Howard Terminal Update: Toward A Oakland Community Revitalization And Investment Authority

Howard Terminal Update: Toward A Oakland Community Revitalization And Investment Authority
Howard Terminal Update: Toward A Oakland Community Revitalization And Investment Authority In the case of working with the Oakland A's to develop The Oakland Athletics Howard Terminal Ballpark, City of Oakland Staff and Consultants have pushed a community investment approach called Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts, or EIFDs. The problem with that approach, as revealed on several occasions now, is that it does not yield the revenue required to pay for the community plan that took over a year to form. Obviously, EIFDs are not the best fit for Oakland, even as City Staff presents the approach as if it's the only option. It's not. The California Community Revitalization And Invesment Authority Act presents another option. The law reads this way: This bill would authorize certain local agencies to form a community revitalization authority (authority) within a community revitalization and investment area, as defined, to carry out provisions of the Community Redevelopment Law in that area for purposes related to, among other things, infrastructure, affordable housing, and economic revitalization. The bill would provide for the financing of these activities by, among other things, the issuance of bonds serviced by tax increment revenues, and would require the authority to adopt a community revitalization plan for the community revitalization and investment area that includes elements describing and governing revitalization activities. The bill would also provide for periodic audits of the authority with respect to affordable housing, conducted as provided by the Controller, and for annual public reports by the authority as well as periodic proceedings for the consideration of public protests. The Community Revitalization And Invesment Authority Act was signed into law in 2015 and was called AB2280. According to the League of California Cities: A) Community Revitalization and Investment Authorities (CRIA) Act, was enacted into law by AB 2 (Alejo and E. Garcia, Chapter 319, Statutes of 2015), which authorized the revitalization of disadvantaged communities through planning and financing infrastructure improvements and upgrades; economic development activities; and affordable housing via tax increment financing based, in part, on the former community redevelopment law. AB 24921 (Alejo and E. Garcia), Chapter 524, Statutes of 2016, made several additional improvements to CRIA law. B) A CRIA is a public agency separate from the city, county, or city and county that created it; and deemed to be an “agency” for purposes of receiving property tax increment pursuant to Article XVI, section 16(b) of the Constitution. Any taxing entity within the Area (except for a school district) may choose to allocate some or all its share of tax increment funds to the CRIA. The CRIA may issue bonds backed by property tax increment revenues. C) A Community Revitalization and Investment Authority (CRIA) can be created in the following three locations: 1. Areas where not less than 80% of the land contains any combination of census tracts or census block groups meet both of these conditions: (i) an annual median household income that is less than 80% of the statewide, citywide or countywide annual median income; and (ii) three of four following conditions: 2. Areas with an unemployment rate at least 3 percentage points higher than the statewide average annual unemployment rate median. 3. Areas with crime rates, at least 5 percent higher than statewide average crime rate for violent or property crime offenses, as defined by the Criminal Justice Statistics Center within the Department of Justice, when data is available on the Attorney General’s Internet Web site. 4. Areas with deteriorated or inadequate infrastructure, and.. 5. Deteriorated commercial or residential structures The "flatlands" of Oakland qualifies for areas to be designated by an Oakland Community Revitalization and Investment Authority. The OCRIA could designate more than one TIF zone or as we called them, project areas: in West Oakland, Howard Terminal, Chinatown, and East Oakland. And the nice aspect of this is there's no legal limit on how TIF is spent, save for the directive of causing affordable housing to be built as part of a plan. That's much like the old redevelopment agency of Oakland. This is something Oakland can do right now: indeed, the Howard Terminal Community Meetings have set the platform for the OCRIA to work there. Meanwhile the OCRIA can also focus on West Oakland, Chinatown, and East Oakland. TIF revenue can be shared from one area to another TIF area as long as that's spelled out in the plan. Also the new OCRIA would negotiate with the taxing agencies and unlike the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts, could use all of the base year and increment tax revenue for the project area. Stay tuned for more on this #Oakland #HowardTerminal
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcW0pLL_M8A