SAN DIEGO – San Diego District Attorney and Mayoral candidate Bonnie Dumanis today released the following statement marking the end of the Center City Development Corp. and the Southeastern Development Corp. and addressing the need for successor agencies to assist and promote redevelopment in San Diego.
Today is the start of a new chapter for the city of San Diego and a significant change in the way our city will grow in the future. Today, our city takes the first steps to implementing a governance structure and priorities of a brand new agency that will drive redevelopment in San Diego– a successor agency to CCDC and SEDC.
As we turn that page, we need to engage the diverse communities in San Diego about their vision, their planning issues and their goals for the future.
The change represents a major shift in how residents and businesses in redevelopment zones will work together with city government. And there are challenges facing this successor agency, which will need to work effectively on a much broader canvas, while continuing to create a vibrant downtown and move neighborhoods forward currently in redevelopment zones.
The changeover raises many questions:
How do we create the CCDC model for streamlining the permitting process and yet consolidate resources to finish the job of the redevelopment agencies throughout San Diego? How will the successor agency continue approval procedures with short entitlement processes? Can current city departments follow CCDC’s example with direction for infrastructure and entitlement processes?
As our city begins to answer these questions, it’s critical that we prioritize planning issues and carry out CCDC’s vision to make urban and cultural amenities accessible to all San Diegans. The legislature has left us no choice but to take over this responsibility. And the implementation of Assembly Bill 26 will require experience and leadership to work in partnership with numerous jurisdictions and agencies.
Today begins the process of identifying the priorities for the successor agency and choosing what should be implemented. I believe it should be a two-pronged approach–continue to develop a world-class downtown while investing in our distinct, unique neighborhoods.
Like many San Diegans, I strongly support the concept of our downtown serving as the regional hub, providing a mixture of office, retail, housing and public uses. Transportation is key and we need to keep the big picture in mind. Coordinated planning efforts with MTDB, SANDAG, housing and employment with the City and County will ensure an efficient use of current resources for transportation throughout San Diego.
Downtown has lost its position as the regional employment center to job centers to the north. A focused strategy to attract technology industries and other future economic sectors is needed. As Mayor, I will advocate for downtown jobs, economic development and redevelopment.
The I.D.E.A. District is a strategy I support for planning and economic development in the East Village. We need to carefully plan the components needed to make East Village a safe and livable neighborhood with a cultural infrastructure, affordable housing, open space and parks, quality schools and jobs.
At the same time, downtown’s surrounding neighborhoods can’t be ignored. Homelessness and the concentration of social services downtown is an issue the successor agency must continue to address. Expanding Horton Plaza’s public space at Fourth Avenue and Broadway, along with the private investment of Westfield, should also be a priority.
We also have to plan for the integration of the marine industry with commercial and residential sectors in downtown and Barrio Logan. The marine industry contributes significantly to jobs and a healthy San Diego economy.
We face serious challenges moving forward. Financial resources are disappearing, so it will be essential to collaborate more often with private investment, like the public-private partnership that led to the development of Westfield’s Horton Plaza.
This new successor agency must also be committed to meeting and exceeding affordable housing and to supporting San Diego’s housing needs. Affordable housing in downtown neighborhoods is a priority.
This change will not be easy. I encourage the Mayor and City Council to ensure that the formation of the successor agency’s oversight board will include a diverse cross-section of city-wide stakeholders.
That Board should include transit officials, housing advocates, representatives from downtown, the arts community and others. Input from all corners of our city is needed to assess current projects, address underdeveloped and underutilized areas of downtown and other redevelopment areas, and implement the city’s policies outlined by the City of San Diego’s Strategic Framework and the Economic Prosperity 2008 Policy.
A new chapter begins today. Let’s write the first few lines of that chapter carefully. Let’s focus our priorities, stimulate a constructive discussion about the issues, coordinate objectives and turn our vision for San Diego’s future into reality.
Bonnie Dumanis
Comments 4
Dumanis’ statement “marks the end of the Center City Development Corp. and the Southeastern Development Corp. and addresses the need for successor agencies to assist and promote redevelopment in San Diego”. She writes of “a successor agency to CCDC and SEDC”.
This displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how Redevelopment worked and how the State Legislature requires it be wound down.
CCDC and SEDC were contract service providers to Redevelopment (RDA) under Operating Agreements.
On Jan 12, 2012 the City appointed itself the successor agency to the RDA under AB 26. That Bill requires that all current governance structure of the City, including CCDC and SEDC, remain the governance structure of the City in its capacity as the successor agency to the RDA until an oversight board, that must be in place by May 1, 2012, commences to oversee the actions and decisions of the successor agency.
AB 26 mandates that it be composed of seven members selected as follows:
(i) the county board of supervisors appoints two members, at least one of whom must be a member of the public;
(ii) the mayor for the city that created the former RDA appoints two members, one of whom will represent the former RDA’s employees, selected from the recognized employee organization representing the largest number of the former RDA’s employees employed by the successor agency at the time of appointment;
(iii) the largest special district, by property tax share, with territory in the former RDA’s territorial jurisdiction, appoints one member;
(iv) the county superintendent of education appoints one member to represent schools, unless the county superintendent is appointed, in which case the appointment is made by the county board of education.
(v) the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges appoints one member to represent community college districts in the county.
Dumanis writes: “I encourage the Mayor and City Council to ensure that the formation of the successor agency’s oversight board will include a diverse cross-section of city-wide stakeholders.
“That Board should include transit officials, housing advocates, representatives from downtown, the arts community and others. Input from all corners of our city is needed to assess current projects, address underdeveloped and underutilized areas of downtown and other redevelopment areas, and implement the city’s policies outlined by the City of San Diego’s Strategic Framework and the Economic Prosperity 2008 Policy.”
Which AB 26 did Bonnie read?
http://www.tinyurl.com/20111114
CCDC and the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) lamented that they wished State RDA law allowed them to use RDA Tax Increment (TI) to construct and maintain Homeless Emergency Shelters. Including paying for staff, water, electricity bills, to construct and MAINTAIN the Shelters for women, children, seniors, and the poor.
In reality CCDC could have use the 80 percent non-housing RDA TI all along, or since the 1980s at least. Up to $1 BILLION was withheld from the poor and Homeless due to made up lies. CCDC RDA deserved to die. Karma should treat CCDC staff the same way the treated poor seniors who were kicked out of their Single Room Occupancy (SRO) dumps, left on our sidewalks to die, all without financial help for relocation from CCDC as required under State law. However in the last 2 years CCDC did provide the required relocation and replacement housing for the poor and got serious about the Honeless in general. Great progress.
The State Departmemt of Housing and Community Development (HCD) told us CCDC RDA willful blindness to the allowable use of RDA TI for Homeless Emergency Shelter was used as a contributing reason to kill CCDC and RDAs state-wide. What kind of civic leaders steal money from the poor and Homeless?
Abolishing redevelopment takes public resources away from a politically influential class of affluent rent-seekers. Can’t have that!
One irresponsible way that CCDC helped push projects along is by not following the State of California Seismic Safety Act and CEQA. In order to increase density and therefore Tax Increment, CCDC changed the State Alquist-Priolo laws without the required approval by the State Geologist. Instead of fault buffer setbacks of 50 feet minimum on each side, for 100 feet wide in total; CCDC changed the fault buffer distance setbacks to 50 in total.
http://www.tinyurl.com/20110411
Officially San Diego has the worst public Infrastructure in American due to the massive amount of Water and Sewer Main breaks. No one seems to understand the relationship between San Diego’s failing public Infrastructure and the continuous creeping movement of the active Rose Canyon Fault Zone (RCFZ) which moves approximately one inch every 12 years.
http://dockets.sandiego.gov/sirepub/pubmtgframe.aspx?meetid=1390&doctype=Agenda
As seen on Monday January 31, 2012 City Council Closed Session Docket, there are at least 4 negligence lawsuits related to the claim that our public City Sewer system in the North Embarcadero along Pacific Highway is defective.
Conference with Legal Counsel – existing litigation, pursuant to California Government Code Section 54956.9(a):
CS-1 Park Place on Harbor Drive Owners Association v.
Bosa Development California, Inc., et al. San Diego Superior Court Case No. 37-2009-000099056-CU-CD-CTL (Lead Case). Consolidated with San Diego Superior Court Case No. 37-2010-00094666-CU-CD-CTL and San Diego Superior Court Case No. 37-2010-0099534-CU-PO-CTL). CDCA Assigned: C. Leone.
Plaintiff filed claims against the City stemming from a 36” main sewer line below Pacific Coast Highway which allegedly has created and continues to create damage by hydrogen sulfide gases from the sewer line into the project causing corrosion of plumbing lines and sewage backups. The City Attorney will update the Mayor and City Council on the status of the litigation.
CS-2 The Grande South at Santa Fe Place Homeowners Association v. Bosa Development California, Inc., et al. San Diego Superior Court Case No. 37-2009-00102606-CU-CD-CTL. CDCA Assigned: C. Leone.
Plaintiff filed claims against the City stemming from a 36” main sewer line below Pacific Coast Highway which allegedly has created and continues to create damage by hydrogen sulfide gases from the sewer line into the project causing corrosion of plumbing lines and sewage backups. The City Attorney will update the Mayor and City Council on the status of the litigation.