Brea Soothes Pain to Displaced Businesses : Relocation: City will provide those affected by the redevelopment project with $10,000 each, in addition to $20,000 that will go toward rent over a two-year period.

In what city officials tout as one of the most generous relocation plans in the state, the Brea Redevelopment Agency will pay for services of lawyers, appraisers, brokers and relocation consultants to businesses displaced by the downtown redevelopment project.

In addition, the businesses will be given rent assistance of as much as $20,000 over a two-year period, double the amount they were originally going to get.

“This is beyond and above what state law provides,” Mayor Pro Tem Burnie Dunlap said when the City Council approved the additional benefits last week.

Officials estimate that the additional rent benefits will cost the city $150,000. In all, it will cost more than $1 million to relocate the remaining residents and businesses in the $100-million downtown project. How much each business eventually will receive is hard to determine, they said.

“It will be on a case-by-case basis,” Redevelopment Services Director Susan Georgino said.

Eleven homes and eight businesses have yet to be relocated as the agency attempts to acquire nine remaining parcels in the 50-acre project area, Georgino said.

On Oct. 9, four of the businesses were issued 90-day notices to vacate, she said. The businesses are an antique shop, an insurance firm, an upholstery shop and a general contractor.

Negotiations are continuing with the owners of a fast-food restaurant and a towing company, Georgino said.

The agency has acquired the industrial building belonging to Michael Kunec, although Kunec is still contesting it, Georgino said. She added that relocation of Sam’s Place, a bar, is proving difficult because of code requirements.

Sid Greaves, who owns the bar, said he has not received a new offer from the city. His lawyer, Mike Leifer, is handling the negotiations, Greaves said. Leifer, who represented the business owners in a lawsuit against the city, was in court Friday and unavailable for comment.

The lawyer also represents Tabita and Dan Cesario, owners of a general contracting company, which was one of those issued a notice to vacate.

“We’ve been waiting for this a long while,” Tabita Cesario said. Like Greaves, she refused to comment on the relocation negotiation with the city.

It has been less than three weeks since construction work and property acquisitions have started again after the lawsuit filed in June by a coalition of business owners on the issue of relocation put the project on hold.

The suit charged the city failed to draw up a plan, violating state law. A Superior Court judge in July ordered the city to create a relocation plan. The city complied with the order, and in September, the judge ratified a settlement. The project resumed in early October.

As part of the settlement, the city agreed to pay $50,000 in attorney’s fees to the coalition.

Georgino contended that the relocation benefits were available all along but that the city failed to adopt a formal relocation plan for the downtown area and submit it for review to the Department of Housing and Community Development as required by state law.

“No one was shortchanged of any benefit,” she said.

The new relocation package provides each displaced business with $10,000, as required by state law, which could be used for moving, advertising, attorney fees and consulting costs, Georgino said.

In addition, each business will get $20,000 from the city, to be used for rent over a two-year period. Georgino said that under the old benefits package, each business would have received $10,000, which could have been used only after the state-mandated $10,000 was exhausted.

“Often times, the rent in the new location is higher. We’re relocating from a depressed area and additional rent would be necessary. We say: ‘We’ll help you out over a two-year period,’ ” Georgino said.

Along with the money, she said, the city will pay for improvements in the new location to make the businesses competitive and efficient. The city will also reimburse businesses for improvements that were made in the old location.

As an incentive to brokers, the city will pay up to 3% in commissions for helping a business to relocate.

Georgino said the city is not giving the business owners a blank check. The payments are merely reimbursements for expenses and the business owner must submit receipts, she said.