Board of Supervisors Approves Scaled-Back Redevelopment Proposal

It wasn't everything they wanted, but the Alameda County Redevelopment Agency is hoping Tuesday's multimillion dollar public improvement agreement with the Board of Supervisors will save its strongest projects .

After nearly two months of scrambling, scraping and shuffling over Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget, the county and the agency contracted $128 million in projects across the unincorporated county—significantly less than the $280 million in proposed projects presented to community groups last month.

"It's a matter of trying to protect what we have," said 

The projects were split into two teirs—$67 million worth of projects already in progress, and more than 60 million for projects with wide community support that have yet to begin. 

Alameda County is far from the only redevelopment agency in the state to try to shore up its remaining projects with a sweeping public improvement agreement. But as those agreements go, Tuesday's seems to have embraced a measured approach.

The finalized agreement highlighted several improvements—the Cherryland Community Center and the San Lorenzo Village—that had been lower on the list of priorities when it was initially sent out to local citizens advisory committees, but which the communities said they felt were critica (see complete list, attached).

The supervisors said it's not clear whether the public improvement agreement will hold — Sacramento may refuse to honor the agreements, or declare them void.

But the agency argued that refusing to move forward with the agreement because it might not hold would squander money already spent on first steps. District 3 Supervisor Wilma Chan pointed out the the San Lorenzo Theater, recently acquired by the county, would languish without the agreement.

"Before I got here, you all had already spent a lot of money to buy the place," Chan said. "If we’re not able to do anything with it in the future, that property becomes pretty much worthless."

In community meetings over the past two months, the supervisors have been at pains to point out that Alameda is "not Lafayette" , a local byword for the numerous agencies throughout the state that have either outlived their apparent usefulness or misspent their funds. 

"Our redevelopment agency, though we can’t be carved out from everybody else in the state, they do an excellent job," said District 4 Supervisor Nate Miley. "Its provided jobs, and it’s brought about the elimination of blight in unincorporated Alameda County."

He pointed to the Ashland Youth Center, which, though already under contract, will be supported by several projects in the agreement.

"It will be a showpiece, a destination, that will probably transform that portion of East 14th Street," he said.