Struggling "downtown" district could be revived with tribal facility. >>read more

Chris McKenzie recently announced his retirement as executive director of the League of California Cities. He spoke with CP&DR about his 17-year tenure. >>read more

3d district sounds weary in rejecting housing advocates' arguments. >>read more

The state is prevented from doing so by Prop. 22 -- but judges are not. >>read more

Ever since Gov. Jerry Brown killed redevelopment in 2011, the conventional wisdom has been that eventually he would give it a second life - but only after he was sure the old system was completely dead, in a way that protects the state general fund, and probably after he himself won re-election to a final term. >>read more

San Bernardino County is not entitled to the return of $9 million in loan principal to the former county redevelopment agency, even though the funds were not tax-increment revenues and had come from the county's general fund, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled Monday. >>read more

So, redevelopment is back, sort of. How much of a difference it will make remains to be seen.

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed AB 2 (Alejo), which permits cities to create tax-increment-based "Community Redevelopment Investment Authorities" (CRIA). It's more or less the same bill that legislative leaders � led by former Senate pro tem Darrell Steinberg � have been trying to get Brown to sign since 2012, when the redevelopment agencies were shut down. 

Unlike those earlier bills, however, this law makes the overt point of completely disconnecting the new system from the old redevelopment code sections in state law; and it makes no connection to SB 375 and the state's other sustainability-based planning and development efforts. >>read more

The Third District Court of Appeal has rejected several arguments that the laws eliminating redevelopment violate the California constitution.

In a followup to California Redevelopment Association v. Matosantos, 53 Cal. 4th 231 (2011), the California Supreme Court ruling that permitted the elimination of redevelopment agencies, the Third District has ruled that AB 1x 26 -- the law that killed redevelopment -- does not violate 2004's Proposition 1A. The court also rejected a series of other arguments, including the idea that Gov. Jerry Brown's declaration of a fiscal emergency did not warrant the elimination of redevelopment. 

The opinion was written by Justice Harry Hull, who was chairman of the board of McDonough Holland & Allen, a leading redevelopment law firm, before he was appointed to the bench. The language of the blunt-spoken opinion seems to suggest that the cities had a weak case all the way around. >>read more