Redevelopment's Finished. Now What?

Although redevelopment agencies are now in the rearview mirror of cities, their funds usurped by the state of California in its budget process, one may wonder what, if anything, has been lost by those cities?

A basic primer: redevelopment agencies (RDAs) operated in areas of cities that were regarded as "blighted", a modestly defined term. The RDA would sell bonds, repayable as property tax revenues increased in those areas. This increase in value accrued from upgraded municipal facilites and linking parcels to make the area attractive to new development of the land by private entities.

By keeping the increases in property taxes, RDAs would repay the bonds, continue further upgrading of the area and facilitate affordable housing in or near those areas as required by redevelopment codes.

The losers in this arrangement were school districts and other governmental agencies which did not benefit from the increased value of property, as their share of taxes were fixed at the original levels. Most RDAs, however, had arrangements for annual payments at least partially compensating these other agencies.

A few cities dipped into redevelopment funds for other uses and wandered off the path of righteousness in the use of these monies. Most, however, used redevelopment money for the purposes of their creation and allocated resources in strict accord with the legalities. So, were there positive results? Ah....yes there were.

One only need look at the east of Highway 101 area of South San Francisco to note the transformation from a rust bucket of an area, replete with a gritty landscape and marginal and declining companies to an economic juggernaut of high tech, research and development. Redevelopment allowed this as no other economic strategy alternative existed.

Other cities on the San Mateo Peninsula have similar success stories. Likewise San Francisco, Long Beach, San Diego among the mega cities have renovations to their cityscapes under the aegis of redevelopment that would have been difficult to accomplish under any other scenario.

So maybe there will develop other alternatives to spur economic growth in the future. But arguably one of the success stories in California has been eliminated. Maybe some other process will replace the $200 million that will not be available in South San Francisco over the next two decades to upgrade the infrastructure and perhaps create the next wave of innovation. Or maybe there won't, and that will be a shame.