Property Selling Binge on the Horizon for California Cities

As part of the 2011 Budget Act, and in order to protect funding for core public services at the local level--schools, police, fire--the California Legislature approved the dissolution of the state’s over 400 Redevelopment Agencies. After a period of litigation, these were officially dissolved as of February 1, 2012.

The dissolution of California’s Redevelopment Agencies requires the sale of 5000-6000 agency-owned properties between late 2013 and 2015. Larry Kosmont, a former City Manager and current CEO of Kosmont Companies—a real estate, finance, and economic development advisory firm specializing in public-private partnerships—walks The Planning Report through California Redevelopment’s liquidation timeline, with advice for the private sector on the State’s impending property divestment. 

Losing Redevelopment in California has effectively made it impossible for local government to use tax increment financing as a means of infrastructure investment and fostering growth. In this way, planners and developers do not have access to a tool commonly used by their colleagues across the US. Kosmont outlines legislation that would revive tax increment financing without resurrecting the bureaucracy and deal-making that so defined Redevelopment in the eyes of Governor Jerry Brown and critics.