The California legislature recently dissolved the states redevelopment
agencies. Notoriously, the nation's worst abusers of eminent domain.
When the government condemns perfectly fine properties, not for public use, but
for private development.
California should stand firm in its decision to eliminate these rogue
agencies, which have siphoned billions in tax payer dollars away from schools and
local infrastructure and destroyed lives for ill conceived projects that often
never meet expectations or even come to fruition.
Let's take a look at what redevelopment in California has really accomplished.
Originally intended to address slums and dilapidated housing, redevelopment
has been used to condemn thriving businesses with the hopes something
newer might bring in more tax revenue for redevelopment officials to use. Ahmad
Mesdaq's elegant and successful Gran Havana cigar factory in San Diego,
was a neighborhood institution,
that attracted politicians and celebrities. I purchased the building for
1.2 million dollars, and spent over eight hundred thousand dollars to
rehabilitate the building, and
bring it up to the code.
And I did that. And then to see it
washed a year later,
the redevelopment agencies send me a letter that they wanted to
acquire this property for bigger and better use.
The agency wanted to build a Marriot hotel.
And based on a
bogus promise after
developer,
the city has acquired
my building.
Now, it's sitting here seven years later as an empty parking lot.
Ahmad's family fled war in Afghanistan in the 1980's in pursuit of
the American dream.
The one who suffered the most is my father.
He left Afghanistan because his home, his livelihood, were taken by commonists in Afghanistan.
Years later, he's witnessing the same
horror story
in America.
That his son's business and livelihood were taken
by the government.
Was it right to take my property and turn it into
a parking lot?
Was it right to take
twenty
employees
and put them out of work?
Out of their livelihood?
Hard-working business owners have lost their entire retirements to
redevelopment.
John Revelli owned Revelli tire in downtown Oakland. We've had it in our
family for fifty-six years,
and I
spent forty-six years there myself.
I enjoyed what I did
I loved what I did,
and uh...
unfortunately the city didn't feel the same way about it as I did.
The redevelopment agency wanted to replace his business with upscale
residential development.
They didn't want us in the project,
they couldn't relocate us,
and we didn't have too many options. And they didn't want to pay us what it was
worth.
The city showed up with
two giant moving vans.
They were prepared to empty our building to the bare walls that day, and they did.
That was the last day I was in business. When they took
the property away from me
that removed all of my plans for retirement, in the way that I wanted to do it.
The part that was so disturbing is that
I had to do with their way, not my way.
Redevelopment agencies have targeted homes and businesses,
simply because they want to replace them with something they deem better.
In Baldwin Park, officials claimed they wanted to push out locally owned amigos
stores in order to bring in chains like Applebees.
Property owners were ultimately successful in defeating the proposal, but
not without a difficult fight. The city council had proposed for a hundred
homes,
and three hundred businesses to be bulldozed,
and they were going to turn it over to a developer by the name of Bizno,
so that he could bring in a cinema,
a sushi bar
and uh...
different types of arcades, and things that were so
ridiculous. The businesses that were being threatened have been here for
forty plus years.
They've given a lot back to the community, donate to the schools,
donate to functions that are going on, a lot a fundraisers. The city treated us
very badly. Instead of building affordable housing,
redevelopment has often threatened affordable communities in favor of
pricier development. Long Beach
sent us a letter saying that we were a blighted area and therefore subject,
all of our properties, were subject to eminent domain. Even though we're
you know, in the
low-income area we didn't consider it a blighted area. Watching all the
time to see what's going on in your neighborhood for fear of this is the
project that they're going to start on and that you're going to lose your home.
We've lived here for a long time and we've, you know, since we were first married
actually we have it carved in the cement over there.
And we were both very threatened.
It's like a living a life of being threatened every day. Not being able to
live
a peaceful
life
in your retirement. Redevelopment agencies have used the thread of eminent domain
to target valuable neighborhood institutions like national cities
community youth athletic center. Rather than complain about the problems in
National City,
we thought we wanted to get in and start making a difference. We started up
in the backyard of a home with one punching bag,
and now it's grown into a thirty-five hundred square foot facility with
uh...
community service projects,
programs, with athletics
and now housing
a juvenile court community school. So they thought that our facility didn't fit in what their idea of
what redevelopment was.
And so, for that reason, then we recieved a letter of
uh...
I think it was called friendly condemnation.The 'friendly' redovelopment agency and city
wanted to replace the gym
with the luxury condo project.
We came in and we purchased a gun store,
and turned it into a place of hope for the next generation of kids. That's
redevelopment.
Government officials have created massive redevelopment areas,
so redevelopment agencies can take anything in their paths, and collect the
windfall of increased property tax revenue.
San Pablo property owners stopped such an effort. What we found out was the city
was attempting to reinstate the authority for the next twelve years
and declare the city as ninety-five percent under eminent
domain.
We found out our business was on the list and there were ninety-four pages
of the houses on the list. And I noticed that there was four houses on
there that they deemed
severly dilapitated and deteriorated,
and they were not.
So that, ya know,
that made me realize that the study was incorrect.
The only reason I can think of that they wanted to
deem ninety-five percent of our city
for eminent domain is because apparently they
receive more money. Indeed,
redevelopment has provided a preverse incentive
to declare large areas of perfectly fine properties blighted, which entitles the
agency to the increase in property tax revenue within the area, the tax
increment that is siphoned away from schools and local infrastructure needs
and into
redevelopment coffers. In 1979, the entire city of Gran
Terrace was declared blighted and remains so today.
Coronados redevelopment area includes all privately owned property in the city,
including multi million dollar beach front homes.
In San Jose,
a tennis court was declared blighted because there were leaves on it.
Redevelopment agencies claim their projects create jobs, yet they often
destroyed businesses, stifle development, cause blight,
and fail.
When you are threatened with eminent domain,
that lowers the value of the property,
and then when the city comes along
and buys up
all of the properties around you,
they make no attempt to keep it up.
So, the the windows are boarded up,
there's graffiti, there's weeds and so when anybody comes by to appraise or look
at your property,
it doesn't look very good.
Sacramento officials have kept sixty acres under the cloud of condemnation
since 1950.
The area has been plagued with empty store fronts, lack of foot traffic, and
vagrancy.
Meanwhile, redevelopment is subsidizing the trendy dive bar which features a
mermaid fish tank.
Indio officials demolished a thriving black community
to make way for an expansion of the shopping mall that never happened.
I'm so relieved that redevelopment is over in California, because
we lived with a lot of tension, wondering when someone was going
to let us know.
You know, when
our neighborhood would be taken, you know, homes would be taken if they would want
them for something.
And we've seen a lot of people
doing lots of things now that there's no Eminent Domain. There's all kinds of painting
going on,
and it's not anything that was blighted it's just things people we're going to do
to improve their homes, but they held back on it because they didn't want to invest money into something that may be
taken from them and torn down.
You know, to me, I'm just very glad
that I can see that the legislature and the government finally heard, and
the governor finally listened to some of us,
and we'll be able to continue living the American dream.