Despite the dramatic Buildup to tonight’s 7 o’clock City Council meeting – billed as the last stand of the Redevelopment Agency 24 hours before it dies – the Agency’s farewell program figures to sail quietly, prosaically, beyond the horizon.
From the sale of Globe Avenue properties to Habitat for Humanity to the sale of four Agency-linked properties – including Parcel B – to assorted teams of developers, neither resistance nor division among Agency/Council members is expected.
Councilman Andy Weissman summarized the agenda:
“Besides approving affordable housing, we also will be approving several developments, especially the one at Washington and National, that will be improvements. Since Washington-National is a transit-oriented-development, it accomplishes several objectives. Besides blight removal, it will tie in to the coming of the Expo light rail line along with the desire to improve mobility and to provide workforce housing opportunities.
“This will give us a better look at what redevelopment was intended to do, provide affordable housing, remove blight, promote economic development.
“In their entirety, the projects on the agenda this evening are truly fulfilling part of the broad scope of the redevelopment mission,” Mr. Weissman said.
“It is unfortunate we will not have the same opportunities available to us in the future.”
Darrell Steinberg, the hardline Democrat leader of the state Senate, has been vocally aggressive the last two weeks in declaring that the legal lives of Redevelopment Agencies will not be extended beyond midnight Tuesday.
This has left city hall officials the length of the state with their palms turned up, asking what their next developmental moves should be.
As for Culver City, the property transfer concept seems likely to become a dinosaur after tonight.
Mr. Weissman was asked if the City Council or a successor-type of redevelopment agency would be able to negotiate similar deals in the future.
“We may be able to pursue affordable housing initiatives because we still have a Housing Authority, although I am not sure what the future funding source will be,” he said. “But we certainly are not going to be able to pursue the same economic development opportunities because we are not going to have the real property tax increment to be able to pursue those kinds of initiatives. What happens in the coming Years is going to be private development-oriented.”
