Comment by eCoronado on January 25, 2011 at 12:30am

Related stories:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jan/24/coronado-redevelopme...

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/california_controller_re...

Comment by Dan Orr on January 25, 2011 at 1:08pm

If they do away with CDAs anyone taking any bets on whether the tax money will actually go to the cities and not stay with the State?

Comment by Story R. Vogel on January 27, 2011 at 11:34am

    The issue is not whether tax money will actually go to the cities. In fact the issue is that the CDA was created based on designating Coronado "blighted".............back in the mid eighties,  which resulted in State monies being sent to Coronado which enabled every public facility you see today from the schools to City Hall to the Police station, I believe, to be built. In effect the taxpayers of the whole state of California subsidized the building of new schools etc in Coronado.. I remember in the eighties when the town refused an additional local  tax to fund the schools. Then , voila, Dave Blumenthal and others expolited a loophole in the State Redevelopment Act to designate Coronado "blighted".  Funny how so called "conservatives" will drink from the well of the government when it suits them.. But that is just part of the story

    If you ever wondered why certain public officials in town past and present have been so cozy with the developers and why the City opposed Proposition J back in 2006, the answer lays before you. The increase in density in town, the destruction of privacy, the creation of "Tony's Tenements", 4 property tax paying units on 7,000 sq ft lots that often held just one home earlier, called "cloud condominimums" by the masters of hyperbole and bs, realtors,, in the R3 zones, the push to destroy perfectly good homes on 7,000 sq ft lots in the R1B zone and replace with  2 "Billy Boxes" is all a result of the City's need for  an increase in property tax revenue yearly to fund the interest on the bonds issued through the CDA.

    In effect, the turning of Coronado into Newport Beach with cheek to jowl overbuilt boxes with Potemkin like Cape Cod front elevations is all a direct result of the City's manipulation of the State Redevelopment Act to have Coronado designated blighted. You folks are paying thhe price in overseveloped neighborhoods such as my former home on D where 27 Billy Boxes and muti unit buildings replaced 7 single family homes on a single street of D Avenue.

     Not coincidentally is the resistance of certain pro development Council members past and present to the Historic Designation process. Every time a home is historically designated the City has to forego a certain amount of incremental tax revenue...hence the "cap" that these very same Council members have pushed for years in the name of so called fical prudence, as well as Coronado's use of a 75 year cut off for historic designation when the State standard in 50 years. Every house that is saved from the depradations of the developers and increased property tax cannot be imputed to a new overbuilt inappropriate monstrousity looming over its neighbors, the City has to do with less property tax revenue..

    The reason that the State is examining the Redevelopment process is because it has been manipulated by cities like Coronado. Should you doubt me there is a very good article, hard to beleive,  in the Union by the ever excellent writer, Janine Zuniga, here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051030/news_1m30redev.html.

       So the next time some Councilmember makes the usual pro development noises, or a realtor manages to manipulate the Historic Preservation ordinance in town to benefit some wealthy out of state client, remember that it is all happening because Coronado has bond obligatins well into the future to pay for all the public facilities that grace the town today. Nothing in life is free and Coronado is paying the price for the shortsightedness of past and present Council members.............some of whom manage to live in neighborhoods that luckily cant have Tony's Tenements or Billy Boxes because they are zoned R1A. Imagine that! Now if only all the greedy developer speculators who came to Coronado to feast on it would go bankrupt.

 

 

Comment by Dan Orr on January 27, 2011 at 4:15pm

As usual, you start with the premise that the money belongs to the state and they dole it out, instead of the CDA being funded by a tax increment that might not have been there anyway save for the redevelopment.  Perhaps a dubious position given Coronado's history, but I, for one, am happy that Mr. Blumenthal and Mrs. Herron figured out how to game the system to our advantage.

Comment by Mayor Casey Tanaka on January 27, 2011 at 7:21pm

Coronado's zoning map dates back to the early 1970's. The development that occurs in the R-3 and R-4 zones is the legally allowed density created by that 1970's zoning map. Mr. Vogel has lamented the decision making that went into our 1970's zoning map in the past, and he is probably right to do so, but unless or until we find a logical and community supported way to change the densities allowed by our zoning map and the pro-density laws passed by Sacramento that limit our City's ability to lower density, we have little choice but to enforce our zoning map.

 

As for the Redevelopment Agency that Dave Blumenthal helped to create, I say that we are lucky to have had someone with the vision to recapture OUR tax dollars to improve our schools and public structures. Every time we send our kids into Coronado Village Elementary, Strand Elementary, Coronado Middle School, Coronado High School, Palm Academy, the Coronado Community Center, the newly remodeled Coronado Library, or any of the other structures that replaced our old, blighted buildings, I am thankful for the leadership of Dave Blumenthal and his contemporaries. I am also grateful to those who have helped to keep our Redevelopment Agency in full and complete compliance with California's redevelopment laws for the nearly thirty years that it has been in existence.

Comment by Story R. Vogel on January 27, 2011 at 10:06pm

@ Dan Orr.: f you are refering to my comment, my point was obviously, at least to me. aimed at the fact that as a result of the creation of the CDA , "gaming" as you put it, the State Redevelopment Act, by having Coronado declared "blighted", the resulting bond indebtedness created by building all the fine structures that grace Coronado today created the need to increase tax revenue to pay for the bond interest and support a Triple A Bond rating.. . In fact some years ago I read an analysis from some bond rating agencies that said exactly that discussin the potential for new construction and increased property tax increment to support the bond debt servicing.

It would be an interesting exercise to analyze exactly how many parcels have been subdivided since Coronado was designated "blighted". By this I mean how many additional  separately owned APN's were created on R3 lots  where one  taxable property once stood , and how many APN's were created in R1B lots where one taxable property  also once stood. . Then analyze the increased yearly property tax revenue flowing to the City and compare it to the outgo of bond debt servicing .payments.. Needless to say , the needed increase in City revenue has spurred the Billy Boxing and Tony Tenementing of Coronado, which was my original point.

@Casey: Well Mr.Mayor you are quite correct that there appears to have been some "gaming" of the 1973 Zoning map. I know you will recall the extensive archival research I did of City Council meetings back then.and much like today, developers and realtors had their way. In fact the nakedness of certain Council members and others in the community seeking to have their properties designated for higher density explains much of the lack of planning 'ethos" in today's Zoning map. No one who has studied  City Planning would claim Coronado's Zoning Map to exemplify the tenets of proper Zoning

 As to your comment that the (implied) increase in density in the R3 and R4 zones by building the atrocious and light and privacy destroying Tony's Tenements is allowed, well that goes without saying. but I guarantee you no one in 1973 was thinking about a Tony's Tenement or a Billy Box. In fact when the first such excreable Billy Box appeared and named as such,  the town was in an uproar.

Much as I predicted, as more and more wealthier out of town  folks buy them and Tony's Tenements for pied a terre's, fewer and fewer folks will remember a time when they didn't loom over their neighbors yards

 Your comment about enforcing the towns Zoning Map I take it refers to the City's lawsuit to overturn Proposition J. Again an expected but somewhat disingenuous take on the issue of changing the zoning map.. In fact completely and factually inaccurate

 I am  not surprised that you are trotting out Phil Monroe's disingenuous claim about the Sacramento's so called pro density laws limiting Coronado's ability to lower density. Here I thought I squashed that self serving interpretation many times in two election campaigns. and the Prop J campaign..

 Just goes to show you that if you repeat a "lie" often enough, eventually it becomes accepted as the truth. As you well know, Sacramento is not responsible for the increased density in Coronado and neither is any law forcing it. to be so. It would be more honest to admit that increased property taxes resulting from increased density helps to service the bond debt of the CDA, n'est ce pas?.

As to the creation of the Redevelopment Agency recapturing "our" tax dollars, you would have made a fine lawyer stating the obvious while at the same time ignoring the fact that to do so Coronado had to be declared "blighted"

I know you were just a kid and may not remember Coronado in the early eighties, but while the high school was from 1960 and City Hall ( where I had the distinct privilege to intern for Jack Van Sambeek) was I believe an old military use storage building, Coronado was not blighted in an way that fulfilled the intent of the statute..

 Given your present position as Mayor your comments are not unexpected and I hope the State review of Coronado's conduct with respect to the Redevelopment Agency and having Coronado declared blighted reflects well on the town.

. Bit if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

 

Comment by Jimmy on January 28, 2011 at 2:35pm

Pretty interesting information.  I've lived here four years and had no idea about Coronado's redevelopment agency.  I consider myself conservative, and it does seem hypocritical that Coronado (which seems like a pretty conservative town) to take these funds.  You can say we're just taking our money back, but we're apparently taking a lot of other people's money as well.  I still need to educate myself more on the issue, but I'm glad I'm aware of it now.

Comment by Dan Orr on January 28, 2011 at 4:44pm

At the time, one of the definitions of "blight" was "sub-standard public buildings."  We certainly qualified under that definition even though ALL of us would have a hard time considering Coronado "blighted" at any time.

Comment by Story R. Vogel on January 28, 2011 at 11:04pm

@jimmy........Well Jimmy.........nothing is ever as it seems as I am sure you know. Unfortunately today the concept of "conservatism" has been mightily distorted by the blabber mouths of the lunatic Right. Be that as it may......if I can put the City's actions in a more positive light..............slicing the baloney thin is not just a butchers province but also that of politicians and municipal leaders. Coronado is hardly the first municipality to take advantage of loosely worded legisltation. I well remember the state of the City;s municipal buildings before the edifice complex took hold.. ...they were functionally obsolescent. No one can deny that. 

So the City's use of the Redevelopment law accomplished something that would never have happened otherwise. Letters to the Editor in  the old Coronado Eagle would rise up in high dudgeon whenever the topic arose of replacing the "shack" that was City Hall..The antidiluvian strain of John Birchism so common in Coronado as late as the late 1970's would come out with writersr saying " So What!"

Even so, the real issue for residents today  in my humble opinion is the continued overdevelopment of certain neighborhoods spurred by politically connected developers and realtors and a compliant city government .for only one reason : to boost incremental tax revenue to service the increasing bond debt attributed to the CDA.

So there are much nicer public facilities but the tradeoff is the continued overdevelopment of neighborhoods with lot size development on steroids ( never mind the Kabuki dance of the RSIP committees) to the point where you have sheer walls three feet from lot lines destroying a neighbors light and peace of mind not to mention the geometric increase in vehicles parked per square foot.. But hey at least the front elevations are pseudo Craftsman, Victorian and Cape Cod.

@Dan Orr.you are of course technically correct. One of the issues in divining the proper definition and application of a law  ( not to mention any judicial review of same} is to look at the legislative history of the various committee and sub committees that considered the law before passage.

That is why for instance I know with certainty that Casey.Phil Monroe and others were distorting the reality with their comments about Sacramento's "pro development" "laws"..........or as Phil used to fatuously say........"we would have to upzone " if we passed Prop J.

They were both factually incorrect ...for a political purpose.......the defeat of Prop J in order to continue the increase in the number of taxable parcels and hence the increase in incremental property tax  to service the bond debt; after all there is no more raw land  in town to build on and create more property tax revenue .

So some might consider the designation of Coronado as "blighted" in the mid eighties to have had ironic consequences..........Coronado is now "blighted" in a different and certainly more permanent fashion. The blight of oversized inappropriately overbuilt lot monsters destroying their neighbors peace of mind and changing Coronado forever and not for the better.

Comment by Chris Searles on January 29, 2011 at 10:53am

@story...   I really appreciate your perspective on the history of development in Coronado and the challenges of paying for CDA's bond debt.  You also point out that the City's municipal buildings at the time "were functionally obsolescent... the City's use of the Redevelopment law accomplished something that would never have happened otherwise."  The past is a tough thing to change..  I wonder though...  I can easily see an alternative path which might have left Coronado with aging (25 years later) single homes with little to no tax increment and the same "obsolescent" buildings in place.  Would this be better?  How would you have improved public facilities which we all seem to agree were needed, and paid for it without the establishment of the CDA?  I'm sure there were many alternatives at the time - but reading through these posts, I don’t see any discussed.

 

Moving forward, are there other ways to service the bond debt without incentivizing high density scrape and build development? 

 

It seems to me that now, as in the past, the notion that if you want things you have to pay for them was missed along the way.  In the past, revitalization required an increase in taxes.  Instead we established the CDA through mostly gamesmanship and gave the State of California the bill.  In the present, we rail against increasing the tax increment through development to service the debt that built those wanted facilities, but the alternative is an increase in taxes - which no one wants because we're all "taxed enough already."

 

How do we resolve this in a realistic way?  Is there a compromise?

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