Sacramento Bee: Redevelopment rush also occurred in 1993

(from the Sacramento Bee by Kevin Yamamura)

January 20,2011

More than a dozen cities have fast-tracked redevelopment proposals ever since Gov. Jerry Brown released his plan to eliminate the local agencies that use property tax revenues to subsidize construction projects.

The redevelopment rush is not unprecedented.

A similar flurry of activity occurred in 1993 when the state enacted a stricter blight definition. As a 1994 Legislative Analyst's Office report detailed, cities moved quickly to expand their redevelopment areas in 1993, likely out of fear that such neighborhoods wouldn't qualify under the new blight definition in subsequent years.

The Analyst's Office found that local governments placed three times as much land in redevelopment zones in 1993 than they did in the previous year. In one case, the report found, "the City of San Diego approved a redevelopment plan for land near San Diego State University which does not appear to suffer from severe or intractable problems," contrary to the stricter blight definition.

With that in mind, the Analyst's Office suggested last week that lawmakers may want to think about imposing a temporary freeze on redevelopment expansion to allow debate to unfold. That hasn't happened so far, and some cities now appear to be easing off the pedal as they monitor the situation in Sacramento. Los Angeles, for instance, delayed action on $930 million in redevelopment projects on Tuesday, while San Jose also backed off Wednesday.

Brown said Wednesday he remained open to the idea of a freeze, but he has not committed one way or the other.

As we noted earlier, there appears to be little consensus in the Capitol on whether to freeze redevelopment activity, let alone eliminate the agencies. The debate is one of the few that does not split along party lines, and many lawmakers have come straight from city councils where they benefited from redevelopment dollars.

Assembly Republicans debated the issue this week and came to no unified conclusion, said Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, a former city councilman and mayor. Norby strongly opposes redevelopment agencies, calling them subsidies for retailers. But other members of his caucus, including Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita and chairman of the Assembly Local Government Committee, support redevelopment agencies.

A further complication to a redevelopment freeze is that some cities might be rewarded for sending money out the door over the last week. One idea floating around the Capitol would retroactively impede redevelopment actions dating back to Jan. 10, but that could invite legal questions.

Brown told city officials Wednesday, "You may win on redevelopment, and then we take something else." Some legislative aides have speculated that the showdown may end in a compromise with the state taking $1.7 billion in one-time dollars without permanently eliminating redevelopment agencies.

That's the kind of deal that Capitol leaders have struck in recent years, but Brown has signaled he doesn't want to follow the same path his predecessors did. We'll see.


Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/01/redevelopment-rush-also-occurr.html#ixzz1Bbt0kAOT