It has been a while since I’ve had a chance to put anything up here on Anaheim 2060. Between work, vacation and a personal life, I’ve been a bit busy. However, there are a number of important items on tomorrow’s City Council meeting that I thought it would be important to point out.
Fiscal Year 2010/2011 Budget Hearing
First and foremost, is the continuance of the City’s budget hearing from the May 18th meeting. This portion of the City Council meeting is starting at the abnormally early time of 2 P.M. As has been mentioned here before, it’s important for the City to hold public meetings the public can attend. Most people aren’t able to get off work early enough to make a two o’clock meeting.
Especially in these tough economic times, the City’s budget is one of the most important issues the City Council must decide on. While I understand the challenges of making these meetings at a time everyone can attend, since it makes the meetings end so late at night, it’s important to allow the greatest participation from the City’s residents to provide input on budget issues.
Exclusive Negotiation Agreement with Uptown Anaheim, LLC
Currently, a parcel of land on the northwest corner of N. Anaheim Blvd. and W. Lincoln Ave. is for sale by Pacific Bell. Bill Taormina, through Uptown Anaheim, LLC, is currently in escrow for the property for $6.55 million. The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency is proposing to take over Uptown Anaheim, LLC’s position in the transaction and purchase the site for itself. Along with that, the Agency and Uptown Anaheim, LLC would have three years to negotiate a Disposition and Development Agreement for Uptown Anaheim to develop the Agency owned land.
Quite simply, I don’t understand the value that either party, Uptown Anaheim, LLC or the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency, gain in this transaction. The staff report says, “The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency would like to ensure the Site is developed consistent with the Redevelopment Plan and the General Plan.” A developer would need to request a zone change and general plan amendment if they wanted to build something that is not consistent with the current Redevelopment Plan and General Plan. These changes would need to go before both the Planning Commission and the City Council.
The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency already owns a number of parcels along Anaheim Blvd that are either vacant or under-utilized. The Agency’s money would be better spent on improving the land it already owns instead of buying an economically viable site that a developer would be happy to build on.
Revitalization of the Avon/Dakota Neighborhood
Of all of the neighborhoods in Anaheim, Avon/Dakota needs the most help. A while back, Dakota was the most crime ridden street in all of Anaheim. The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency is looking to shift some money to help revitalize this neighborhood.
This revitalization comes at the perfect time. Directly adjacent to the Avon/Dakota neighborhood, the City is looking to build an affordable housing development. These two projects, along with Colony Park directly across South Street, will make a significant impact and will improve the neighborhood substantially. This is a great investment because it will be able to leverage the improvements that are already happening around this neighborhood.
Affordable Housing Agreement for the South Street Site
Near the beginning of the year, the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency issued a Request for Proposals to build an affordable housing development on a site the Agency owns on South Street. A number of developers submitted proposals, including my employer, but the Related Companies put together one that was really great and therefore the Agency selected them to develop the site.
Not only does the proposed design fit in well with the neighborhood, they’ve also committed to doing some improvements in the neighboring Avon/Dakota neighborhood. As I mentioned above, this will allow for some synergies between the work the Agency and Related are doing and improve the “bang for the buck” that the City is expending.
November Ballot Measures
The Anaheim City Council is looking to amend the City’s charter in a couple areas. Charter amendments must be decided upon by the voters as a whole, so the City Council is looking at putting two such measures on the ballot in November.
The first item is a ban on all red light traffic cameras in the City of Anaheim. Many cities have been using these types of cameras as a way to raise money. There is no evidence that suggests these cameras make motorists any safer, and even some evidence that they cause more accidents than they prevent. This ballot measure will ensure future city councils aren’t able to take the easy way out of budget crunches by creating new fees on motorists.
The second item is to allow design-build contracts for public works projects. Under a design-build contract system, the contractor both designs and builds whatever needs to be built. This is different from a design-bid-build contract system where an architect or engineer designs something that is then bid out to contractors who then build what was designed.
There are some advantages and disadvantages to design-build vs design-bid-build. The advantages are largely cost and scheduling. Much of the time, design-build is both cheaper and faster than design-bid-build. The downsides are that there is less oversight of the contractor and normally less design skill from the contractors engineers.
What it comes down to is that design-build is great for things that are fairly basic and are built all the time. Things like roads and utilities are perfect for design-build. There is no reason the city should be paying more or wasting time being confined to a design-bid-build contracting system for public works projects that are done every day.
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