From the article: “Of particular concern to Brandt are the financial provisions included in the development agreement, especially the $200 million cap on the developer’s obligation to pay for public benefits. That obligation is contingent upon the city providing funding through redevelopment mechanisms overseen by agencies not party to a development agreement. Brandt said the approach is novel. “I don’t know that the way that they’ve drafted it is per se illegal,” he said, “but I’ve never seen it done before.”

I’m not sure what “city providing funding through redevelopment mechanisms overseen by agencies not party to a DA” means. Is it the agencies involved or the choice of redevelopment mechanisms that’s the issue? And if this is a routine process (returning money to a nonmerged redevelopment district), then what aspect of this is “novel”?

How many people commenting here (other than RK) could answer this question? These documents are not remotely by any –honest– assessment comprehensible, let alone “transparent”.

This is why the standard legislative approval process makes so much more sense — for the well-being of the community — and I think that’s entirely obvious. Never mind that it isn’t ideal either, it’s far, far more informative and public than this.

With regard to quoting the Gov. Code — it’s just not a good idea if you don’t have any real expertise in it. With regard to the DA — it absolutely should not be in the Initiative. It’s a contract and it’s supposed to be negotiated — just as one example, I see a similar phrase thruout the document, that “X” decision can be made “at the sole discretion of developer”, meaning that the city has no control. To say that it’s just a matter of this or that one problem w/ the DA — please find me someone commenting here who would even recognize or know what all the issues are.

Just ask the folks from the Sand Canyon area of Los Angeles County. They had a very, very detailed statutory conservation easement which said, in effect, “no bulldozing in this area where endangered species live”. The property owner filed a Chapter 11 for tactical reasons, and contracted to sell the land adjoining the conservation easement area to Pardee. During the bankruptcy, Pardee just bulldozed the heck out of the conservation easement area, and then bought the adjoining developable land through a bankruptcy court order “free and clear of liens, claims and encumbrances”. The developer who had signed the conservation easement was left with no assets, and a pile of unpaid debts, including a breach of contract claim by the Sand Canyon area group who held the conservation easement. End score: Developers 100% Endangered Species & Public 0%.

If the City of Alameda truly expects to receive any of the “goodies” SunCal is waiving around, the only way they can make sure they receive them is to require surety bonds for those items, delivered on the day the Development Agreement becomes effective. As most developers would say to such a request: Yeah right.

Knowing that developers’ lawyers now view Chapter 11 as a useful tool in bait-and-switch campaigns to get basic project entitlements, I am assuming that with regard to the Point the developers are sitting in their offices thinking “These people in Alameda are complete fools”.

Truer words were never spoken.

The agreement may also include terms and conditions relating to applicant financing of necessary public facilities and subsequent
reimbursement over time.

I’m not making a judgment call on whether the inclusion of the Development Agreement sans negotiation was right or wrong. However whether the limited financial provisions should or should not have been included is not so black and white since the financial provisions that SunCal did include could be argued as being specifically used for “public facilities” as public facilities is a rather vague and large descriptor.

This raises a very real issue–one that is a concern to me personally—of whether redevelopment areas should be able to merge, thereby avoiding the sunsetting of the redevelopment district.

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So the city & the citizenry can get fleeced as long as it ends within your kids lifespan? Dillinger wouldn’t have been a criminal if he’d only robbed a couple of banks, then?

And on top of the insanely pedantic & myopic nature of that objection, of that objection has there ever been a redevelopment district in CA that actually did sunset?

I’ve always assumed that you did understand these issues, and that you kept misrepresenting them as part of your spin campaign, but now I’m not so sure. I’m really no good at spin, but I keep trying to deconstruct it, nonetheless. this is “oh gee, what’s wrong w/ that?” tactic — another version would be “Why shouldn’t we pay them to build it? After all, they’re doing all the work”.

The “legislative process” means something that goes thru the Council and commissions, with public input, public discussion among city officials, staff reports and systematic review process — which is what is supposed to happen w/ the documents attached to the initiative, and needless to say, it won’t.

The development agreement should go thru a negotiating process; instead we have something written solely to suit one side, which we’ll enter into via binding vote. Oh swell. None of this is good for the city — at what point does the city matter to you, I have to wonder, seriously.

Either way it was done, placing in the initiative or going through the City Council, SunCal would have requested the same zoning changes, the same General Plan Amendments. They would have submitted the same Specific Plan.

Either way they did it, there would have been criticism by folks looking for a reason to be against the project.

On one hand, I’ve read critiques from opponents that claim that there is too much information in the initiative that the average Joe could not manage to wade through all that documentation.

On the other hand, I’ve read complaints that there are omissions from the initative that should have been included if they wanted to be more “transparent.”

It can’t be both.

Just like one can’t, say that the inititaive process was the wrong process to pass those items yet also express a mistrust for the Council majority who would, instead, be the body to push those items through.