OK, nothing surrounding redevelopment is much "fun" these days. But let's try to lighten the mood.
In case you're wondering what exactly could get eliminated, the Senate Committee on Governance & Finance has compiled a list of the most salient facts from a recently released draft annual report, for FY 2009-10, compiled by the Office of the State Controller. This report was based on data reported by the agencies themselves, so some of the facts probably should be taken with a grain of salt. (For instance, if anyone knows exactly how to measure "jobs created," I want to hear about it.)
- There are 425 community redevelopment agencies, but only 399 are active
- Every city with a population over 250,000 has a redevelopment agency
- 94% of the 174 cities with populations over 50,000 have redevelopment agencies
- 81% of the 480 cities have redevelopment agencies
- 31 of the 58 counties have redevelopment agencies
- There are 750 redevelopment project areas
- 65 redevelopment project areas cover 50 acres or less
- 34 redevelopment project areas cover more than 6,000 acres
- Frozen property values were $164 billion; incremental values were $544 billion
- New construction fell to 12.5 million square feet, the lowest level since 1995-96
- New construction of public buildings boomed from 222,000 to 1.4 million square feet
- Rehabilitated construction was down in every category except industrial buildings
- Redevelopment agencies created 36,000 jobs, more than double than in 2008-09
- Agencies' total revenues & other funding fell to $8 billion, down from $8.3 billion
- Property tax increment revenues were $5.4 billion, 5% less; first drop since 1995-96
- Pass-through payments were $1.2 billion, about the same as in 2008-09
- Pass-throughs & other aid to K-14 schools was $315 million, down from $328 million
- Agencies spent $943 million in Low & Moderate Income Housing Funds
- Of that amount, 20.7% went for administrative, professional, planning, & design costs
- Low & Moderate Income Housing Funds' total revenues were $712 million
- Of that amount, $552 million came from property tax increment revenues
- Agencies' equity fell by $1.4 billion to $16.5 billion
- Agencies had unmatured long-term debts of $29.8 billion
- Agencies issued $825 million in tax allocation bonds
- Agencies' unmatured tax allocation bonds totaled $19.1 billion
Source: Draft Community Redevelopment Agencies Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2009-10. John Chiang, State Controller. Released to the Legislature on July 7, 2011.
--Josh Stephens