Towards the waning moments of yesterday's UCLA Extension Land Use Law and Planning Conference in downtown Los Angeles, I was on the verge of deploying the following tweet via @Cal_Plan:
"Ucla Land Use Law Conf: am in a roomful of lawyers and all seem in accord: no one has voiced support for death of #redevelopment"
I'm not even sure if Twitterese would have fully conveyed the seeming irony. In session after session, lawyers -- they of eternal contentiousness -- on the dais and in the audience alike bemoaned nearly everything about the death of redevelopment, decrying its very fact and, moreover, the sloppy -- and, indeed, inadvertent -- method by which the Legislature and governor sealed its fate. The closest anyone came to celebrating the implementation of Assembly Bill X1 26 was when they spoke of the chance for reform.
Even the redevelopment panel itself, featuring Housing Finance Agency executive director Claudia Cappio, former CRA/LA head Cecilia Estolano, attorney Iris Yang, and Fullerton community development director Al Zelinka was a strangely harmonious affair, full of the usual criticisms and of some compelling ideas for the future but with little actual debate. In truth, I think everyone is worn out -- and it was only Day Three since dissolution officially set in. In any event, if we ever sort this out, it would seem that sustainability and economic development are in and blight is out (legally, if not practically).
I'm glad I didn't tweet too soon.
During Q&A, Frank Gruber, an attorney and journalist based in Santa Monica, addressed the panel with, shall we say, a contrarian viewpoint. It's worth it just to quote him verbatim:
"I don't want to sound ungrateful for a great panel, but it does seem that it would have been good for this panel to have someone who is not mourning the demise of redevelopment. For a lot of us redevelopment was not a solution to a problem."
"I never heard of a CRA that ever bothered with...metrics about creating middle class people. When (a panelist) said that we need government that is clear and explanation, CRA was the exact opposite. It was the kind of thing that made people suspicious of government because they just saw all this money being skimmed off and given to developers. Middle class people leave cities. They've left cities for 50-plus years because of the schools. Did the CRA ever do anything for the schools? I remember being at a conference in 2003 when all of a sudden somebody from CRA said, 'yes, we're now working with the school district'--given that they raised $14 B in bond money."
"When you think of all the irrationality that this kind of funding brought, and of course stealing the money from the county and school districts. there's nothing to stop the Legislature in Sacramento from saying…'we want 5% of all tax increment around the state to go into affordable housing,' rather than just take back the 20 percent that you were going to steal. They can do that. They can enact all sorts of funding with a rational basis for where the money comes from. All these cities are now going to get more general fund money; they can decide what they want to do with it. There's no reason to mourn redevelopment."
"Jerry Brown: What a great guy. To have been a city guy and used it and realized how corruptible it was and to get rid of it."
After some hemming and hawing by the panel – who reiterated hopes for a renewed, reformed system of redevelopment – Joel Rosen, community development director, City of Buena Park, offered a rebuttal to Gruber:
"I am mourning the loss of redevelopment. Redevelopment was transformation for our community, and it was transformative for many communities across the state. Were there abuses? No question. But this was a money grab. This was not about redevelopment."
"I would propose something more radical: it's not about finance structure; it's about governance structure. We need to reform governance in California. We have too many school districts, too many special districts, too many overlapping jurisdictions. There's probably a lot of money in the system."
"I would argue that redevelopment was an incredible tool for 50 years. I am mourning its loss. I am mourning the loss of friends who are losing their jobs."
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
