OK, nothing surrounding redevelopment is much "fun" these days. But let's try to lighten the mood. 

In case you're wondering what exactly could get eliminated, the Senate Committee on Governance & Finance has compiled a list of the most salient facts from a recently released draft annual report, for FY 2009-10, compiled by the Office of the State Controller. This report was based on data reported by the agencies themselves, so some of the facts probably should be taken with a grain of salt. (For instance, if anyone knows exactly how to measure "jobs created," I want to hear about it.)

  • There are 425 community redevelopment agencies, but only 399 are active
  • Every city with a population over 250,000 has a redevelopment agency
  • 94% of the 174 cities with populations over 50,000 have redevelopment agencies
  • 81% of the 480 cities have redevelopment agencies
  • 31 of the 58 counties have redevelopment agencies
  • There are 750 redevelopment project areas
  • 65 redevelopment project areas cover 50 acres or less
  • 34 redevelopment project areas cover more than 6,000 acres
  • Frozen property values were $164 billion; incremental values were $544 billion
  • New construction fell to 12.5 million square feet, the lowest level since 1995-96
  • New construction of public buildings boomed from 222,000 to 1.4 million square feet
  • Rehabilitated construction was down in every category except industrial buildings
  • Redevelopment agencies created 36,000 jobs, more than double than in 2008-09
  • Agencies' total revenues & other funding fell to $8 billion, down from $8.3 billion
  • Property tax increment revenues were $5.4 billion, 5% less; first drop since 1995-96
  • Pass-through payments were $1.2 billion, about the same as in 2008-09
  • Pass-throughs & other aid to K-14 schools was $315 million, down from $328 million
  • Agencies spent $943 million in Low & Moderate Income Housing Funds
  • Of that amount, 20.7% went for administrative, professional, planning, & design costs
  • Low & Moderate Income Housing Funds' total revenues were $712 million
  • Of that amount, $552 million came from property tax increment revenues
  • Agencies' equity fell by $1.4 billion to $16.5 billion
  • Agencies had unmatured long-term debts of $29.8 billion
  • Agencies issued $825 million in tax allocation bonds
  • Agencies' unmatured tax allocation bonds totaled $19.1 billion

Source:  Draft Community Redevelopment Agencies Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2009-10. John Chiang, State Controller.  Released to the Legislature on July 7, 2011.

--Josh Stephens