stick all those endangered species in people's backyards. Bald Eagles can also deliver the mail and news papers. Their image afterall is being used for the Postal Service logo anyways. Let them earn that privilege.

No. The eagles are being reserved for resort package delivery.

 

[crazy4wdw]

This is certainly interesting! Didn't WDW sell off some of its property several years ago. Seems like they sold some land near the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom.

 

[rteetz]

This is certainly interesting! Didn't WDW sell off some of its property several years ago. Seems like they sold some land near the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom.

Disney buys and sells land pretty regularly.

 

[JeanfromBNA]

So if you combine the other property they bought with this, you are looking at about 700+ acres of land they are Asking for permission to develop over the next 30 years.
Plenty of room there for parking and another park. Lol.

It doesn't work that way. Compensatory mitigation for wetland or stream impacts has to be at a rate of 2:1 or greater.

 

[Mr. Drauer]

It doesn't work that way. Compensatory mitigation for wetland or stream impacts has to be at a rate of 2:1 or greater.

actually, in Florida we use the Uniform Mitigation Assessment Method which scores both impact and mitigation wetlands on the functional loss/ gain for each permit application. If this purchase is being made to use the land merely as preservation mitigation, the ratio will end up being much higher (more like 30:1) as the value of the gain for merely preserving existing wetlands is much less than you would get for enhancement or restoration activities. The area of this land purchase is within the Reedy Creek Floodplain and is in pretty good condition with limited development surrounding it, so its already a high functioning wetland and it will receive less credit than say the wetlands out at the Disney Wilderness Preserve which has had large wetland creation and restoration projects to get the mitigation credits. Also, wetland mitigation does not typically have anything to do with listed species mitigation, unless it was permitted as a joint mitigation/species conservation bank like some in South Florida with wetland/panther combo credits.

 

[nkosiek]

actually, in Florida we use the Uniform Mitigation Assessment Method which scores both impact and mitigation wetlands on the functional loss/ gain for each permit application. If this purchase is being made to use the land merely as preservation mitigation, the ratio will end up being much higher (more like 30:1) as the value of the gain for merely preserving existing wetlands is much less than you would get for enhancement or restoration activities. The area of this land purchase is within the Reedy Creek Floodplain and is in pretty good condition with limited development surrounding it, so its already a high functioning wetland and it will receive less credit than say the wetlands out at the Disney Wilderness Preserve which has had large wetland creation and restoration projects to get the mitigation credits. Also, wetland mitigation does not typically have anything to do with listed species mitigation, unless it was permitted as a joint mitigation/species conservation bank like some in South Florida with wetland/panther combo credits.

So you're saying they picked up approximately 30 acres of development with this?

 

[Mr. Drauer]

So you're saying they picked up approximately 30 acres of development with this?

It doesn't work that way exactly. But in essence, if they submitted an application to impact an area that contains wetlands (Say 50 acres) and was assessed to have a UMAM functional score of 0.63, then you would need 31.5 units of wetland mitigation. so if this area was submitted as the mitigation area and its score was 0.045, then it would represent 31.5 units of mitigation. This is just an example using clean math, but the process is slightly more complicated. Currently, each project they do that has a wetland impact requires the master permits with South Florida Water Managment District and the Corps of Engineers be modified and debit mitigation from the total that was allotted at the DWP. A project like the Cabana/Bungalo Rooms at WL might have impacted 3 or 4 acres of wetlands and needed 2 or 2.5 acres of mitigation. Larger projects like the Star Wars Hotel or Epcot Hotel might impact 10 or 20 acres of wetlands. Skyliner probably was in that neighborhood as well. They also need to have water management: i.e. ponds to hold and treat stormwater for each acre of impervious they create (pavement, buildings, etc.).

 

[Dfan79]

They are probably going to just build more new resorts (Riviera, the lousy "Nature" one and Coronado expansion) I don't want to go to.

 

[Q-man]

It doesn't work that way. Compensatory mitigation for wetland or stream impacts has to be at a rate of 2:1 or greater.

To this point WDW got about 20% of the 3K deal acre in return.