Redevelopment agency
gets funds boosted
By Jesse Phelps

The Ojai City Council convened for a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in which it unanimously approved a new ordinance that will allow the city's redevelopment agency more latitude for new projects and city improvements.

The new provision will allow cities to extend their debt limit for redevelopment projects. City Manager Dan Singer said in an interview that this would help Ojai tremendously in its goals of updating city infrastucture and creating traffic and pedestrian improvements, among others.

"The total budget for the city for these projects is not much," Singer said. "It's only a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. But over 10 years, that adds up to a couple of million dollars, so it's significant. We were reaching our limit after developments like the police building remodel, Cluff Vista Park and the Arcade Plaza."

Singer said at the meeting that city staff has been looking for ways to facilitate more projects, including extending its ability to incur debt. With the introduction of Senate Bill 211, a new piece of legislation that extends debt limits for agencies created prior to 1994, they found their solution.

SB211 changed an element of the California Health and Safety Code to provide that a legislative body such as the council may amend its redevelopment plan by enacting an ordinance to eliminate the time limit on the establishment of loans, advances and indebtedness.

Adoption of the ordinance will mean that the redevelopment agency will not lose its ability to fund new projects and it can avoid what city special projects coordinator Kathy McCann termed "maintenance mode, i.e., paying off existing bonds and city loans, completing a few small projects on the books and administering housing projects."

Said McCann at the start of her presentaton to the council, "I wore green today because this does mean money for us."

Council member David Bury said adoption of the ordinance looks like a great thing for the community on the surface but asked if any potential drawbacks or negatives exist in its adoption.

The only potential negative, said staffers, isn't really a negative at all. Under the new ordinance, the city will be required to split new incoming property tax revenues, giving 25 percent of the increase in value over the base year (fiscal year 2003-2004) to other taxing enities.

Under the old system, McCann said, redevelopment was not responsible for sharing with the other entities, such as the Ojai Unified School District and utility providers like sewer and water districts.

"We didn't have to share anything with anyone," she said. "We got one percent of the total valuation of tax revenues per year. $75 million is the total valuation of the properties in the downtown area, so the city redevelopent agency was collecting $750,000."

With the new plan in place, redevelopment will still collect this base amount plus 75 percent of what it previously collected for any yearly increase in property tax values, McCann said.

And more importantly, she said, the agency keeps its ability to invest in projects, rather than being shut out of new development. Presently, said staffers, banks consider Ojai to be a risky investment due to recent litigation and unfinished projects like Los Arboles, which when complete will raise property tax revenues.

"We have lots of potential for money, but without the ordinance we can't capitalize on that," said McCann. "If we didn't pass this, we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. Our ability to incur debt is crucial to our redevelopment activities."

With redevelopment's new leeway, council will have the opportunity to pursue several planned projects previously moved to the proverbial back burner, including moving utilities on East Ojai Avenue underground.

With the potential benefits of passing the new ordinance clear and a short time frame for doing so - the cutoff is Jan. 2004 - council elected to hold Tuesday's special meeting. The ordinance will now come back as a discussion item at the Nov. 18 council meeting so the public has a better opportunity to provide its input.

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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