Why Disney Is Building Affordable Housing

Disney has been doing some serious housing development lately. In California’s Coachella Valley, the company is creating a luxury community on a 600-acre site with about 1,900 homes to be completed later this year, and has plans for another around double that size outside Raleigh, North Carolina. Both are part of an initiative that "focuses on developing residential communities that integrate [its] brand and experiences into everyday life." As Angela Serratore wrote for Dwell, "homeowners will be able to play pickleball in the shadow of a building meant to resemble one that appears in the (Disney-owned) Pixar film Incredibles 2."

Now, just 10 miles north of Disney World outside Orlando, Florida, the company is doing something similar with affordable housing. A development is set to unfold on 80 acres in Horizon West, a massive master-planned community whose website boasts residents "can view nightly fireworks from [the] Magic Kingdom." The addition will include nearly 1,400 apartments, with 1,000 designated for households with incomes ranging between 50 to 100 percent of the area median income of $90,400. Reportedly, there will be "a mix of building typologies…featuring murals and unique elevations that create a distinct look and feel for each neighborhood within the development."

At a meeting last year where Orange County commissioners greenlit the affordable housing project, an attorney representing the corporation and developer said: "Disney is trying to help the teachers, the police officers, the grocery store workers, the hospitality workers and folks who are just starting out in their career, the people who our community depends on every day, to make sure they have a safe and affordable place to live." Presumably, the project will also accommodate staff of the nearby theme park itself, or "cast members" as the company calls them. Disney World happens to be the nation’s largest single-site employer, with around 80,000 workers, almost a quarter of the current population of the entire Orlando Metro Area. (Disney did not respond to requests for comment.)

The attorney also noted that the development aims to abet the county’s affordable housing goals by "bringing forward an innovative and, in this situation, private solution without requesting [public] funding." Indeed, it is one of the state’s most ambitious free market affordable housing projects to date, and Disney and the developer, Michaels Organization, the country’s largest privately held owner of affordable housing, are absorbing significant impact fees and waiving tax incentives.

The project will stand in stark contrast to the Coachella Valley development, where some homes will cost nearly $5 million, and whose development triggered "…an ongoing series of lawsuits against the city of Rancho Mirage, related to the displacement of marginalized and low-income families," according to SFGATE. 

First proposed in 2022, the project "has been touted as a long-sought contribution from one of the entertainment colossuses that power the Central Florida economy to help solve a housing crisis" for which Disney is partly responsible, says the Orlando Sentinel.

Support for the project has been wide-ranging, by groups from the Orlando Regional Realtors Association, to housing advocacy/anti-sprawl group Orlando Yimby, to Habitat for Humanity. "Rising housing costs push our community workforce further from their jobs, increasing commute times, decreasing quality of life for employees, and undermining [their] overall availability and stability," says Catherine Steck McManus, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando & Osceola County. "So, we’re encouraged by efforts [of regional] stakeholders, including Disney, to expand affordable housing options that will increase the resilience of our community and economy."

But the project has also aroused consternation among many residents and nearby neighbors of Horizon West, which is one of the country’s fastest-growing master-planned communities—in one of the country’s fastest-growing metros. Some 400 individuals signed petitions opposing the project; and at planning meetings, some bore signs with slogans like "Not the Disney dream, just a corporate scheme." Aside from skepticism about the company’s motives, most opponents feel "the project is too big and…worry that the increase in population will negatively impact already existing problems with overcrowded schools, jammed traffic roads, and overwhelmed first responders," according to Central Florida Public Media.

Brett Theodos, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, suggests the issue be viewed through a longer lens. "Traffic is often a concern with large housing developments," he says. "But if the jobs are coming, the traffic will be even worse with no nearby development, because it means people will be driving further from home to work and back."

"Companies are taking an interest in housing production because the affordability issue adversely affects employee recruitment and retention."

—Brett Theodos, senior fellow at the Urban Institute

Not to mention, affordable housing proposals inevitably arouse concerns around property values and "neighborhood character." As of April, homes in Horizon West were commanding a median price of more than $630,000, according to Realtor.com, which is more than $200,000 above an Orlando metro median-priced home. Affordability isn’t exactly a historic community attribute—and some want it to stay that way, citing "concerns about decreasing property values and changing the character of the community with low-income housing."

But Theodos contends these concerns are shortsighted. "An emerging bipartisan consensus [understands] housing supply is constrained, in large part because of ‘not-in-my-backyard’ barriers to growth, [which drives up] home prices," he says. "That may feel okay to current homeowners, but what about their kids? Companies are increasingly seeing that they benefit when their employees do too, and we are seeing [them] take an interest in housing production because the affordability issue adversely affects employee recruitment and retention."

Of course, there has been a long-standing deficiency of federal government support for affordable housing. With cuts at the federal level, "we have to think about doing practical things at the state and local level," says Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, former mayor of San Antonio, and board chair for the Bipartisan Policy Center. As far as Disney is concerned, Cisneros says the company "has experience in building all over the world, whether its theme parks or other venues, and anytime a competent entity…is seeking to explore housing production, frankly, as a former HUD secretary, I encourage it."

Top image courtesy of Disney

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