Citizen Victory! Littleton, Colorado citizens win right to vote on Tax Financing of Urban Renewal

Littleton voters pass measure restricting city's urban renewal powers

By John Aguilar
The Denver Post

POSTED:   03/03/2015 12:00:00 AM MST11 COMMENTS

UPDATED:   03/05/2015 12:59:08 AM MST

The storefront of the new location of Crown Trophy in Littleton. (Brent Lewis, The Denver Post)

Littleton will need to go to the voters before employing commonly used urban renewal tactics, like tax increment financing or eminent domain, according to special election results released late Tuesday.

The city in Denver's southern suburbs became the first Colorado community to place such constraints on a local government's ability to use the state-sanctioned economic development tools.

Opponents of the measure warned that Littleton would stunt its economic growth potential by making projects in hard-to-revamp areas impossible to complete.

The final tally in favor of Question 300 was 5,755 yes votes to 3,811 no votes, or 60 percent to 40 percent.

Voters passed by an even wider margin a competing ballot measure, Question 2A, which only limits Littleton's eminent domain powers.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Paul Bingham with Your Littleton Your Vote, said "like most elections, this one was a large difference of opinion, This one about what is best for Littleton."

"Thank you to the citizens of Littleton for understanding our message and voting for our charter amendment," he said.

Tuesday's victory for Your Littleton Your Vote came despite being heavily outgunned by those challenging the measure, who operated under the name Littleton Strong. Opponents raised nearly $91,000 in campaign donations while backers raised nearly $3,000.

The vast majority of Littleton Strong's donations came from heavy-hitting builders and real estate industry groups while Your Littleton Your Vote's contributions came from local residents.

Mayor Phil Cernanec, who along with city council, had opposed Question 300, released a statement late Tuesday.

"Regardless of the voters' decision, the city council and I will continue engaging with citizens and encouraging healthy dialogue on the very important issues we face," he said. "It is, and always has been, our goal to look for ways to keep Littleton moving forward."

The movement to restrict the powers of the urban renewal authority in Littleton, known as Littleton Invests For Tomorrow, began last year when Your Littleton Your Vote collected signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

A special election was scheduled for Tuesday and more than 30,000 mail-in ballot were sent out last month.

Question 300 amends Littleton's charter to require voter approval before the city lures developers with deals that share the cost of infrastructure improvements, often through the issuance of bonds, in a public-private arrangement.

Urban renewal has been widely used in Colorado, including in the developments of the Denver Pavilions on the 16th Street Mall, the Streets at SouthGlenn in Centennial and Lakewood's Belmar.

Ballot backers argued that the city doesn't need to make deals using taxpayer money to bring projects to town and shouldn't do so without voter consent. They also objected to the city's decision last year to map out four zones — deemed blighted — where urban renewal dollars could be used.

Urban renewal proponents, led by the group Littleton Strong, lashed back by placing their own measure on the ballot that only prevents the seizure of property for urban renewal projects, unless the property owner agrees to eminent domain, but keeps intact other development tools.

By having every urban renewal decision go before voters, they argued, developers will eventually just skip over Littleton and go elsewhere with their projects so as not to get entangled in expensive elections.

Editors Note: Littleton, Colorado is mostly Democratic and voted strongly for liberal representation.  Urban redevelopment is not a right or left issue.  It is a local control and voting righrs issue.  If you feel that a local community has the right to limit "fracking" in their community then why shouldn't they be allowed to vote on the use of their taxes for redevelopment?

Citizen Victory! : Littleton to require voter approval on urban renewal

Littleton to require voter approval on urban renewal

Molly Armbrister

Denver Business Journal

Downtown Littleton.

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Littleton voters Tuesday approved ballot measures reforming urban renewal in the city following a special election, making it unique among Colorado cities because it will now require voter permission to use state-sanctioned tools for urban renewal.

Questions 300 requires the city to go to the voters before using common urban-renewal tools such as tax-increment financing and eminent domain. Question 300 passed by 5,755 yes votes to 3,811 no votes, a margin of approximately 60 percent to 40 percent.

Question 2A, which prohibits the use of eminent domain, except at the request of the property owner, was even more widely approved, passing by 6,583 yes votes to 2,890 no votes.

Question 300 was brought for special election after Littleton residents objected to the way urban-renewal tools were being used in the city. Specifically, residents took issue with the city's designation of four zones as blighted, which opens the door for the use of urban renewal. Many areas within those zones are not blighted, residents say, and some places even include new development.

"Like most elections, this one was a large difference of opinion, this one about what is best for Littleton," said Paul Bingham of Your Littleton Your Vote, the group that pushed to get Question 300 on the ballot. "The Your Littleton Your Vote group's opinion was favored by more of the voters than the other group's."

But opponents of Question 300 argued that the measure would cause developers to pass over Littleton for projects because of an additional hurdle to getting development done.

Littleton Mayor Phil Cernanec, who was opposed to Question 300, issued the following statement: "Regardless of the voters' decision, the city council and I will continue engaging with citizens and encouraging healthy dialog on the very important issues we face. It is, and always has been, our goal to look for ways to keep Littleton moving forward."

Lesson for Marin: Citizen Fight in Colorado.

Arvada Citizens Also Engaged in Urban Renewal Gone Bad

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Carol B

Urban Renewal: Everything That Can Be Wrong With Local Government

Cronyism, corruption, corporate welfare, corporate socialism, elitism, insider deals, political payoffs, central planning, social engineering … the worst of what can happen when politicians, government bureaucrats and business fat cats get together under the auspices of your local  ‘urban renewal authority’.

In recent years we have seen the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority (AURA) go on a tax give-away binge and engage in heavy-handed regulation for the benefit of favored developers; behavior that has gone far beyond what the ‘urban renewal’ concept was ever meant to accomplish.

Perhaps most egregious is the strong-arm power of urban renewal authority that distorts and manipulates the functioning of the free market. Local established businesses and historic neighborhoods are thus artificially impacted in ways from which they may never recover. In just the past couple of years in Arvada we have witnessed the city council and AURA applying elitist “we always know what is best for you” decisions in the central region of the city especially.

The whole urban renewal process often descends into what amounts to sanctioned bribery and graft when developers get rebated millions and millions of tax dollars to build projects desired by government — where otherwise the free market would render its own organic resolution and judgement. Any such system is ripe for abuse: thus, not unexpectedly, we have seen in city council elections, proponents of city government largess tending to receive campaign contributions from their developer ‘friends’.

Once upon a time, government urban renewal was meant to reconstruct rundown or ‘blighted’ urban areas. These days it means

• attempts to use eminent domain to take productive property from one private owner for the benefit of another (Walmart);
• the term ‘blight’ has been expanded to include even open rural land, like AURA’s Northwest Arvada Urban Renewal area for the primary benefit of private residential developers;
• driving out a valuable neighborhood grocery store, Safeway, to advantage another Walmart project, then the government getting into the real estate business by actually buying the vacant property and then giving an exclusive sweetheart deal to yet another private developer;
• and it has come to mean government subsidies of tens of millions of dollars to private developers.

The Arvada Urban Renewal Authority has become a scandal … but, the concerns of city residents are belittled and ignored.

What are the typical responses of the elected elite, the establishment politicians and their cronies to this tax give-aways and favoritism towards wealthy developers?

• Why, we common folks just don’t understand the mechanics of city planning and how government and business have to ‘work’ together.
• We are naivé to think that this isn’t how big, important deals are made … and besides, what do you know about what is best for the future of Arvada?
• And then there is the slickest line of all: if government doesn’t give developers tax money, they wouldn’t be able to afford to build and ‘improve’ the city. Next time you need to repaint or re-roof your house, go to city council and try that reasoning on them — ask for three of four years of city sales tax rebate so you can afford to ‘improve’ your neighborhood.

Lately, however, citizens across the metro area are waking up to this abuse of government power that favors special interests over free markets and taxpaying residents.

• In Littleton, a grassroots effort of citizens has succeeded in putting on a city special election ballot a proposal to rein in the overreach of city hall and urban renewal: Gloves are off in urban renewal battle royale – Denver Post.
• In Westminster, an incumbent city council representative has authored a hard-hitting critique of how urban renewal is being utilized in that city: Westminster abusing ‘blight’ designation for TIF-funded urban renewal by Bruce Baker.
• In Arvada average citizens are seeing growing online and grassroots interest in local government reform that puts AURA abuses front-and-center. At issue are pending and proposed tax subsidies worth millions and millions of dollars — Walmart $5.8 million; Park Place Olde Town $3.3 million; Solana Olde Town (apartments) $7.2 million; Renascent/Hilton Hotel $8.6 million. See: Stop Arvada Walmart/Facebook; Save Arvada Now/Facebook; Arvada for ALL the People/Facebook.

Residents of Arvada, Westminster, Littleton — indeed, the entire Denver region — all want good quality economic prosperity for our communities. Undoubtedly, however, most regular folks also believe that free enterprise, fairness and the ‘old fashioned’ American way of doing business should not be subverted by government favors and preferences for a chosen few picked to be ‘winners’ by urban renewal authorities.

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To find out more about the Littleton urban renewal ballot issue, go to: http://yourlittletonyourvote.wordpress.com

When Local Government Gets Into Land Speculation