Redevelopment wind down will take years
This city’s Redevelopment Agency didn’t quite reach its 29th birthday before being axed by the state, but it will take close to 29 more years before the debts and other obligations of the dissolved agency are paid off or fulfilled.
“About 2040” was the answer to the question of when the former agency’s affairs would wind-down, information imparted at the Aug. 13 meeting of the pithily named Oversight Board of the Successor Agency to the Yorba Linda Redevelopment Agency.
The Oversight Board is a seven-person panel representing city, county and school interests, and the Successor Agency is the City Council. They’re charged with an imposing effort to wrap up redevelopment issues, with additional oversight by the county auditor, the state Department of Finance and the state Controller’s Office.
Yorba Linda’s former Redevelopment Agency began life in 1983 with a project area of 2,640 acres that included Savi Ranch and other land to the eastern city limits and a wide swath of property now occupied by Hidden Hills homes to the city’s northern boundary.
The project area was amended in 1990 to add 328 acres that included Old Town as well as properties along Eureka, Casa Loma and Valley View avenues between Yorba Linda Boulevard and Imperial Highway and parcels along Imperial to Wabash Avenue.
The agency’s income of $21 million annually in recent years came from the increase in property taxes collected within project areas since the agency was created and has been spent on infrastructure, public facilities and affordable housing ventures.
More than a dozen other taxing agencies that would have received large portions of that tax revenue were granted “pass-through” payments. These groups included three school districts, various county agencies, water and library districts and the county fire authority.
Total pass-through payments due for the 2012-13 fiscal year that began July 1 is $4.2 million, with close to half going to the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.
No pass-through dollars came to the city’s general fund to finance police and other services, which grew due to more housing and businesses in project areas, although some administrative costs were recouped. (Redevelopment theory holds that operating budgets would benefit from increased sales taxes.)
However, with the Redevelopment Agency’s Feb. 1 demise, all property tax revenue will return to the original authorized parties--once the agency’s debts and obligations are paid, including bonds totaling $122 million with termination dates 2023 to 2032.
Until then, the former agency’s income--an estimated $22 million this fiscal year-- goes into a county-administered Redevelopment Property Tax Trust Fund for the wind-down period.
One or even two or three 500-word columns aren’t enough to summarize the complexity of the redevelopment dissolution. But this city’s attorneys appear to be guided by a very detailed 31-page report.
You can access the document--if you don’t mind wading through the lawyer language --at goldfarblipman.com (click “library” at top of page, then scroll to “June 29, 2012”).
“About 2040” was the answer to the question of when the former agency’s affairs would wind-down, information imparted at the Aug. 13 meeting of the pithily named Oversight Board of the Successor Agency to the Yorba Linda Redevelopment Agency.
The Oversight Board is a seven-person panel representing city, county and school interests, and the Successor Agency is the City Council. They’re charged with an imposing effort to wrap up redevelopment issues, with additional oversight by the county auditor, the state Department of Finance and the state Controller’s Office.
Yorba Linda’s former Redevelopment Agency began life in 1983 with a project area of 2,640 acres that included Savi Ranch and other land to the eastern city limits and a wide swath of property now occupied by Hidden Hills homes to the city’s northern boundary.
The project area was amended in 1990 to add 328 acres that included Old Town as well as properties along Eureka, Casa Loma and Valley View avenues between Yorba Linda Boulevard and Imperial Highway and parcels along Imperial to Wabash Avenue.
The agency’s income of $21 million annually in recent years came from the increase in property taxes collected within project areas since the agency was created and has been spent on infrastructure, public facilities and affordable housing ventures.
More than a dozen other taxing agencies that would have received large portions of that tax revenue were granted “pass-through” payments. These groups included three school districts, various county agencies, water and library districts and the county fire authority.
Total pass-through payments due for the 2012-13 fiscal year that began July 1 is $4.2 million, with close to half going to the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.
No pass-through dollars came to the city’s general fund to finance police and other services, which grew due to more housing and businesses in project areas, although some administrative costs were recouped. (Redevelopment theory holds that operating budgets would benefit from increased sales taxes.)
However, with the Redevelopment Agency’s Feb. 1 demise, all property tax revenue will return to the original authorized parties--once the agency’s debts and obligations are paid, including bonds totaling $122 million with termination dates 2023 to 2032.
Until then, the former agency’s income--an estimated $22 million this fiscal year-- goes into a county-administered Redevelopment Property Tax Trust Fund for the wind-down period.
One or even two or three 500-word columns aren’t enough to summarize the complexity of the redevelopment dissolution. But this city’s attorneys appear to be guided by a very detailed 31-page report.
You can access the document--if you don’t mind wading through the lawyer language --at goldfarblipman.com (click “library” at top of page, then scroll to “June 29, 2012”).
posted by Jim Drummond at 12:00 PM
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