Lower Rosan On Hold While San Juan Capistrano Decides Whether to Save Redevelopment

A sale of —once considered the future site of a Home Depot—is on hold while city officials wrangle with the state's order to cease all new redevelopment activity.

They have until Oct. 1 to decide whether they'll dissolve the —which spends property tax revenues to rejuvenate downtrodden areas—or tap the for its share of $1.7 billion "ransom" to join a new redevelopment program.

The California state budget package adopted in June disbanded redevelopment agencies but gave cities the option to reinstate them if they forked over money for education. The Legislature said it will save money by stripping schools of a like amount in state money.

The San Juan Capistrano City Council, wearing its hat as the board of directors for the redevelopment agency, could make its decision as early as July 28 at a special meeting.

Although the board earlier this year said it signaled Tuesday night that it would be a better option than annihilation.

Even councilman Derek Reeve, who has positioned himself on the dais as the lone critic of redevelopment, said Tuesday that he would consider making the payment to the state if San Juan were to enact a sunset clause that would kill the agency down the road.

"I would love a 5-0 vote," he said. "I'm against any notion of keeping it alive, except we would lose all of the properities owned by the RDA, so there's a cost benefit analysis."

at the cost of $1.2 million. There, the City Council members complained that Sacramento’s take-back of local redevelopment money was tantamount to a robbery or shakedown.

“Maybe we ought to put a dye marker in that sack of money,” said San Clemente Councilman Jim Dahl.

The League of California Cities and California Redevelopment Association, joined by San Jose and Union City, filed a lawsuit Monday to prevent the budget bill from taking effect.

In their request for a stay, the plaintiffs told the California Supreme Court that the budget bills threw redevelopment agencies "into a state of great uncertainty and confusion."

"The need for a stay is particularly urgent with respect to those RDAs that will not be able to make the payments," they wrote. "Unless a stay is issued, the RDAs in those jurisdictions will be dissolved on Oct. 1, and it would be difficult—if not impossible–to reconstitute these agencies and their functions if [portions of the budget bills] are eventually invalidated."