RDA's "Infill Project Strategy" barks up the wrong tree, motive is wrong

From the Woodland Record:

Pasadena, Perris and Riverside. These are just three of many California cities that have enacted ordinances to deal directly - head on - with the landlords of blighted properties. These cities did not hastily issue Requests for Proposals in search of developers who might perform some sort of end-around to eliminate unkempt or unused properties like the Woodland Redevelopment Agency intends to do tonight.

But having examples of how to deal with a redevelopment issue and actually employing an effective plan are two different things. In December 2009 the Woodland Record shared that cities like Fortuna, Orinda and Alameda were able to transform downtown areas by investing in historic theaters as part of multiplex projects. With a budget of $4 million for a downtown multiplex project, our local RDA (in December 2010) denied any assistance to the one remaining developer in its RFP process who intended to renovate and expand the historic State Theatre. The downtown was then left with a blighted, unoccupied State Theatre building and one other occupied - and productive - historic building slated for demolition. [Note: The 100 year-old Electric Garage building will be demolished as part of the multiplex project to be built by the city's favored developer Paul Petrovich. Petrovich quit the RDA's RFP process last October.]

Read more at WoodlandRecord.com.