1,844 "Special Distircts" in Florida

There are 1,844 Special Districts in the State of Florida one of them being “The Villages” and another being Reedy Creek. It’s funny how there doesn’t seem to be any mention of The Villages in the new law.

Walt

Here’s a link to the Florida Special District Information: https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/in-depth-understand…

Walt

Yes, they’re very common. Some of them exist just for a single purpose; say, maintaining a surface water management system for an area or paying for a security gate and guard. Others end up functioning more like POA/HOA’s for the publicly available infrastructure for an area, like roadways and landscape areas. They are given very limited powers.

Reedy Creek is unique, in that the Legislature gave to that special district many of the powers that normally rest in a general jurisdiction unit of government (a municipality or a county), including a lot of zoning and development powers that AFAIK have never been given to an independent special district, either before or since.

The reason the Villages (or any of the other 1800+ districts) aren’t covered by the bill is that they didn’t want to wipe out all those districts - just Disney’s. The reason why the bill doesn’t just say that they’re wiping out Reedy Creek is that there are some procedural advantages to what are call “general laws,” as opposed to “special laws or general laws of local application” - basically, it’s a little harder for the Legislature to pass laws that only affect one place, rather than laws that (on their face) apply statewide.

Albaby

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