Elimination of redevelopment imperils ongoing projects, stops future developments in their tracks - SGVTribune.com
When the California Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling that essentially annihilated local redevelopment agencies, it also killed the single-most important economic development tool that more than 400 cities statewide have, city officials said.
With the ruling that the Legislature can eliminate redevelopment agencies, many San Gabriel Valley and Whittier area leaders wonder how their communities are going to move forward with ongoing projects. And they don't know what to do about future plans now left in limbo.
"It puts everything up in the air," West Covina City Manager Andrew Pasmant said. "It's so far-reaching it's amazing."
Once redevelopment agencies are dissolved, city leaders predict that communities will face drastic consequences, including economic disadvantage, decreased revenues, more blighted areas and vacant buildings, elimination of thousands of job opportunities and reduced affordable housing.
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And as Fred Pilot points out, this eliminates one of the tools that local governments could have used to deal with dilapidated condo projects.
2 comments:
These were bad things to begin with - a sort of public/private partnership like an HOA without geographic boundaries. "Blight" is in the eye of the beholder and aesthetics should not be the basis for taking property from one and giving it to another. If real estate was seen as valuable enough, you can bet that would affect whether a site was deemed "blighted" or not. As far as the condos, that's what cities get for promoting them in the first place. The price has to be paid at some point.
Re the comment above: The cities received the advantage of a high tax revenue per horizontal square foot of "footprint" particularly when the condos are multi-story. The cities have been promoting these high tax revenue generators for "infill" . The payback is being responsible for cleaning up the ruins after the city has sucked all economic value out the residents and the building itself.
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