COURSEY: Don't celebrate redevelopment's demise

<p>Foes of redevelopment are celebrating the demise of California's redevelopment agencies with glee, including one headline on a conservative blog gloating “Ding-Dong, the Witch is Dead,” and a ceremony observing “Drop Dead CRA Day” at Los Angeles City Hall.</p><p>Opponents characterize redevelopment agencies as vehicles for sweetheart deals between corrupt politicians and crony developers who throw citizens out of their homes and businesses by abusing powers of eminent domain.</p><p>But as redevelopment agencies in California were disbanded this month, the first reported impacts at the local level were about school children and poor people.</p><p>The baby got thrown out with the bath water.</p><p>No doubt, redevelopment had its abuses. Using redevelopment money to develop professional sports stadiums and fancy bars may have been legal, but it helped fuel anti-redevelopment sentiments in cities such as San Diego and Sacramento. In Santa Rosa, declaring a huge swath of the heart of the city as “blighted” to create the 1,100-acre Gateways redevelopment area was a stretch, and agreeing to loan $2.2 million to Simon Properties, a Fortune 500 company that is co-owner of Coddingtown, raised hackles. </p><p>But portraying redevelopment as an evil scheme is simply wrong. It is a tool used by local governments to put the added tax revenue created by new development to work in the neighborhoods where the money is raised.</p><p>And the fact is, redevelopment funds do good. Regardless of how you feel about the Santa Rosa Plaza (and there is much to dislike about it), the use of redevelopment funds to prod its development in the late 1970s helped prevent the city's downtown core from falling into decay as shoppers fled to the suburbs, as happened in other cities. Redevelopment funds have provided affordable housing, sewer and water line upgrades, street widening and other infrastructure improvements that we don't often see, but that help maintain our quality of life.</p><p>And, as reported in the past 10 days since redevelopment agencies were shut down and their unallocated funds absorbed into state coffers, their absence will be felt in a variety of ways.</p><p>In Roseland, the loss of Santa Rosa redevelopment money halts a long-planned project to convert the former Albertson's shopping center into a residential and commercial district with a community plaza that many felt could have transformed the neighborhood.</p><p>In the Roseland School District, one of the few districts in Sonoma County with a growing enrollment, a new school on Burbank Avenue cannot open until sidewalks that were to be paid for with $417,000 in Santa Rosa redevelopment funds can be funded in some other way.</p><p>In Rohnert Park, three non-profit agencies that aid the homeless, young people and low-income families with housing needs are scrambling for ways to make up for more than $300,000 a year previously funded by the city's redevelopment agency.</p><p>In the Boyes Hot Springs-Agua Caliente area north of Sonoma, where Highway 12 carries tourists through some of the poorest neighborhoods of the Sonoma Valley, projects to build sidewalks and other improvements for a steady flow of pedestrians have come to a halt with the loss of redevelopment funds.</p><p>These are all worthwhile projects and beneficial uses of the property tax money that comprises the bulk of redevelopment funds. No one should be celebrating their loss.</p><p>Instead, let's find other ways to pay for them; let's dig around for alternate tools to continue making these kinds of improvements in our communities.</p><p>When we come up with those tools, then it will be time to celebrate.</p><p><i>Chris Coursey's blog offers a community commentary and forum, from issues of the day to the ingredients of life in Sonoma County.</i></p>