Healdsburg wants to renew its redevelopment agency
The results of the Healdsburg Redevelopment Agency have ranged from downtown commercial signs, left, to the upscale Healdsburg Hotel, right.
CRISTA JEREMIASON / THE PRESS DEMOCRATPublished: Friday, July 16, 2010 at 2:18 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 16, 2010 at 2:18 p.m.
City Councilman Eric Ziedrich remembers sitting in the deserted Healdsburg Plaza almost three decades ago, eating lunch with his young children.
“It was an empty, neglected city park,” he said. “Half of the plaza was made up of boarded-up storefronts. There was a single eatery — a deli. There was no available hotel downtown.”
Today's Healdsburg, he said, is a polar opposite — “multiple, viable destination-resort hotels downtown, innumerable wine-tasting, retail facilities and eateries.”
Ziedrich said the dramatic re-invention of Healdsburg since the early 1980s can be credited in large part to redevelopment financing, a technique that has transformed many downtowns across the nation, including Santa Rosa and Windsor.
“I dare say, if we didn't have redevelopment dollars available to us, the downtown would have a completely different appearance,” said Ziedrich.
Because of the agency, “the downtown commercial core has had a great deal of success,” said Mayor Jim Wood.
Ziedrich and his council colleagues are now embarking on another phase in the life of the city's Redevelopment Agency — to extend its life by 10 years and do even more to revitalize portions the the city.
Last week, the council approved $221,000 for consultants to begin the initial steps to amend the city's redevelopment plan and prepare a feasibility study. It will help determine if the agency's $100 million bonded indebtedness limits are adequate and how much additional revenue would be collected during a 10-year extension.
The study by Keyser Marston Associates — expected to be completed in about a year — will also analyze physical and “economic” blight in Healdsburg.
“Redevelopment agencies have been very good to our communities. We'd like to keep ours alive,” said City Councilman Gary Plass.
Instead of expiring in 2022, the redevelopment plan would be in effect until 2032, and the agency would have until 2042 to repay debt.
City officials are considering several areas of the city for redevelopment that could be considered blighted or under-utilized, key requirements for redevelopment funding.
They include part of town off the central Highway 101 exit, including the 12-acre, Nu Forest wood products site, a five-way traffic intersection and the area around the train depot.
“There's a prime opportunity for the next wave of physical improvements,” said Planning Director Rick Tooker.
He said there are also properties on Dry Creek Road between the freeway and Healdsburg Avenue that are planned for commercial development and could benefit from agency programs.
Redevelopment agencies have existed in California since the 1940s. They are created to work as a catalyst for private investment by providing an initial plan and seed money for areas that are deemed in need economic development and other improvements.
The agencies do not levy taxes, but get a portion of the property tax revenues generated as property values rise. Those revenues are used to repay bonds and other debt incurred to make investments in project areas.
Another function of redevelopment agencies is assembling and acquiring property parcels and making them ready for private redevelopment.
Redevelopment agencies occasionally are controversial, most recently in some communities where the government power of eminent domain was used to acquire property. Healdsburg plans to have the agency reinstate its recently expired power of non-residential eminent domain authority for 12 years.
In 1981, the Healdsburg Council established the Redevelopment Agency to oversee the revitalization of the plaza. The agency bought and demolished buildings judged to be blighted and either sold or leased the land to developers.
The Healdsburg Hotel was built on 1.6 acres purchased from the Redevelopment Agency for slightly less than $1 million in the mid-1990s.
But the agency has done much more in Healdsburg, including creating parking, helping pay for water, sewer and other infrastructure improvements and assisting property owners to renovate buildings and facades. The agency helped finance construction of a day labor center, improvements to the Raven Theater and construction of the Alliance Medical Center building.
Redevelopment agencies also are required to devote a portion of their budgets to affordable housing. In Healdsburg that has resulted in hundreds of subsidized dwellings built for low-income occupants.
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