Today’s Register story by Michael Mello raises some interesting possibilities and questions relating to the Buena Park redevelopment agency’s pending agreement with M & D Properties on a large redevelopment project in their city.
Let’s begin this report with a focus on Prop 99 where voters were told that property owners did not have to sell if the acquisition of their owner occupied homes were to be taken for a private venture such as this current development proposal dubbed “The Source.”
In Michael’s story he reports that “M & D Properties at one time tried to get the residents to sell their homes so they could expand the project”.
“(May) Hui (who heads the city’s redevelopment Agency) said three homes’ lots would be needed for the first phase of the Source’s construction. It is the developer’s responsibility to purchase them.” Have the owners opposed that transaction?
Notice they are only addressing homes in the first phase. How many additional homes might be taken in future phases was not mentioned?
Reading from the Register article it states that “The (Redevelopment) Agency’s budget is separate from the city’s general fund, the deficit-plagued fund for most cities.”
In Mission Viejo our city redevelopment agency borrows money from our General Fund periodically to cover debt service for our redevelopment projects. Will Buena Park’s General Fund have the ability to cover those costs while they keep their fingers crossed that the project will eventually pencil out?
To sweeten the project the city is giving M & D Properties two city owned parcels that were acquired for over $5 million dollars.
I would urge activists and property owners in Buena Park to attend their council meeting and oppose this pending gift of public funds. If the developer has confidence that the project will be a success then the ball should be in is court to locate private funding.
One area to question in the Register story is the city “giving the developers payments equal to 55 percent of the sales tax the development is expected to generate for a period of 30 years.” What if the taxes are not realized? Who is responsible for covering the debt service obligation?
Folks. Somehow we need to get the California legislature to amend the title of our Health and Safety Code sections beginning at 33000. What started out as valid “redevelopment” 49 years ago has shifted to “development” as the vast majority of newer projects are not redevelopment as per the original objectives.
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