Redevelopment Goes to Voters in San Marcos

Voters here will decide Tuesday whether to establish a new redevelopment project in the city that will result in more than $100 million in public improvements over the next 30 years without costing them a dime in increased taxes.

Some residents say it’s a bad deal and should be voted down.

The proponents say the redevelopment project is needed to upgrade narrow, pot-hole marred streets and inadequate flood control channels. Because of the municipal purse-tightening requirements of Proposition 13 in 1978, public improvements haven’t kept pace with the city’s growth and the redevelopment project is an opportunity for the city to catch up, they say.

But the opponents say that the improvements will make the city that much more attractive and spark even more growth. Furthermore, they say, the redevelopment’s financial success will rely in part on the success of a controversial but already-approved trash-to-energy plant.

The election is a referendum vote forced by more than 1,000 voters who signed petitions saying they were opposed to the City Council’s decision to move forward with redevelopment. The petitions demanded the matter be put to a public vote.

City officials expect only a fraction of the city’s 10,000 or so registered voters to go to the polls to decide what Mayor Lionel Burton calls the single most-important election ever held in this city. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The petition drive forcing the referendum election frustrated City Council members who saw only benefits and no risks to the redevelopment plan and who are now concerned that voters will oppose the redevelopment action because they mistakenly believe they can still overturn the approval of the trash-burning power plant. The $225-million, privately financed trash plant will be constructed--ground breaking is just weeks away--whether or not the redevelopment project is approved, city officials note.

Redevelopment projects are not new in this city. In 1983, the City Council established a modest $6-million redevelopment project to widen a portion of San Marcos Boulevard, realign Grand Avenue, widen the Nordahl Road bridge over California 78 and make other public improvements. There was only modest opposition to the project, primarily by those who lived closest to it and were concerned that it would be a catalyst to commercial growth near their residential neighborhoods. There was no petition drive to force a referendum, however.

That redevelopment project has moved ahead smoothly, with more money being made available to pay for the work than the city had projected.

With the one project successfully under its belt, the City Council decided last year to create this more ambitious one, which would generate--and spend--$100 million for public improvements in other parts of the city.

The redevelopment plan, based on state law, calls for the property tax base within the project area--actually, four pockets of land around the city--to be frozen at its current level. Then, as the property increases in value--either through resale, development or reassessment--most of the increases in property tax, called tax increment, would be diverted to the city’s redevelopment agency rather than to the myriad of local, county and state agencies which now share in the property tax collection.

The redevelopment financing scheme is used commonly by cities throughout the state--including neighboring Escondido--as a way to raise money for public improvements when no other significant sources of money are available to fund the projects. Typically, philosophical opposition to redevelopment arises when a city threatens to take over private property through condemnation or uses the money to make improvements on privately owned land in the theory that the entire city will stand to prosper by pumping public money into private enterprises. But neither scenario is the case in this project.

The property within the proposed new project areas would generate an estimated $147 million in fresh property tax revenue over 30 years, of which the redevelopment agency would take $100 million for a variety of projects.

Among the largest single sources of tax increment to the redevelopment agency would be the construction of the $225 million trash-to-energy plant, which is planned at the county landfill along the southern edge of the city. That project alone would generate about $30 million in revenue for redevelopment projects, city officials estimate, over and above the several million dollars the trash plant operator already has agreed to pay the city for public improvements made necessary by the plant’s construction.

The redevelopment project includes four areas:

- The site of the trash-to-energy plant, not only so the redevelopment agency can receive the tax increments to be generated by the plant but also so roads adjacent to the site can be improved.

- Along Rancho Santa Fe Road from San Marcos High School to Mission Road, for widening along narrow sections of the road, installation of traffic signals and improvements to flood control.

- The old, downtown section of San Marcos, in the area of San Marcos Junior High School, Vineyard Road and the southern portion of Twin Oaks Valley Road, for street and drainage improvements.

- The site of the old Prohoroff poultry ranch on the south side of Highway 78, which is now out of business and which is being pitched by the city as a potential site for the proposed North County satellite campus for San Diego State University. Improvements would include streets, drainage and traffic signals, intended in part to make the parcel more attractive as a potential college campus site.

Jonathan Wiltshire, spokesman for Citizens for Healthy Air in San Marcos, which was formed to oppose the approval of the trash-to-energy plant, said his group also is opposed to the redevelopment projects because it is growth-inducing.

“The city won’t be able to pay for all these things unless there is explosive growth,” he said. “The more they promise (in improvements), the more money they’ll need.”

Wiltshire said he is also concerned that should the plant go out of business and be razed, the redevelopment agency will lose a significant portion of its tax increment funding. “The city is basing its gamble on the operation of something that shouldn’t be relied on financially,” he argued.

City officials counter that the normal pace of growth in the city will more than generate enough money to offset the redevelopment costs, and that “explosive growth” is not needed nor expected.

“The issue is very simple,” said Burton, the mayor. “If you want the city cleaned up and the streets improved, you vote for Proposition A.

“The waste-to-energy plant is going to be built no matter what. The question is whether we want those taxes to come to the redevelopment agency, to help with streets and roads, or to all the other agencies. Redevelopment is an ingenious method of financing because it gives us a no-lose situation.

“The people who are opposed to the trash plant will be coming out Tuesday to vote against this because they think it will stop the plant, even though it won’t. If the majority of the city wants Rancho Santa Fe Road widened, pressure off of Mission Road, Prohoroff Ranch made into something viable and our bridges improved, all they’ve got to do is say yes, and it won’t raise their taxes. If they don’t, then to hell with them. The future of San Marcos is at stake.”