Showing posts with label AB2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AB2. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2016
Kelo V. City of New London (Important Video if you live within 1/2 mile of the 101 Freeway)
AB2, SB628, are redevelopment laws that have received Governor Brown's signature. It allows eminent domain for " inefficient development" i.e. single family homes for Multi-Family homes. This will force the urbanization of Marin.
If you live within 1/2 mile of the 101 corridor or within the "urban boundary" your home is under threat of being taken by eminent domain so that new multi-family developments can be built. Planners call this "densification" of the urban footprint. In England, where this has been practiced since the 1990s they call it "cramming".
The Kelo decision is a serious misreading of the Constitution and affects EVERYONE.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Urban renewal backlash gains strength across Colorado
Editor's Note: So called "smart growth" is a nationwide movement backed by the EPA's "sustainable cities" strategy. California has recently passed new redevelopment laws that threatens Marin County and will use many of the same tools of Tax Increment Financing. We can learn from the mistakes of other communities.
Urban renewal backlash gains strength across Colorado
More communities aim to place limits on cities' use of long-time redevelopment tools
People stroll through the shops and stores Wednesday, July 15, 2015 along Washington Avenue in Downtown Golden. Golden's downtown has bloomed into an destination with shopping and dining options which was helped from the revitalization caused by the Golden Urban Renewal Authority. (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post)
Urban renewal in Colorado, a decades-old strategy used by dozens of communities to replace or rejuvenate aging or derelict shopping malls and neighborhoods, has been under fire.
Earlier this year, Littleton passed a first-of-its-kind ballot measure in the state dramatically curtailing the power of its urban renewal authority. Wheat Ridge voters will decide on a similar measure in November.
Fears about eminent domain, which can be used under urban renewal law to push redevelopment forward, have been at the heart of two other high-profile disputes.
In Northglenn, the city vote d last week to condemn the beleaguered Huron Center strip mall. A longtime Persian carpet store in Glendale has been fighting off potential eminent domain as the city readies plans for Glendale 180, a $175 million dining and entertainment complex on the banks of Cherry Creek.
Disputes over urban renewal are not relegated to big cities. Last month, Steamboat Springs' City Council rejected a $7 million urban renewal plan for the ski resort city's downtown after a group of citizens threatened to take the issue to the voters.
"Urban renewal law is being stretched beyond its original boundaries and its original purpose," said Mike Krause, director of local Colorado projects for the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute. "What started off as a great idea has become abused over time."
The result, Krause said, is that local governments end up picking winners and losers based on which developers receive tax incentives. Should a project go south, he said, millions of dollars of taxpayer money is put at risk.
Throw in the power to designate an area blighted — making it ripe for condemnation — and the door is open to governmental abuse, he said.
Red flags raised
The issue has raised enough red flags that this year the state legislature passed a bill — later signed into law — that gives more control to counties, and to school and fire districts, over the allocation of new tax revenues generated by redevelopment.
Shoppers make their way along Alaska Drive on Thursday, July 16, 2015 at Belmar shopping center in Lakewood. Belmar is one of the economic forces in Lakewood after it's Urban Renewal program and has given Lakewood shopping, dining and now living opportunities in the Belmar area. (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post)
Polly Lawrence, R-Douglas County, said she co-sponsored House Bill 1348 because she's concerned the state's urban renewal law is not always used properly.
"It seems like some of the projects are much larger and not as targeted as they used to be," Lawrence said. "In some areas, it's more of a tax collection tool than an urban redevelopment tool."
Urban renewal proponents, including Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy, say detractors oversimplify the issue by automatically labeling a deal between government and the private sector as a "developer subsidy." But in many cases, the areas being targeted for revitalization have been subject to decades of neglect or are badly contaminated and would never on their face attract private-sector investment.
"Unless this (urban renewal) tool is used, you would not see the reinvestment back into these areas," said Kevin Bommer, deputy director of the Colorado Municipal League.
Tax increment financing
Central to Colorado's urban renewal law is tax increment financing, wherein additional tax revenues from future development at a site are used to pay for the installation of roads and utilities at the outset.
A city's urban renewal authority often will issue bonds to raise the initial capital and pay back bondholders using the future tax revenues, usually over a period of 25 years.
Tax increment financing, or TIF, serves as the underpinning for dozens of renewal projects throughout the state, including the $310 million Streets at SouthGlenn project in Centennial and the $105 million Denver Pavilions project on the 16th Street Mall.
Kenna and Kylie Fry on Wednesday browse at Silver Horse, a store on Washington Avenue in Golden. The city's urban renewal authority last month paid off the last two loans of a 25-year tax increment financing plan. (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post)
Golden's urban renewal authority last month paid off the last two loans of a 25-year TIF that brought new bridges over Clear Creek at Ford Street and Washington Avenue and turned the old Hesteds department store — vacant for decades — into the mixed-use Gateway Station project.
The financing mechanism has been used in more modest efforts in small communities, too.
In La Junta, nearly $2 million in TIF money has been spent since 2011 on making improvements to downtown, including new paint and windows for storefronts and new curbs, gutters and sidewalks.
Rick Klein, La Junta's city manager, said the ability to raise money through TIF is crucial for the 7,000-strong farming community 68 miles east of Pueblo.
"Urban renewal sparked the development that otherwise we wouldn't be able to do," he said. "We have great buy-in because businesses see the tremendous good that comes out of the money."
There are now urban renewal authorities in 49 municipalities in Colorado.
Urban renewal advocates often point to Belmar — the $850 million new-urbanism neighborhood that rose out of the ashes of the former Villa Italia Mall in Lakewood — as a shining example of an urban renewal project done right.
Murphy said urban renewal took an outdated mall with an abysmal 60 percent vacancy rate and morphed it into a vibrant urban landscape that serves as home to more than 2,000 residents and generates approximately $200 million a year in retail sales.
Before urban renewal incentives were put on the table a little more than a decade ago, Murphy said there was little interest among developers to take on such a problem-plagued site.
"We tried everything we could over there until the voters allowed us to use urban renewal," he said. "Once we had those tools, the phone started ringing."
Murphy said the public improvements at Belmar were financed by $120 million in bonds issued by the private sector and $40 million fronted by the developer. No taxpayer money was put at risk, he said.
Bruce Baker, a Westminster councilman, said city government should not be in the business of imposing its vision of what is desirable on a redevelopment site. The councilman has sharply criticized his colleagues on the council for their decision last month to issue $40 million in certificates of participation to fund the infrastructure for the city's future downtown project.
Baker said it puts city assets, including parks and the recreation center, in potential jeopardy because they are used as collateral in the deal. If the downtown project fails or is abandoned by developers, he said, taxpayers ultimately would be left holding the bag.
"It's basically a development tool to give public money to developers to build," Baker said. "All this use of urban renewal has done is increase the profit margin and made developers expect this from every city."
Westminster Mayor Herb Atchison vigorously disagrees with Baker, saying the city has put up collateral in the form of public amenities before and never had a problem. Westminster, he said, is in strong fiscal condition and will be able to pay back bondholders in even the worst-case scenario.
In the meantime, he said, the benefit to the city of a well-planned downtown district on a strategically located piece of ground — the 105-acre site was once home to the Westminster Mall — is immeasurable.
But urban renewal reformers have made headway with their argument that TIF deals can deprive other taxing districts, such as schools and fire protection, of future revenues.
Spirit of resistance
Aside from the bill that emerged from the legislature this year, California lawmakers in 2011 put an end to urban renewal agencies there. The move in the Golden State was part of an effort to reclaim tax revenues that were being diverted to redevelopment efforts.
That spirit of resistance has most recently bled down to Wheat Ridge. Debbie Sarcone, of the citizens group Keep Wheat Ridge Local, helped launch a petition for a ballot measure asking voters to strip decision-making power from the city's urban renewal authority.
The initiative was validated by the city last week, and if it passes in November, TIF packages in excess of $2.5 million would have to go to a vote of the people.
The campaign was driven in large part by a $6.2 million TIF deal the city awarded to the developer of a planned Walmart-anchored site at West 38th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard. Sarcone said a deal of that magnitude needs public input, and ultimately, public approval.
"We're not against development. We're not against urban renewal. We're not against TIF," she said. "We want these checks and balances. We want accountability."
John Batey, urban renewal authority committee chairman for Downtown Colorado Inc., said the checks and balances of urban renewal decision-making are baked into what is a deliberately transparent process. TIF packages, he said, can be structured to minimize or eliminate risks to the taxpayer and eminent domain can be taken off the table, as it was in Littleton before the March ballot measure passed.
Or in Fort Lupton, where the city has pledged to avoid eminent domain as it revitalizes 14 blocks of Denver Avenue with urban renewal funds.
"It's just a threat to people," Fort Lupton City Administrator Claud Hanes said. "If we're going to acquire property, it will be on a market basis."
The danger of a community putting up too many roadblocks to urban renewal, Batey said, is that developers simply will bypass it.
"It is much cheaper for a developer to find a raw piece of land at the edge of town," he said. "That leads to a situation where the edge of cities keep sprawling and sprawling and the inner cores of cities keep crumbling."
And that is bad news for places such as Littleton and Wheat Ridge, which have reached a mature stage in their municipal life cycles, Batey said.
"The truly tragic part of this is that they are the inner-ring suburbs of Denver," he said. "Those are the communities that need urban renewal most."
Monday, September 28, 2015
Redevelopment agencies return, in new guise, to California
PRESS-ENTERPRISE EDITORIAL
Published: Sept. 23, 2015 Updated: 4:24 p.m.
Well, it was nice while it lasted. In 2011 Gov. Jerry Brown abolished the hundreds of redevelopment agencies in the state, and for four years property owners did not have to fear that an unaccountable local agency would abuse its eminent domain powers to take their property and give it to a politically connected developer for his private gain. Now, regrettably, the governor has reversed course by signing Assembly Bill 2, which will usher in the return of redevelopment agencies under the friendlier-sounding name “Community Revitalization and Investment Authorities.”
The new law strips away the few protections property owners had under the old redevelopment law, such as the elimination of a blight study, which required at least some objective evidence and documentation of blight in an area targeted for redevelopment.
Under AB2, properties may be redeveloped if, for 80 percent of the redevelopment area, the annual median income is less than 80 percent of the statewide median, and other conditions are met, such as: The unemployment rate is at least 3 percentage points higher than the statewide rate, the crime rate is at least 5 percentage points higher than the statewide rate, and municipal infrastructure, such as streets, sidewalks and parks, is “deteriorated.”
But as the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm that has fought numerous instances of eminent domain abuse, including the infamous Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court case in 2005, notes: “These criteria punish property owners for things they are powerless to change: unemployment, crime and poor infrastructure. Furthermore, the bill would allow, and actually incentivizes CRIAs to target the most vulnerable populations: those with lower incomes and fewer resources to fight to keep what they have worked so hard to own.”
Research cited by the Legislative Analyst’s Office showed redevelopment agencies do not create any net economic benefit but, at best, merely shift development from one part of the state to another, and that most of the growth that occurs in such areas would have happened with or without RDAs.
Redevelopment agencies were notorious for their corruption, cronyism, mounting debts and abuses of property rights. Property owners in California should brace for more of the same – and then some – from the new Community Revitalization and Investment Authorities.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
State Assembly approves plan to bring back Kelo-style redevelopment
State Assembly approves plan to bring back Kelo-style redevelopment
Redevelopment agencies would once again have the power to seize private property for big developers under a bill that passed the California State Assembly earlier this month.
Assembly Bill 2, authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas, would give local governments the power to create new entities that would have the same legal authority as redevelopment agencies. These new Community Revitalization Investment Authorities would have the power to issue bonds, award sweetheart deals to businesses and “acquire and transfer property subject to eminent domain,” according to the legislative analysis of the bill.
Property rights advocates warn that the bill’s language contains no restrictions on eminent domain and could resurrect the abuses made possible by the Supreme Court’s controversial Kelo decision.
“It brings back the right of governments to exercise eminent domain against some private parties in order to resell their property to other private parties,” cautioned Howard Ahmanson, Jr., a property rights advocate and founder of Fieldstead and Company. “Only new and wealthy suburbs would be potentially spared from ‘redevelopment,’ the lower middle class and poor would not.”
12 Assembly Republicans back redevelopment, unrestricted eminent domain
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo v. New London that government agencies have the power to seize property for economic development. The decision was widely criticized across the political spectrum and inspired states to pass tougher laws limiting governments’ eminent domain powers. Here in California, the momentum for property rights reached its zenith in 2011, when Gov. Jerry Brown pushed through a plan to end redevelopment as part of his plan to balance the state budget.
Now a decade since Kelo, the horror stories of small businesses being seized to make way for strip malls and condo complexes have faded from public memory. During the state Assembly’s floor debate on the bill, not a single member – Republican or Democrat – spoke in opposition to the bill, which passed by a 63-13 vote.
Surprisingly, a dozen Assembly Republican lawmakers, including Assembly GOP leader Kristin Olsen, joined the Democratic majority in backing the bill. Olsen’s office refused to comment on the bill or explain how the bill fit with the Republican Caucus’ position on property rights. One GOP lawmaker defended her vote by arguing that redevelopment agencies are an important tool for economic development.
“I ran for Assembly to help create jobs,” said Assemblywoman Young Kim, R-Fullerton. “RDAs give us another tool to do just that while turning around poor and disadvantaged areas.”
Redevelopment focused in areas with high unemployment, crime
Under the bill, a Community Revitalization Investment Authority could be created by a city, county or special district if certain conditions are met. The first requirement is that the area have an annual median household income that is less than 80 percent of the statewide median. Additionally, three of the following four conditions must be met:
- Unemployment that is at least 3 percent higher than the statewide median unemployment rate;
- A crime rate that is 5 percet higher than the statewide median crime rate;
- Deteriorated or inadequate infrastructure such as streets, sidewalks, water supply, sewer treatment or processing, and parks;
- Deteriorated commercial or residential structures.
“It’s redevelopment with a kinder, gentler twist,” explains Steven Greenhut, the state’s foremost expert on eminent domain and author of the book, Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain. “If AB2 passes, agencies will take property by eminent domain and use public dollars to fund private projects. Localities will run up debt without a vote of the public. As always, the plans of residents will give way to the edicts of the planners.”
There’s overwhelming evidence that redevelopment agencies harm small businesses, while failing in their mission to stimulate economies. That’s most evident in the landmark Kelo case, where a Connecticut town offered a corporate welfare package to the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc.
“While Ms. Kelo and her neighbors lost their homes, the city and the state spent some $78 million to bulldoze private property for high-end condos and other ‘desirable’ elements,” the Wall Street Journal observed in 2009. “Instead, the wrecked and condemned neighborhood still stands vacant, without any of the touted tax benefits or job creation.”
Those abuses extended to California’s application of redevelopment, property rights advocates say.
“California has rightly earned the reputation as one of the nation’s largest abusers of eminent domain, given that Redevelopment Agencies routinely abused their power of eminent domain to seize homes, small businesses and places of worship for private development,” wrote the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights, the state’s leading property rights group. “Time and time again, these obscure agencies diverted taxpayer dollars from core government programs to finance professional sports arenas, luxury hotels, golf courses and strip malls.”
Alejo: Bill needed to help disadvantaged communities
Nevertheless, supporters of AB2 say that blighted areas are a problem that demand government action.
“There are many areas in the state where the streets are broken and old water and sewer pipes lurk below,” Alejo said of his legislation. “In these areas, businesses do not open up shop. This leads to high unemployment, high crime rates and a hopeless community. This bill will work to tackle issues facing our state’s most disadvantaged communities.”
Several GOP lawmakers that opposed the bill dispute Alejo’s arguments.
“Private property rights are a foundational principle declared by our founding fathers,” said Asm. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, who opposed the bill. “Eminent domain is used by the government to trample on private property rights and as an individual property owner, there are legal protections in place to prevent government encroachment.”
Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, one of only 13 members to oppose the bill, said that she understands her colleagues interest in redevelopment, but can’t back legislation that undermines property rights.
“Stripping away property rights in the name of economic development isn’t the answer,” said Melendez, a former member of the Lake Elsinore City Council. “I think it has become more fashionable to allow the government to take over instead of allowing the free market to do so.”
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Controversial Bill to Create Transit Corridor Development Authority in Connecticut
Controversial Bill to Create Transit Corridor Development Authority in Connecticut
June 5, 2015, 5am PDTJAMES BRASUELL
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Eminent domain is just one of the powers that would be granted the new Transit Corridor Development Authority, per House Bill 6851. The controversial bill is pitting the state's governor against opponents that argue in favor of local power.
Since March, the state of Connecticut has been debating a controversial House Bill 6851, also known as "An Act Establishing the Transit Corridor Development Authority." According to an op-ed by Matthew Gilligan in the CT Post, HB 6851 "would establish the Transit Corridor Development Authority (TCDA) as a quasi-public agency to focus on TOD projects around existing and future transit stations within the state."
"The TCDA would be charged with coordinating the development of state transportation initiatives, leveraging state and private investments in order to assist communities and stimulate economic growth and housing opportunities," adds Gilligan.
Gilligan writes as the president of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, voicing that organizations support for the bill. The Hartford Courant editorial board has also gone on record to support the bill.
An earlier news report by Bill Cummings and Alex Gecan detailed the political response to Connecticut Governor Daniel P. Malloy, who is supporting the bill. That article also provides this detail about the power of the bill: "The transit authority could use eminent domain to seize property within a half-mile of a train station, sell bonds to finance a project, enter into agreements for management and work to create new office and retail space, parking garages and cultural attractions."
Opposing opinions about the bill include that of Suzanne Bates and Zachary Janowski, who describe the bill as a land grab and an attack on the state's tradition of home rule:
"Draw a half-mile circle around the Metro-North rail stations in Fairfield County, Connecticut—sometimes called the 'Gold Coast,' and including towns like Greenwich, New Canaan, and Darien—and you quickly see why officials and residents demanded changes to Malloy’s bill. The land around these stations is some of the most valuable in the country; current development conforms to the quiet, quaint character that attracted many residents. These communities have used their local prerogative to remain suburban. Through the TCDA, Malloy could have changed that, imposing high-density development along the rail line."
Connecticut State Senator Toni Boucher (R-Wilton) also published a press release explaining her opposition to the bill.
Full Story: Gilligan: Transit Corridor Development Authority Proposal Will Provide Useful Assistance and Benefits to Towns and CitiesPublished on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 in CT Post
Editor's Note: This is worse than Priority Development Areas but almost the same as Californias new redevelopment law AB2 and SB628 that establishes Joint Power Authorities for redevelopment.
Are JPAs a constitutional government body? I don't think so. This lust for regionalization and high density housing will stop when the public becomes fully aware of what is going on and starts throwing politicians out of office.
When you see examples of this across the country, it really makes you wonder if the conspiracy theorists are on to something. I still believe it is a FAD that will disappear in the political hurricane that is coming.
http://www.planetizen.com/node/77834
Friday, May 15, 2015
Density Bonus considerations threaten quality of life in the Bay Area
Density Bonus considerations threaten quality of life in the Bay Area
The term “density bonus” in urban planning might seem to be an innocent expression used by architects to explain how they can build more units on a given building site than existing zoning ordinances might allow. While this text book terminology would appear to be of little consequence, the ramifications of how density bonus elements are implemented are at the forefront in the battle to determine where people in the Bay Area will reside in the next quarter century.
With the loss of redevelopment agencies by the State of California after Jerry Brown took office, there is less public funding available to finance Project Development Areas (PDAs). Most of these PDA’s are intended for locations in close proximity to BART Stations. They are supposed to reduce carbon foot prints, encourage use of public transportation, conserve open space, and provide affordable housing for the less wealthy residents of California.
These density bonus goals are the center piece of the recently adapted blueprint by regional governmental agencies Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), that were incorporated into the Plan Bay Area. In order to take care of the government’s priorities, granting density bonus points to plans to increase the number of residents to infill their PDAs has become a necessity.
Mandating these requirements to gain suspect social economic, and environmental benefits, density bonus enables developers to make money on volume, not quality. Consequently, a large percentage of affordable and low income houses could be constructed in PDAs. These numbers would start at about 20% to over 50% of the units that the State’s regional government agencies wants from these developments. Not what cities want.
Density Bonus considerations also have their own baggage. In addition to income considerations, the social engineers in Sacramento want other factors including ethnic background, age, marital status, and physical limitations to be factored in to determine who should occupy these “public palaces,” not to mention special consideration for members of the welfare industrial state including teachers, first responders,municipal workers represented by powerful unions. Somehow this added “diversity” will lead to improved quality of life for all concerned.
Density Bonus impact on housing construction
Without density bonus, it is much more difficult to attract entrepreneurs to construct housing that meets State guidelines. As a rule of thumb, a developer needs to obtain approximately three times the cost of what they are paying for land in order to break even on a project. This equation can be slightly altered depending on permit fees, environmental impact reports, and other opportunity costs.
If a builder is asked to charge less than market rates or do construction projects that are more costly, companies must be compensated. The easiest way to do this is for a construction project bid to build more units than local zoning ordinances allows by:
1. Build higher, wider, and more densely than general plans allow
2. Reduce square footage so additional dwellings can be constructed, as well as smaller dwellings
3. Relax parking standards for each unit in order to cut costs and encourage use of public transport like daily trips to Safeway
This is where density bonus policies become the primary tool to achieve the State’s social objectives. Unfortunately, the consequences that will impact communities are not factored, as if these plans are designed to fail.
Presently, there is strong local control monitoring this type of this type of local development. An example would be the recent downsizing of a previously approved housing complex in downtown Lafayette by its City Council. Residents complained that increased congestion merited reducing the number of units that were to be built. In Walnut Creek, another case foreshadowing problems created by density bonus projects, lack of parking for a project resulted in the builder having to install a car elevator to increase available spaces for apartment dwellers.
Cities having power in such matters may become a thing of the past under proposed legislation in the State Senate. Co-sponsored by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), SB-1, if passed, would allow PDA administrators to have ultimate authority determining the size and scope of individual projects.
SB-1
Under SB-1 these PDAs would be able to impose special property taxes and issue bonds(!) to do work in areas under their jurisdictions without a direct vote of the people. In addition they would have the power to designate single family homes as “blight” and be able to condemn such properties as they feel is appropriate. Granting density bonus would be determined by the State and Regional Agencies.
In the last legislative session, SB-1 was passed by both Houses but did not become law because of a veto threat from the Governor. It is expected that the legislation will be approved once again in 2014 with minor changes to be made so Jerry Brown would agree to sign the bill into law.
The problem for cities, especially suburban locales in Contra Costa County, is that if density bonus is bestowed to developers doing projects in congested downtown areas or near BART stations, the impact on these communities will be drastic. This is why there is so much opposition to the One Bay Area Plan in parts of Marin County, the Peninsula, Orinda, Lafayette, Danville, and San Ramon. There are indications that this discontent may be spreading to less affluent cities, as well.
Major concerns exist not only on the impact on infrastructure such as parking, traffic, sewer, water, as well as overburden fire and police services, and also added enrolment in public school systems. Missing in the One Bay Area Plan is a way for individual cities to pay for civic improvements without reducing the quality of life for existing residents.
With the One Bay Area Plan there seems to be a chasm between the big cities on the Hwy 80 corridor where the “stack and pack” model is intended to work and the suburbs. The major difference is that in the big cities like San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, residents can use public transportation to get around as opposed to Contra Costa where the automobile is still the preferred manner of conveyance.
There is a growing perception that the State Government wants to discourage automobile use wherever they can. Determining where and how people live with density bonus programs seems to be a handy way for them to achieve this objective.
Instead of offering contrasting life style decisions up to each community, the Plan Bay Area is exactly that (One Plan). Those who do not desire to live in apartments and condos nor abandon their single family residences, are being challenged by unelected central planners who want to impose their utopian visions and questionable science on families who reside in the suburbs. Density Bonus is the planning tool to accomplish this aim.
This is where the battle lines are being formed in determining the future landscape of California. Thus far, the Democratic Super Majority in the California Legislature has been able to prevail with their surrogates at ABAG and the MTC gaining authority to manipulate and intimidate local communities to meet their urban planning objectives. What remains to be seen is if disenfranchised residents can persuade current office holders to change their policies; or alternatively, replace them with elected officials who will.
Editor's Note: SB-1 was tabled in 2013 and has been replaced by an aggressive set of Redevelopment Bills like SB 628 which allows redevelopment and taxation WITHOUT finding a cause of blight! This is eminent domain on steroids and will drastically impose government directives over the free will of the people. We will Save Marin Again!
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Urban Redevelopment in California Back With Few Protections
Urban Redevelopment in California Back With Few Protections
Bill does little to limit agencies' ability to float debt, use eminent domain
The late urban writer, Jane Jacobs, in her 1961 book, offered this critique of a 19th-century planner who sought to reduce inner-city blight by creating low-density garden cities: He was creating "very nice towns if you were docile and had no plans of your own... As in all utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planner in charge."
She was writing as the nation's urban-renewal efforts were taking hold, including California's own version of it, known as "redevelopment." As riots spread across the nation (sound familiar?), planners sought to revive inner cities with massive public investments and modern housing complexes — while wiping away dilapidated buildings.
But those sterile housing complexes came to epitomize the failures of that era's Great Society. Redevelopment in California — a financing mechanism that let cities float debt and shower the proceeds on "blighted" areas — morphed into a scheme for transferring downtown properties to developers, and eventually a means for suburban cities to subsidize auto malls and shopping centers.
By the time Gov. Jerry Brown shut down those agencies in 2011, "redevelopment" was diverting 12 percent of the state's budget from traditional public services toward "economic development" projects. Brown shut them down to find cash during a budget crisis.
Now that California's short-term budget problems are fixed, the legislature is rebuilding the whole redevelopment edifice. But the Capitol focus solely is on money and not the issues that concerned Jacobs — what such central planning means for the people who live and work there.
Last year, Brown signed a law that created so-called Enhanced Infrastructure Finance Districts. Under the old redevelopment law, localities would declare an area "blighted" and then have enhanced powers to borrow money and use eminent domain to clear away properties. With EIFDs, governments could easily finance projects and use eminent domain for anything that is infrastructure related.
It was Redevelopment 2.0, but with a narrow focus. And he vetoed a bill that would have restored redevelopment powers for urban-renewal projects because of a technical disagreement over which section of the code to place the new agencies. This year,Assembly Bill 2 restores redevelopment for urban renewal uses while addressing the governor's concerns, but without doing much to deal with the concerns of redevelopment's critics.
"If redevelopment is to be recreated, the Legislature should place an absolute check on the agency's powers of eminent domain," argued the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights, in a letter.
But the usual business groups are on the record favoring the bill. "Communities across California are searching for new tools to replace the loss of redevelopment agencies, which were intended to revitalize urban cores and build affordable housing, especially in those areas most economically and physically disadvantaged," according to letter from a wide coalition of business and trade groups that favor redevelopment.
Dan Carigg, legislative director of the League of California Cities (and a co-signer on the letter), told me the "new paradigm" is different than the old redevelopment approach. Newly created agencies can no longer unilaterally grab "property tax increment" from counties, fire authorities and school districts. That reduces the incentive for cities to create these districts given that their own budgets must sustain the new debt spending.
Supporters say AB 2 has additional transparency. There's a public process before a redevelopment district is created. Members of the community will be on a panel overseeing the project. There's a mechanism to put the project to a vote and to shut down the agency at 10-year intervals. Opponents are skeptical these protections are anything more than window dressing given the project's influential supporters will make sure the "right" locals are on the oversight board.
It's redevelopment with a kinder, gentler twist. If AB 2 passes, agencies will take property by eminent domain and use public dollars to fund private projects. Localities will run up debt without a vote of the public. As always, the plans of residents will give way to the edicts of the planners.
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