CALIFORNIA EMINENT DOMAIN LAW BLOG

By Daniel Thigpen

LODI - The city’s elected leaders and public officials have made the promise, both in writing and in public forums: Lodi will not take your home or business if it approves a redevelopment project.

By stripping the city of its eminent domain powers, Lodi officials have aimed to garner more public support for redevelopment, the controversial process by which cities keep a larger share of property tax revenue for rehabilitation projects.

Several years ago, residents shot down a similar proposal, partly over fears the government would seize their property. There has been little public opposition to redevelopment this time around.

But as Lodi leaders inch closer to making redevelopment a reality, some critics recently have asked: What would keep future elected leaders from reversing Lodi’s ban on eminent domain?

Technically, nothing.

Lodi is seeking approval to designate nearly its entire East Side - the city’s older, lower-income half - as a redevelopment area. Such an action would allow the city to keep a greater share of property taxes to put toward sidewalk repairs and other public improvements. Lodi also would be able to borrow money to finance other public or economic development projects.

Over the past few months, several local residents have begun speaking out at City Council and other public meetings against redevelopment. Ann Cerney, a frequent City Hall critic, recently broached the eminent domain question.

“There is nothing to prevent (eminent domain) from later being introduced,” she said in a recent interview.

City Manager Blair King and other city officials said the likelihood of Lodi changing course years from now is small. Such a move would require a laborious and expensive process, including more studies, committees and public meetings, they say.

“It’s just not going to happen,” city spokesman Jeff Hood said. “It would be insulting to the public to do any kind of bait and switch.

“It’s an incredibly long process,” he said. “And the city’s been investigating redevelopment for a year. It would take a similar type of ordeal to amend the plan to put back something like eminent domain. … It’s like, why even talk about it? It might snow tomorrow, too.”

Eminent domain was a major concern among redevelopment opponents in 2002, who successfully defeated a redevelopment proposal through a massive petition drive.

City leaders have since passed ordinances that prohibit eminent domain.

In fact, some say it is becoming increasingly difficult for communities to gain public support for proposed redevelopment projects that do include eminent domain. And California voters in June will decide on two ballot measures that would restrict governments’ use of eminent domain for private purposes. The measures, however, won’t affect Lodi because the city’s ordinances are much more strict, prohibiting it outright.

Tim Ogden, the economic development and housing director for the city of Riverbank in Stanislaus County, has seen the public’s aversion to redevelopment because of eminent domain.

In many ways, Lodi’s redevelopment efforts mirror Riverbank’s. Activist residents successfully fought off redevelopment there in the early 1990s. In 2005, the small town tried again - this time without eminent domain - and things went more smoothly.

The Lodi City Council, which has indicated support for redevelopment, likely will vote on the issue at the end of May.

 

Recordnet.com: http://www.recordnet.com

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California Eminent Domain Law Group Partner, Glenn Block, was a featured speaker at the Eminent Domain Institute’s 10th Annual Eminent Domain Conference in Los Angeles on May 1, 2008. Mr. Block shared his expertise on “How to Succeed in Los Angeles Superior Court.”

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By Cathy Redfern

RIVERSIDE —- The county can move forward with forcing the sale of properties needed for the eastern extension of Clinton Keith Road following a decision Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

The board voted 4-0, with Supervisor Marion Ashley absent, to authorize a “resolution of necessity” to begin eminent domain proceedings on land needed for the road project. The county and nine property owners have failed to reach an agreement on the purchase of the land after negotiating for about two years, county officials said.

That doesn’t mean the county will continue down the lengthy road toward using the power of eminent domain, County Supervisor Jeff Stone said at Tuesday’s meeting in Riverside. Eminent domain is a legal process through which government agencies can acquire land for a public benefit by forcing the property owner to sell it at fair market value. Often, however, the process leads to negotiations resulting in the sale before the case reaches court.

The county needs pieces of land spread across 28 properties to extend Clinton Keith Road 3.4 miles east from Antelope Road in Murrieta to Winchester Road in French Valley, county officials say. According to a staff report, the estimated acquisition cost is $2.86 million.

Negotiations have led to settlements on 19 of those properties, Stephi Villanueva of the county’s facilities management department told the board. She said the county has sought to maximize the benefit to the public and minimize the loss to the landowners.

The $70 million road project could begin as soon as the end of this year and will take 18 months to complete, county officials said.

Two attorneys spoke Tuesday against the use of eminent domain, including an attorney representing a church on Capra Road, near Menifee Road, that is in the path of the coming Clinton Keith.

The San Diego attorney representing the House of Prayer Church said his clients were reluctant sellers who believe the county’s offer for the land and relocation was insufficient.

“These property owners don’t want to lose their land,” attorney Robert Miller said.

“Amen,” a couple sitting in the audience said quietly.

John Crouch, assistant pastor of House of Prayer Church, said after the meeting that the church has about 200 members and it is not clear where they would relocate.

“It’s nice there, but since they are going to send the road through, we will be in a hard spot,” he said.

An attorney representing a second landowner said his client has concerns about possible drainage problems from the road.

The county needs only part of the land owned by the Barbara J. Baker Trust, attorney David Hubbard said, but an appraiser has advised his clients that the road project would funnel water onto the balance of the land, causing drainage problems and lowering its value. The county has not offered compensation for that, he said.

Stone responded that the county would address the drainage issues and continue to work with the property owner.

On the use of eminent domain, Stone said he would only support it if all other remedies are exhausted. He said he would meet with the property owners to try to reach a settlement.

However, he said, there is no question about the need to extend Clinton Keith, calling it a “very, very important” artery in Southwest County. Clinton Keith, Scott and Newport roads are major east-west corridors, he added. Such road improvements will allow “quality regional development” in the area, Stone said.

The Californian: http://www.nctimes.com

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Both take aim at the condemnation of property for private use. One would also phase out rent control.

By Patrick McGreevy

Cruz Baca Sembello feels under siege by City Hall, in danger of losing the modest Baldwin Park home that she and her parents have lived in for decades.

The San Gabriel Valley city is threatening to use its powers of eminent domain to force the sale of the home, with plans to raze it and several others to make way for a large shopping center.

“We understand that Baldwin Park needs revitalization, but it isn’t fair that big business and the mayor and City Council can just bulldoze someone’s home for a mall and we don’t have any alternatives,” she said.

Sembello’s story is cited by property rights activists as an example of why state voters should restrict eminent domain powers in California. But what began as a campaign to prevent the taking of homes for private development has turned into a bitter political dispute. Now state voters are being asked to choose between two competing initiatives on the June 3 ballot.

One measure, Proposition 98, has drawn opposition from tenant groups because it would also phase out rent control in California. Placed on the ballot by groups representing taxpayers, property owners and farmers, that measure would broadly prohibit the taking of private property — including farmland and commercial sites — for private use.

The other initiative, Proposition 99, was put on the ballot by associations representing cities, counties and redevelopment agencies. It is limited to barring the taking of homes for private development.

The multimillion-dollar campaigns for and against Propositions 98 and 99 are among the highest-profile political contests on a ballot that also features primary contests for dozens of congressional posts, state Senate and Assembly seats and local ballot measures aimed at boosting funding for school districts.

The propositions “are on the ballot just as the mortgage meltdown is drawing attention to the broader issue of housing,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Some former homeowners are joining the ranks of renters, and they might think twice about a proposal that would end rent control.”

A national battle over eminent domain has been raging since a 2005 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court against Susette Kelo, a Connecticut woman who was fighting government efforts to take her small house for a redevelopment project. The court upheld the right of governments to take homes for commercial development.

The idea that people can be forced from their homes so profit-seeking developers can build shopping malls outrages Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. His group is one of the sponsors of Proposition 98.

A constitutional amendment that bars state and local governments “from condemning or damaging private property for private uses,” the measure would allow the use of eminent domain solely to take property for public uses, such as schools, roads and government buildings.

“It provides protection for all property owners in situations where the government takes property from one person and gives it to another,” Coupal said.

He said eliminating rent control is a natural extension of that: “You don’t get investors investing in new housing in a regulated market.”

Proposition 98 has attracted opposition from an unusual alliance that includes the League of California Cities, the California Redevelopment Assn. and tenant rights advocates.

The tenant groups — including the Coalition to Protect California Renters — object to the section of the measure that would phase out rent control as subject apartments and mobile homes are vacated.

Dean Preston, the coalition’s co-chairman, said Proposition 98 supporters are emphasizing the eminent domain restrictions because they are popular.

“Proposition 98 is a deceptive ballot measure that directly attacks renters,” Preston said.

Tenant activists have joined the cities and redevelopment agencies in supporting Proposition 99, which would ban the use of eminent domain against houses and condominiums — but not all private property — if the purpose is to sell it to a company for private use such as building a shopping center.

As allowed by the state Constitution, Proposition 99 contains language that says it alone will become law if it passes and receives more votes than Proposition 98, even if the latter measure is also approved.

So far, the tenant groups and associations representing cities and redevelopment agencies have been able to raise $6.4 million to oppose Proposition 98 and support Proposition 99, compared with the $3.5 million raised by the Jarvis association and the landlord groups.

Baca Sembello, a 59-year-old education consultant, supports Proposition 98. She says the measure could spare others from the painful dilemma faced by about 100 residential property owners in Baldwin Park’s redevelopment area, including her parents, Ralph, 82, and Alice, 80.

The city redevelopment agency has sent the Bacas a letter offering about $300,000 for the three-quarters of an acre that includes their three-bedroom home.

Baca Sembello said the agency has threatened to use its eminent domain powers to take the house, which she believes would fetch at least $500,000 even in the depressed real estate market.

But the Bacas don’t want to move. They have deep ties to the area; the Baldwin Park Metrolink station is named for Baca Sembello’s grandfather.

Baca Sembello opposes Proposition 99. She said it has loopholes, including a 180-day delay in taking effect that she believes would let redevelopment agencies complete a flurry of condemnations.

Like the Baca family, Janelle Longwell, a South Los Angeles resident, also feels under siege. But she is opposed to Proposition 98 because it would phase out rent control.

Longwell, who is dependent on a small disability check each month because she has epilepsy, says her landlord is trying to terminate the government subsidy on her rent but is prevented from doing so by rent control.

“I would never be able to pay rent here if it was at the normal rate,” Longwell said.

Baldwin Park Mayor Pro Tem Anthony Bejarano opposes both propositions, saying they would hinder efforts to attract economic development to distressed areas.

“By taking away eminent domain in such a knee-jerk way, people don’t realize its impact on poorer communities like mine that don’t have the money to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” said Bejarano, an attorney. Such places “need eminent domain to attract developers,” he said.

He said neither measure takes into account that California’s eminent domain laws have many protections. Unlike many states, California requires a finding of blight before allowing condemnation of a property for economic development. And a property owner has the right to a second appraisal, at redevelopment agency expense.

“What happened in Connecticut could never happen in California,” Bejarano said.

The Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com

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By Gig Conaughton

VISTA —- Michael Booth stood in front of his home last week, a resortlike, rock-walled, wisteria and bougainvillea covered house on 2.7 acres of land teeming with fruit and a small winery, and grimaced.

Booth and a seemingly growing number of Vista residents said last week they were worried that the city wants to declare their homes “urban blight” and take them in the name of progress.

Those fears have emerged since the city announced a plan several months ago to expand its downtown redevelopment area into other parts of Vista.

Redevelopment is a controversial economic tool that cities have used since the 1940s to claim special tax advantages and reshape aging, unattractive neighborhoods.

In redevelopment areas, cities have the power to buy private property from unwilling sellers by paying what a court determines is fair market value in a process called the right of eminent domain. Vista officials have repeatedly said they won’t use eminent domain on private homes.

But that hasn’t soothed residents.

“I went around to 60 of my neighbors,” said Booth, “and I had 60 people with the same attitude. The city has sole power over eminent domain and the public has no control.”

The proposal

The city’s plan would more than double the size of Vista’s 2,016-acre redevelopment area, created in 1987 to give an economic boost and aesthetic face-lift to the city’s downtown core. City officials used redevelopment to create the downtown Vista Village shopping center, a sprawling mix of restaurants, retail shops and a movie theater, on property that used to be an abandoned strip mall.

The expansion proposal would draw in the city’s Townsite neighborhood; a large area between South Santa Fe Avenue and Highway 78; a big stretch of Sycamore Avenue in south Vista; and other parcels just north of Highway 78. The City Council vote is set to vote on the plan in June.

More than 50 percent of the expanded redevelopment area would be in residential neighborhoods.

“Why do they want to come into these … neighborhoods?” asked Betty Gilroy, an artist whose family has lived in the same home in the hills off South Santa Fe Drive since 1990. “What are their intentions?”

Gilroy and others said they believe the city’s aim is clear: Vista wants their property.

“My home is in the redevelopment area,” said George Wolfe. “I think the city is going to do a land grab.”

Good intentions

Bill Rawlings, Vista’s redevelopment director, said the city’s desire to expand residential zones into residential areas was to help those areas, not to take people’s homes. He said the city simply wants to build new infrastructure —– sidewalks, streetlights, curbs and gutters —- for the people living in those neighborhoods.

Rawlings said that people have no reason to fear being forced to sell their homes, because Vista’s plan specifically bars the city from using eminent domain in residentially zoned areas.

Rawlings said that the city had two main reasons to propose the expansion.

The first, he said, was because the original 1987 redevelopment corridors in urban areas have been too small or narrow to attract strong interest from developers. Widening those areas, Rawlings said, could change that.

The second reason was to improve life in the residential areas, he said.

“It’s not redevelopment for the purpose of putting in additional commercial or any development of any kind, but just to do infrastructure.”

Suspicions linger

Booth, who was elected by homeowners to a city advisory committee on redevelopment, said he is not persuaded the city’s goals are noble.

He said City Council members could still use eminent domain to take people’s homes by changing residential zoning.

Widening rural roads, putting in lights and gutters would make it easier to do that, he added.

“If the government wants your house, there are very easy ways for them to take your house,” Booth said.

Rawlings said changing zoning was unlikely, because it required a lengthy, public process.

Gilroy and some of her neighbors said last week that they also don’t think city officials have provided enough information about the proposed expansion.

Kay Buist, a retired schoolteacher, said she and many of her friends found out their neighborhood would be in the expansion zones by reading a city flier in December. The city began to publicly discuss expanding the redevelopment area months earlier, in July.

Gilroy said the city lost her trust in part because it failed to send out its redevelopment fliers in Spanish. Vista’s hardscrabble Townsite area, a redevelopment target, has many Spanish-speaking residents and 43 percent of the city’s total population is Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey.

Preserving the past

Buist said she is also worried about how the change could affect the hilly Lado de Loma Drive neighborhood where she and her husband have rented a home for several years.

She said the city could allow developers to build “hundreds” of condominiums or apartments and ruin the charm of the area, where eclectic homes line narrow, winding streets.

Buist said she and her friends are also offended that the proposal calls their neighborhood blighted.

“(That’s saying) I live in the projects now,” Buist said. “That’s how I feel.”

Rawlings said he hoped residents’ suspicions would not stop the city from pushing redevelopment into those areas.

“The only result of that will be that we won’t be able to improve the infrastructure, and continue to have little kids walking to schools in the street.”

North County Times: http://www.nctimes.com

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By Will Carless

Thursday, March 27, 2008 | The government agency tasked with redeveloping and revitalizing swaths of southeastern San Diego has resurrected a plan to corral a large chunk of Logan Heights and other neighborhoods into a new redevelopment district.

The plan, which is being driven by the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., an arm of the city’s redevelopment agency, has sparked alarm among several community activists in the area, who said they have been ill-informed about SEDC’s plans and that there needs to be more community discussion about whether creating a redevelopment area is the right way to help the neighborhoods. The activists also expressed concern about SEDC’s recent legal troubles, including accusations of fraud that have been levied against the agency’s president, Carolyn Y. Smith.

Expanding the redevelopment zone to include the new neighborhoods would allow SEDC to begin capturing tax money from the area, which it could then use to complete revitalization projects and offer subsidies to developers working within its boundaries. It would place the redevelopment effort for the neighborhoods firmly in the hands of SEDC, which would also have the power of eminent domain within the redevelopment zone.

SEDC currently administers San Diego’s redevelopment efforts in a seven-square mile zone east of downtown, bounded by State Route 94 to the north, Interstate 5 to the south and west and 69th Street east.

Councilman Ben Hueso, who opposed the redevelopment zone proposal when it was previously floated in the mid-1990s, said he now supports at least studying the creation of the new redevelopment area.

But Hueso said SEDC should not push forward any plans for redevelopment unless it has the full support of the community and is working hand-in-hand with local leaders. He said the community concerns are “troubling,” and that they echo the concerns he had in the 1990s about SEDC’s openness and transparency.

“If they’re not going to have an open process, I’m not only going to halt the redevelopment process, I’m going to change the relationship I have with SEDC,” Hueso said.

Smith said it is premature for community activists to even be thinking about the plans for creating a redevelopment area. The plans are at such an early stage that there has been little need for community input so far, she said. As the process gets further down the track, Smith said, SEDC will welcome the opportunity to work with anyone in the community who is interested in the process. And Smith said any concerns about eminent domain are ill-founded.

“We’ve never used eminent domain,” she said. “We respect each individual neighborhood.”

The new redevelopment zone, called the Dells Imperial Redevelopment Project Area, which would be bordered on the south by Interstate 5, on the east by Interstate 15 and would include a thin section of land along either side of Market Street, according to a staff memorandum.

The SEDC board of directors approved the boundaries for the new redevelopment area and approved moving forward with the adoption process for the area at its board meeting on Jan. 23.

A local consulting firm, Keyser Marston Associates, will now study the area to see if there is adequate evidence of blight in the neighborhoods to merit the creation of a redevelopment agency. By law, a redevelopment area can only be set up if the neighborhood is deemed blighted and if the elimination of that blight cannot reasonably be expected to be accomplished by private enterprise.

But three local activists who live in Logan Heights said SEDC has failed to include the community from the get-go.

The activists said they had no idea the Jan. 23 board meeting was taking place and that they only recently found out about SEDC’s expansion plans. The activists said they believe the approval of the redevelopment action was sneaked through without any real opportunity for public comment.

A February SEDC board meeting was cancelled after community members complained to the City Attorney’s Office that the public was not given adequate notice of the meeting. Huston Carlyle, a chief deputy city attorney, said his office was notified that SEDC had not informed the public of the meeting 72 hours in advance, as they are required to do by law. Carlyle said he notified Smith of the violation and she cancelled the meeting.

“I would like this to be more of a dialogue,” said David Alvarez, a member of Barrios Unidos Hoy Organizados, a grassroots community group in southeastern San Diego. “Right now this feels more like an imposition.”

Ben Rivera, a member of the Logan Heights Town Council, said he wants to see a series of forums held in the communities within the new redevelopment area. Local residents need to understand the implications of the proposal, he said, and they currently have no idea what SEDC’s plans or goals are.

Smith said the SEDC board’s actions are simply the first in a long line of bureaucratic measures needed to create the redevelopment area. She said the process could take as long as three years, and that SEDC plans to create a project area committee, made up of community members who will guide the creation of the redevelopment area.

If the redevelopment zone is approved, it will allow SEDC to collect tax dollars from within that community that otherwise would have been spread around to various levels of government to spend exclusively on redevelopment efforts.

“Everything SEDC does is redevelopment to benefit those who already live there,” Smith said. “We don’t want to push anyone out; we want the people who live there to get involved.”

But Rivera said he and other community leaders in the Logan Heights area are wary of working with SEDC at all. Rivera said the agency has a reputation for “backroom dealing,” pointing to SEDC’s troubled Valencia Business Park project. And Rivera, who said his mother lives in one of SEDC’s current redevelopment areas, said he’s seen little evidence that SEDC’s redevelopment efforts actually benefit the neighborhoods where they work.

“I think SEDC hasn’t really done anything for the community. They’ve done some nice favors for developers,” Rivera said.

That sentiment was echoed by John Alvarado, a member of Mayor Jerry Sanders’ Stakeholders Committee for Barrio Logan, another grassroots group.

“They’re kind of an entity unto themselves,” Alvarado said. “They’ve got their own agenda and they’re going to keep this as dumb and blind as possible.”

Hueso said he is aware of SEDC’s recent troubles but said he plans to keep a stern watch over the agency’s handling of the new redevelopment zone. And he stressed that SEDC is still the best option the community has to get a strong redevelopment effort going in Logan Heights and the surrounding communities.

“I think I’ve put SEDC on notice,” he said. “I’m on a timeline here, I’ve been working on this for 10 years and I feel like SEDC is the only group sitting at the table. I’d be a fool not to talk to them.”

Voice of San Diego.org: http://www.voiceofsandiego.org

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By Julissa McKinnon

Perris is preparing to take property from two landowners using eminent domain in the face of failing negotiations to buy the properties.

City officials have been trying to buy 10 acres from Georges Abitboul and 11 acres from Kevin McKenna to allow IDS/Whirlpool the right of way it needs to finish road and storm-drain improvements around the intersection of Ramona Expressway and Redlands Avenue.

The changes would provide access and drainage for the new 1.7 million-square-foot Whirlpool warehouse at the corner of Dawes Street and Redlands. The warehouse is big enough to hold 31 football fields, according to a news release from Whirlpool.

So far Abitboul and McKenna have spurned city attempts to purchase their land for $14,000 and $47,000 respectively.

Tonight council members will consider taking these properties via eminent domain, the process by which governments can forcibly purchase private property for a “public interest.”

McKenna has said that instead of trying to build an open channel on his property the city should look at building an underground pipe on land it owns on the other side of Morgan Street. McKenna recently hired an engineering firm, Rick Engineering, to draw up this alternative plan.

“I spent a lot of time, effort and money to hire an engineer to prove to everyone that there’s at least one alternative,” said McKenna, who heads the California Real Estate Group in Corona. “I was unaware that the onus of all this should be on me when someone is coming in to take my property.”

But while building the underground pipe might be possible, that does not necessarily make it the city’s best option, according to City Manager Richard Belmudez.

Building an underground pipeline is a much costlier venture than constructing an open channel, he said.

At the last Perris City Council meeting, Sunny Soltani, an attorney representing Perris along with City Attorney Eric Dunn, said “a city can take into consideration the convenience and cost to the public of the alternate locations,” when pondering eminent domain.

Mayor Daryl Busch suggested that if McKenna volunteered to pay the difference in cost for his proposal the city would likely accept it.

“If they want to come to the table with the money for this then it is viable,” said Busch, adding that these drain and road improvements enable both property owners to develop their land in the future.

Belmudez said the lands in question are on a flood plain and the improvements safeguard against flooding.

Beyond providing the necessary drainage for commercial development, Belmudez said the road improvements also further the city’s long-term goal of finishing Redlands Avenue.

The future north-to-south artery through Perris is a series of disconnected segments the city is gradually linking together.

Belmudez added that the city has started the process of eminent domain several times in recent years but rarely has had to exercise its authority to forcibly take land.

“Ninety percent of the time we go down that route it never results in actual proceedings going to completion,” Belmudez said. “Even in this case we hope that doesn’t happen.”

The Press-Enterprise: http://www.pe.com

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By Duane W. Gang

Riverside County supervisors took the first steps Tuesday toward using eminent domain to acquire property from nearly a dozen owners to expand Clinton Keith Road near Murrieta.

The land is needed to turn the road into a six-lane thoroughfare between Interstate 215 and Winchester Road.

The county proposes paying $2.86 million for the land.

The 5-0 vote Tuesday set an April 22 public hearing for what is called a “resolution of necessity” in which officials must outline the public need for the property.

The resolution, if approved, would authorize the county to use eminent domain.

Eminent domain, an often controversial tactic, allows a government to take property without an owner’s consent as long as a fair market price is paid.

Property owner W.W. Franklin said he is concerned that the county is moving too quickly to take his land.

“Why is the county considering eminent domain rather than negotiating in good faith?” he questioned supervisors.

Franklin said a well on his property is his primary concern.

He relies on the well for water, and it is located on land the county proposes taking.

He said he does not mind the road project moving forward as long as his well is relocated, he gets a fair price and a noise wall is built to protect homes.

Supervisor Jeff Stone, who represents the area, said the Clinton Keith Road project is critical to southwest Riverside County because of increased traffic from the area’s growing population.

The use of eminent domain is a last resort, he said.

Stone said the county should first exhaust all other avenues to acquire the property before using eminent domain.

He said negotiations have been ongoing for two years.

Officials have reached deals with six property owners, but they were unable to come up with agreements with 11 others, including Franklin.

“We want to be good county neighbors,” Stone said, adding that he will personally meet with Franklin and county staff to try to resolve the issue.

The measure supervisors approved Tuesday “doesn’t mean the property becomes ours tomorrow,” Stone said.

“There is time,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to treat you fairly.”

A Clinton Keith Road expansion has long been a goal for county officials.

Plans have been on the table since 1980.

A lawsuit tabled the original proposals, and officials resurrected the project as the French Valley and Winchester areas began booming.

The expansion is expected to cost as much as $70 million.

The Press-Enterprise: http://www.pe.com

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By Cathy Locke

A plan to build homes on a hilltop overlooking Highway 50 on Placerville’s western edge is on again, after the City Council reluctantly agreed that the property is better suited to housing than commercial development.

The council in November denied developer Jerome Dover’s request to rezone the 5.83 acres off Forni Road from highway commercial to residential use. Council members said they did not want to remove the site from the city’s limited commercial land inventory.

They subsequently agreed to postpone final action to allow Dover to respond to concerns raised during the Nov. 27 hearing.

The council toured the property with the developer in February, and on Tuesday, it voted unanimously to rezone the site for a planned development of 34 homes southwest of the Office Max Commercial Center.

Though some council members said they hated to lose highway commercial acreage, they determined that commercial use of the site would be difficult without access through the existing commercial center parking lot.

Dover said he had sought the access, but the owner of Office Max center agreed only to a gated emergency access.

Because of the steep topography, commercial development of the site would not be economically viable, Dover said, explaining that he had considered retail and office space. A terraced office building would have to have an elevator to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, he said.

“It’s the site work involved to make it into a reasonably flat site,” Dover said. “We can’t get enough ground to get the rents low enough to compete in the marketplace.”

Dover urged the council to allow the housing project to proceed, explaining that he is working with the developer of a proposed hotel on the south side of Forni Road to fund water and sewer lines, and a sewer pumping station. Providing the utilities is key to any economic development in that area, he said.

Residents along that section of Forni Road argued against a residential development with access off Forni, saying it would make already dangerous conditions on the winding section of roadway even worse.

The developer maintained that the site was well suited for housing because it is within walking distance of shopping and the county government center. But residents said no one in the neighborhood walks to the shopping centers along Forni Road or Placerville Drive because of traffic hazards.

Linda Irwin said she has lived on Forni Road since 1986. “I’ve seen it go from a near-rural area to almost a highway situation on Forni Road,” she said.

Irwin said she’s afraid to cross the road to get mail out of her mailbox.

Bobbye Freitas, another resident, said she used walk along the Forni Road every morning, but she stopped doing so a couple of years ago because it was too dangerous.

Freitas said she was worried about additional hazards from construction traffic for Dover’s project as well as the proposed hotel.

“It is a system you would not want to live with,” she told the council.

But Lee Holifield, who also lives on Forni Road, said he preferred housing to commercial use of the site.

“The whole top of the hill would have to be leveled for commercial,” he said.

Holifield said he believed the traffic problems would be reduced when improvements to the Missouri Flat Road/Highway 50 interchange are completed. Forni Road links Missouri Flat Road on the west with Placerville Drive on the east.

Councilman Pierre Rivas said he was disappointed that an easement wasn’t obtained through the Office Max center to serve Dover’s property when the center was built. But given the slope and lack of access, Rivas said, “I believe this project is the best and highest use.”

Councilman Mark Acuna said he was not convinced that an economically viable commercial project could not be developed on the site.

He noted that Home Depot transformed a challenging site off Placerville Drive in a project that involved realigning a creek and building a bridge. The result was a store that is a model for the corporation and one of the city’s largest sales tax generators, Acuna said.

Councilwoman Patty Borelli asked whether the city could do anything to secure an easement through the Office Max center.

City Manager John Driscoll said the city could exercise its power of eminent domain to acquire property for a public project. But in this case, he said, it would involve taking property from one private owner to benefit another.

Mayor Carl Hagen said he was opposed to seeking an easement through eminent domain. Hagen said he viewed the residential development as an infill project that would open the area to other economic opportunities such as the proposed hotel.

The Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com

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