Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Stalemate on the North Avenue

With the downturn in the economy, the City Council hasn’t had to deal with land use issues much in the last couple of years. On Monday night, we were back in the land use arena – considering how to fund our ongoing effort to create a community plan for the Westside and the North Avenue area. In the end, we decided to focus our efforts – at least for the moment – on a plan for the Westside area that is already in the city limits. And we did not make a final decision about whether to pursue a plan for the North Avenue, or whether to include Canada Larga Canyon in that plan.

Along the way, we looked a little like the Keystone Cops, as we often do on land use issues. The problem is not that we don’t know what we are doing, however. The problem is that the whole Westside/North Avenue area has several moving parts and each of us is assessing those parts differently.

What Monday night revealed was not just a deep division on the council regarding Canada Larga Canyon – we knew that was there – but also uncertainty and a lack of consensus on other issues as well. When the City Council has so many divisions and unknowns, it’s not likely we’re going to operate like a well-oiled machine. We’re more likely to do what we did Monday night, which is to grope, a bit awkwardly, for consensus and see how far we can get.

On one end of the spectrum is revitalization of the Westside area, which everybody wants to promote. On the other end of the spectrum is the deep division over Canada Larga Canyon – a beautiful area just off Highway 33 in the North Avenue area. In between these two extremes we are wrestling with three other things – the possible annexation of existing residential neighborhoods on the North Avenue; the possible redevelopment of the Brooks Institute and old Petrochem USA oil refinery sites; and the uncertainty over the future of the state’s redevelopment law. Most of the North Avenue area is not currently located inside the city limits, and the process of annexation makes it even more complicated.

The high-profile issue you’ll read about in the paper is Canada Larga Canyon. Landowner Buzz Bonsall would like to develop this property with up to 100 executive housing sites, while donating perhaps up to 2,000 acres to a local land conservancy. The council is split 4-3 on this issue, with 4 councilmembers (Weir, Andrews, Monahan, and Tracy) in favor of this and three (Brennan, Morehouse, and myself) against. This is complicated by the fact that Councilmember Monahan, who owns property on Ventura Avenue, has a conflict of interest on most votes on the Westside plan. He cannot vote on any issue except those issues that are related to Canada Larga Canyon. What this means is that the council voted 4-3 to include Canada Larga in the Westside plan (because he can vote on that), but then deadlocks 3-3 on virtually all other votes about the plan because Canada Large is included (because he can’t vote on those). Crazy, I know, but that’s what the Fair Political Practices Commission ruled. (You can read my reasoning for not including Canada Larga in this blog; I still stand by what I said in the blog.)

This is the issue that gets the most publicity, but it’s not the only one at play. Here are the others:

-- The city has for years looked to the Brooks/Petrochem property for possible redevelopment, but that area must be annexed into the city. Brooks Institute is an important economic driver for the city, and the college wants to expand at its current location. Meanwhile, the Petrochem oil refinery property is blighted and cleaning it up makes sense. But the council was cool to the housing-oriented plan for the properties produced by developer Vince Daly; and not all counilmembers believe that possible expansion of Brooks is worth the cost of allowing all the housing and annexing other parts of the North Avenue (see below).

-- Meanwhile, the Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees annexations, is not likely to permit annexation of any property – Brooks/Petochem or Canada Larga Canyon – without also requiring the city to annex existing residential neighborhoods in the North Avenue. But these properties could be very expensive for the city to serve and a lot of the residents up there don’t want to be annexed. This dampens some councilmembers’ enthusiasm about the whole North Avenue plan.

-- And then there’s Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to eliminate the state’s redevelopment program. Much of the rationale for including the Brooks/Petrochem site in the plan is to generate redevelopment tax dollars that can be used father south in the Westside neighborhoods that really need investment. But Brown’s proposal would eliminate that funding source, making the whole idea much less attractive to many councilmembers..

You can see how all these moving parts make getting four votes for anything pretty tough. It’s all a question of what you are wiling to “pay” and what you get in return, and each councilmember has a different calculus in his or her head.

Most councilmembers would consider some type of North Avenue annexation, but not if it means annexing the residential neighborhoods up there that could be money-losers to the City. Some councilmembers think development of Canada Large might offset the cost, either directly through tax revenue or indirectly by providing housing for executives who might bring businesses to town; others are adamantly opposed to development of Canada Larga under any circumstances. Some councilmembers think redevelopment of Brooks/Petrochem may offset the North Avenue cost, but others are skeptical. The Petrochem developers want to build housing, while the council wants jobs. The prospect of redevelopment funds from the Brooks/Petrochem site could trump everything, but no one knows whether redevelopment will even exist as a legal tool in California three months from now.

But I don’t think it’s worthwhile to hold the Westside plan hostage over these other considerations. After all, residents and property owners there have been waiting for a plan – with a consistent set of development rules – for 15 years. Nor do I think it makes sense to debate these financial pros and cons in a vacuum. That’s why I decided to make a motion Monday night that – as it turned out – broke the deadlock for now. After several 3-3 stalemates (with Monahan sitting it out), I proposed moving forward with the Westside part of the plan while doing a fiscal analysis to determine what costs and revenues we’d get under various scenarios – with Canada Larga, Brooks/Petrochem, North Avenue residential neighborhoods in or out. That motion passed 5-1, with only Councilmember Brennan opposed.

After designating the North Avenue as an expansion area in the General Plan and making it a priority in our Economic Development Strategy, it’s a little embarrassing to appear so disorganized about it now. But there are a wide variety of opinions on the council and a lot of factors at work. We’ll probably never reach unanimity on what to do. But at least the next step will be informed by some real information about what the fiscal consequences of developing various parts of the North Avenue might be.

8 comments:

  1. I live in one of the north avenue neighborhoods talked about here, and have never been asked about my opinion on annexation. What makes you come to the conclusion that " a lot of residents up there don't want to be annexed". I'm not saying that that is not the case just curious where it comes from.

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  2. Thanks, Bill, for a great analysis of a complex situation. You provided a good next step, although I am oppossed to annexing Canada Larga, and balk at spending $45,000 of taxpayer money to conduct a fiscal assessment...let the property owner pay for that. This entire "executive" housing issue bothers me on many levels. My husband and his partners have built a successful business that creates jobs locally. By any standard we'd qualify for "executive housing." Yet, we're perfectly happy in our midtown neighborhood, and my husband's business has had not problems attracting associates due to a lack of "executive" housing in our community. It's just not a good argument. Invest in libraries, fire stations, community programs. Thanks for your leadership. Given the number of people who spoke out about the issue and the email traffic you've received, I'd expect that Councilmembers Weir, Tracy, Andrews and Monahan might catch the clue that the vast majority of the community doesn't want this. It appears that they are voting for their personal preferences rather than reflecting the desires of those they claim to represent.

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  3. In response to the comment about North Avenue residents opposing annexation, the City held an organizational meeting of the citizen committee recently (the Westside Redevelopment Advisory Committee) and quite a number of North Avenue residents came out and expressed their opposition to annexation.

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  4. Fiscal analysis is a great idea. It logically should precede every important development step we take. Incidentally, how did the Canada Larga item even get on the Council agenda? I thought the CPAC and Vision Statement exercises concluded the matter, with the "new urbanism" being the direction of our future development. In a naive way, I suppose, I thought this would move us from developers' priorities to those of the city. Now, it appears, a developer can express his desires and the rest of us must jump. Isn't there any consensus on the Council that infill is the way to go? Has this most basic question been discussed openly in the Council? Did those in favor of Canada Larga think/feel that they were/are not bound by the infill principle? And that the CITY must pay for the study of whether to proceed is just amusing. What am I missing here?

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  5. Thank you, Mayor Fulton, for your astute analysis, as well as the Council's continued support of Buzz's Dream.

    I urge you to reconsider the opposition to that Dream. Join the rest of the council in supporting this One Man and his Vision of Tract Housing.

    Don't let petty details like vision statements, practical concerns, or facts sway your opinion!

    You can learn more about Buzz's Dream -- and hear that "other side" that Deputy Mayor Tracy referred to at the J24 meeting -- at my blog:

    http://reverendstevo.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/save-buzzs-dream/

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  6. "Along the way, we looked a little like the Keystone Cops, as we often do on land use issues. The problem is not that we don’t know what we are doing, however. The problem is that the whole Westside/North Avenue area has several moving parts and each of us is assessing those parts differently.

    What Monday night revealed was not just a deep division on the council regarding Canada Larga Canyon – we knew that was there – but also uncertainty and a lack of consensus on other issues as well. When the City Council has so many divisions and unknowns, it’s not likely we’re going to operate like a well-oiled machine. We’re more likely to do what we did Monday night, which is to grope, a bit awkwardly, for consensus and see how far we can get."

    Bill I want to thank you for writing this blog. These two paragraphs tell us exactly what is wrong with this city. We have a bunch of silly Keystone Cops sitting on the council dias. I really couldn't have said it better my self.

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  7. You go REllis!

    I think you're totally right. Dissent in a democratic body is downright un-American. Why is our City Council not of a single mind in supporting the glory that is Buzz's Dream??? It just seems like kneejerk liberal hippy leftist enviro-whacky communist nonsense.

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  8. I am a North Ventura Ave resident and strongly support the Brooks/Petrochem project. A 4-year arts university is compatible with Ventura's vision as a center for arts and culture. Students bring vitality (and their parent's money) to support local businesses, which in this case, would be downtown shops and restaurants, much in need of an economic boost.

    I consider myself an environmentalist, and as such, support remediating the decaying site. The Ventura River is a precious resource, and it seems to me that the area is better served, and potentially less polluted by residential use rather than heavy industry.

    Just as the Lower Avenue issues have been un-coupled from the North Avenue issues, I hope the Council will unbuckle the Canada Larga issue from the Brooks/Petrochem debate. This is a "swords into plowshares" opportunity; replacing urban blight with an arts community, bringing shorter-term jobs for construction, and long-term jobs for artists, educators and univeristy staff. Please support this project.

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