The Celebration Chronicles

by Andrew Ross, Ph. D.

  The privatopian community has become the preferred development for builders of nonurban housing in the last two decades. Lenders are increasingly unlikely to issue mortgages for planned developments unless they have a homeowner association.3 The flourishing of walled and gated communities—a natural extension of privatopia—arouses widespread concern about a rampant “fortress mentality” in late suburban America, signifying what Robert Reich termed the “secession of the successful” from all public contact with, let alone obligation toward, their less fortunate fellow citizens.4 One of the most common outsider misperceptions of Celebration is that it is gated, or that its managed ambience is “gated” even in the absence of a physical gatehouse and uniformed guards. On the contrary, the creation of this town is a highly visible counterpunch to the prestige ethos of the gated community. Virtually every resident I met, including many who had lived behind electronic gates before, took pride in the town’s open public access and resented the mischaracterization. Should some calamity occur as a result of this openness, the decision about whether to keep the town open will be a real test of residents’ commitment to retaining its cherished public character.

  In principle, the concept of the homeowner association promises self-government to residents, and in its most shrewdly promoted versions, conjures up the sanctity of ultra-democratic Town Hall meetings, New England–style. In Celebration, Town Hall’s information sheets about governance describe membership in the association as “a representative form of government similar to our federal system.” Yet voting in the association, unlike in the federal system, is restricted to homeowners (not renters), and to one vote per property unit. (In addition, a supermajority of 75 percent is needed to carry any motion.) In most developments like this, the developer will retain control of governance until two-thirds of the lots are sold, and often exercises voting rights thereafter based on continued ownership of parcels of land or other residual rights. When homeowners eventually do take on elected positions, regulating in accordance with the developer’s original rules, their zeal often marks them out as “condo nazis,” and residents pine for the professional management of the fledgling years.

  Celebration’s first polling day, September 1998. Precinct #73, Town Hall. (Photo: the author)

  The governance of Celebration is not exceptional in this regard. The company controls the homeowners association until 25 percent of the units are sold, at which point one out of three board directors are elected by the residents of the town’s several villages. After 50 percent, the residents elect two of five directors, and after 75 percent, three of five. One year after this initial “control period” lapses, six of seven directors are elected, and a year later, the developer withdraws all official representation on the board. The 75 percent deadline is nullified if the buildout has not reached this level after forty years. The developer can also withdraw before the deadline at its own discretion. But the “Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions” also record that nothing can be changed without the decree of the “owners of at least 75% of the total number of Units within the Properties and by the Celebration Company.” The latter clause is particularly notable. So long as TCC owns any property or developable land in Celebration, it has veto power over all changes in governance. While they had all read and signed the covenants, the vast majority of residents were unaware of this veto power until an article in the New York Times magazine pointed it out. When I asked Herrington to clarify the matter, he professed that although he thought he knew the document very well, he too had not been fully cognizant of this veto power. “In practice,” he ventured, “using those kinds of residual powers is a little bit like setting off an atomic bomb in your own underwear,” especially for a developer who, at that point, would be “contributing zero to the budget, and has nothing at risk.”

  For the most part, Celebrationites were content with what they often called their “benevolent dictator” (a phrase that originates in Walt’s comment that he wouldn’t want to be U.S. president but would “rather be the benevolent dictator of Disney enterprises”5). Though if things got too “Orwellian,” as one of my tennis partners observed, that would be another matter. It was expected that the company would maintain good order, and so long as the decision making remained benign, TCC would serve residents’ private interests better than would any office-bearers elected from their own ranks. Among the townsfolk, I ran into several former presidents of homeowner associations who swore that Town Hall’s administering of the rules was much kinder and gentler than in the associations of housing developments they had known, some of which had the power to enter private homes and to restrict the stay of guests. The deed restrictions were no more, and in some cases less, severe than those they had helped to administer elsewhere. Terry Neff, who had served as an association president in nearby Hunter’s Creek, even alleged that helicopters had been used there to survey residents’ backyards for infractions of the rules, though no one I questioned at Hunter’s Creek could confirm this.

  If anything, Herrington’s light enforcement of the rules drew complaints about the laxity of regulation—“things are not being kept up.” Aware of media scrutiny, it’s likely that Town Hall sometimes chose to waive some of the micro-rules rather than risk public ridicule in yet another boilerplate press report about the company’s suppression of civic liberties. To compensate, residents exercised their own scrutiny, building a groundswell of hearsay that Town Hall could not easily ignore. Many townsfolk were vexed, for example, when homes were not lived in. An ornate, ochre Mediterranean estate home had been lying vacant on Golfpark Drive for as long as I could remember. This violated the residency rule (a home should be occupied for at least nine months of the year), and reinforced conjecture that there was one rule for the wealthy and one for the others. The rumor around town (other than that it belonged to Julia Roberts) was that a rich businessman had bought the home for his wayward son, who decided never to occupy it. On the other hand, there were some decrees that disgruntled residents were happy to see annulled. The rule, established as an antispeculation deterrent, that no one could profit from sale of a home within one year of closing, was routinely waived if the seller could prove “hardship.”

  For myself, I was guilty on two counts. I decided that Hamish and Molly, my capricious cats, would live illegally in Celebration rather than observe the renters’ rule requiring them to be declawed. As a result, I lived in abject fear that my furry charges would be found out, especially when they made a periodic run for freedom, padding and loping along the Market Street balconies in full view of passersby below. Aware of their clandestine existence, my neighbors never turned them in. In addition, I had reluctantly invested in an array of large potted plants for my balcony. On Market Street, balconies festooned with plants were a prime element of the downtown decor, and I did not want to be the odd one out. Never having had any luck in keeping flora alive, sadly my efforts fell short again. A notice distributed to apartment residents drew attention to “unsightly plants on balconies,” and I assumed, as the guilty do, that it was for my eyes. In a slender act of rebellion, I allowed mine to decay visibly for the next four months before I bid them farewell.

  One evening in April, the Osceola County Planning Department called a meeting in Town Hall to solicit residents’ feedback for its reappraisal of a comprehensive plan adopted in 1990. Poorly advertised and ill-timed at the dinner hour, the meeting attracted only three residents (it would take a while for residents to feel that their input in county affairs might be a priority). In attendance were myself, Jim Bayley, president of the Celebrators and an inveterate presence at all community events, and Ray Chiaramonte, the Tampa urban planner. It was mostly a red-tape affair for county bureaucrats, but at a late hour, we were asked whether we thought residents would eventually vote to incorporate the town. From the outset, this prospect had been widely discussed among residents, although very few seemed to be aware that the state requires all Community Development Districts to hold a referendum on i
ncorporation when they reach a population threshold—about 9,800, in the case of Celebration.

  In response to the question, Bayley summarized the majority view of the “benevolent dictator.” If nothing goes too badly amiss, Celebrationites would probably be happier living with the rules laid down by Disney, as interpreted by residents on the board. I summarized another view I had found on residents’ lips. Since it had attracted more than its share of independently minded citizens, hungry for true self-government, Celebrationites, I predicted, would incorporate sooner or later. For his part, Ray declared that residents were “more interested in pragmatism than politics,” and suggested they would actively resist incorporation for that reason. Of course, there was much more to be said on this topic, and we had not begun to cover the views of all the townsfolk. But these three positions were fairly representative. Jim’s opinion displayed a concerned tolerance of the status quo and a general desire to hold the developer to its obligations. Mine was based on evidence of residents’ pushing already for more input in decision making, and on their general frustration with outsiders’ perception of the community as a Disney-controlled “puppet state.” Ray’s comment reflected the conviction of many residents who had moved here, in part, to escape from local government politics. It may have also reflected his own professional relish for utilitarian order. Civic politics have a tendency to get in the way of planners’ designs.

  In truth, none of us had hit on the most likely factor to influence votes on incorporation—the cost of government. Most planned communities figure out whether they will have to pay more or less to assume control over their own destinies. Gary Moyer, the manager of the Celebration Community District, was not able to estimate the financial feasibility for Celebration, but he cited the example of Weston, an Arvida development to the south, where his company is also contracted. Residents there had recently incorporated, and had established what Moyer called “an almost 100 percent contract city,” with only three fulltime employees. The services of everyone else were contracted. Weston had no mayoral governance structure; it was pure management all the way down.

  Many Celebration residents felt they had been promised a “town,” with all the municipal trappings that term evoked, but, when the time came, the Weston model might just offer the preferred privatopian alternative—a township with no real public representatives. In the meantime, one sure thing I had learned is that Celebrationites were very defensive about any suggestion—a favorite in the media—that they lived in a less than democratic environment. They knew that they enjoyed the same rights as any other citizen of the republic, and, far from considering the deed restrictions to be an erosion of these rights, they saw the maintenance of community standards as an extra layer of privileges that local government could not otherwise afford. On the other hand, I interviewed several who made a point of speaking passionately about their dislike for “democracy.” What could this possibly mean?

  John Pfeiffer, the doctor who had moved from Ohio to fulfill a childhood dream of driving a Disney monorail, offered an explanation:

  I’d rather live in a civil than a political society. Here we have a contract with TCC that defines our property rights, and we are not frustrated by bureaucrats with their own agenda. I don’t have a contract with politicians.… What we have here is a deconstructing of government, a rollback of politicization. In a civil society you feel a desire to fit into a community and satisfy your neighbors. In a political society, under the heavy hand of government, you expect your neighbors to satisfy you.

  Pfeiffer, who looked preternaturally young for his age (he and his wife had fully adult offspring), and who wore a baseball cap backwards to Town Hall meetings, was satisfied that his “contract” gave him more rights than one that was not based on property rights: “We have more self-determination here under a nonpolitical regime than in a political society.” His views offered the purest statement of a vision of governance entirely based on property rights. Nor did everyone’s property rights appear to be equal. For Pfeiffer, who owned an estate home, there seemed to be a sliding scale, on which owners of smaller lots might have a lesser contract. “If you have less expensive houses, you lose the sense of sacrifice,” he explained, adding a new spin to the Celebration ethos of self-sacrifice.

  However chilling to behold, these were hardly crankish views in the world of Florida’s planned communities. Yet for all the security represented by Pfeiffer’s “contract” with the developer, there was little residents could do to stop the company from obtaining a zoning variance to alter its plans for the site, or from blocking a majority resident initiative. As Ray Chiaramonte pointed out, “the developer could decide to put in a Saturn manufacturing plant.” At a meeting in June, when TCC unveiled plans for the commercial corridor, several residents loudly expressed dismay at the prospect of twelve-story hotels rising up to obscure their westward views: “We feel it’s no longer a small town,” one grieved, “it looks like a city, with big buildings.” They must have forgotten that they had signed a raft of disclaimers at closing, among which was a waiver of their rights to a view. Pfeiffer’s contract could easily turn into a raw deal, and homeowners’ rights could often seem like thin, self-addressed envelopes.

  Given the legal maze of the “Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions,” it’s small wonder there was a general fuzziness in residents’ understanding of their internal rights. Most Celebrationites confessed they did not really understand the town’s system of governance, and habitually flunked when examined on details regarding the fiduciary responsibilities of entities like the Community Development District. Unlike most master-planned communities, Celebration had as many as four entities of governance: the Residential Owner’s Association; a Non-Residential Owner’s Association, which represented retailers and owners of apartment parcels; the Community Development District, a quasi-government entity which provided services and was responsible for maintenance of infrastructure (water, sewage, roads, drainage, landscaping) and utilities; and an Enterprise Community Development District, responsible for services to the commercial campus. An overarching Joint Committee governed all four, and Town Hall functioned as a one-stop home for the whole kit and caboodle. Celebration actually enjoys more of a working distinction between public and private sectors of governance than in most communities with homeowner associations. Here, the municipal functions of government relating to infrastructure are handled by the Community Development District, a unit of special-purpose government created by the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission, and whose board of supervisors, currently all Disney executives, will eventually be elected by landowners in the district. By contrast, the homeowner association’s realm is limited to more private matters such as those relating to architectural review and community standards and restrictions.

  Naturally, residents tend to take more of an interest in matters of governance when their property values are on the line. Jim Whelan, the canny psychologist and dedicated cyclist, confessed to me one day: “I didn’t think for one minute about the governance structure of the town until I decided to sell the house.” After less than a year in town, he and his family had decided to move back to Mahwah, New Jersey. He had only recently discovered that homeowners are not permitted to erect a “For Sale” notice in their yards. In Whelan’s view, this helped give the developer a virtual monopoly over the housing market in town. He had begun to suspect that the residency rules helped reinforce the monopoly while masquerading as a deterrent against speculators. Whelan’s suspicions in this matter were unconfirmed, but it was significant that his property interest was the factor that galvanized his concern about governance.

  In the course of my year in Celebration, at least one hiccup in governmental process did occur, and went entirely unnoticed by residents. The chronic problems caused by the narrowness of the back alleyway increasingly demanded a resolution. At a Community Development District meeting in December, the board members decided they would consider a “one-way” designa
tion for alleys if a majority of the residents on the block petitioned and voted for the measure. There was some discussion about the percentage of votes required: would it be 51 percent, 65 percent, or 75 percent? At several such meetings I attended, no residents were present, and this one was no exception. The meetings were tedious and mostly technical in content, although a period was always set aside on the agenda for public comment. The board decided to implement a 65 percent rule. Several weeks later, residents on Campus Street and Greenbriar were informed in a letter from Town Hall that their alleyways were now one-way streets. No formal votes had been taken, and no one I talked to on those streets had noticed the oversight. It was a small measure, and by all accounts a popular one. Nor was it likely to affect the value of anyone’s property. But this had been the first time in Celebration when a residential vote was endorsed, in principle, and yet it had not been solicited.

  UTOPIA ACHIEVED

  Advocates of homeowner associations often argue that their method of community rule keeps at bay the messy intrusion of “politics.” Yet there were some Celebrationites, like Larry Haber, a founder of the town’s Jewish Council and the Jewish Congregation and whose family had been the town’s first official residents, who saw the management structure as a perfect embodiment of their own partisan politics. A busy pioneer, Haber was active in United Way and saw himself as a George Will kind of Republican—social libertarian, fiscal conservative, religious liberal, and fierce opponent of big government. In addition, he was a Disney employee who had no great affection for “big corporate paternalism,” a trait shared by many Celebrationites I knew who were also company employees. Haber believed Celebration to be the ideal Republican state in miniature, without government’s layers of elected officials to stifle the process of self-determination. In fact, Celebration was pretty close to what Haber saw as a “condition of direct democracy.” He said he had liberal friends in town who saw their own politics reflected in Celebration’s community values, and he liked to tease them by declaring they were simply “closet Republicans.” I never met any liberals who could match Haber’s view with a counterclaim, based on their own principles, but it was not inconceivable that they existed in Celebration. In addition, there were residents like Pat Breck, a pro-choice Catholic who attended Presbyterian services, who believed that Celebration was a conservative community in a cultural sense. Conservatives, in her view, are “people people,” a “tribe that looks out for another,” and she associated liberals with “working mothers and latchkey children.”