California's relentless, ever widening budget deficit has claimed another victim: redevelopment's affordable housing funds. 

In a hastily called press conference to roll out the 2012-2013 budget on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Jerry Brown said he would consider funding redevelopment only if the Legislature brings him offsetting cuts.

The California Redevelopment Association is seeking legislation that would postpone the elimination of RDAs beyond the February 1 date set by the state Supreme Court last week. In response to a reporter's question about whether Brown would support an extension "for a few months," Brown said:

While the Legislature remains deadlocked on Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal, it seems that what does not kill redevelopment may in fact make it stronger. Many observers had written the obituary for the state's redevelopment system back in March when Brown was insisting that the state had to recoup redevelopment's tax increment in order to help plug its $24 billion deficit.

Updated Thursday morning.

Yesterday the Senate and Assembly considered AB 101, which is the budget bill that includes the provisions to eliminate redevelopment, per Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal.  

AB 101 fell one vote short in the Assembly. It had passed the Senate Budget Committee, 10-7, but, upon failing in the Assembly, it did not come up for a vote in the full Senate. While the Assembly voted on AB 101, the Senate deliberated on SB 77, which is a mirror of AB 101.

Legislators did, however, approve $7.4 billion in spending cuts. 

Both houses are expected to reconsider the redevelopment bills in the 11am floor session today. 

The California Assembly and Senate are expected to vote on the budget proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The trailer bill concerning redevelopment, AB 101, emerged from committee today. If enacted, it would codify the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and the winding down of their activities under "successor agencies" and oversight boards. Agency activities would effectively end July 1.

After weeks of stalemate and tough talk -- on both sides -- the California Redevlopment Association has announced an alternative to Gov. Jerry Brown's intention to eliminate redevelopment. The CRA announced today a compromise plan that would preserve the architecture of redevelopment while allowing the transfer of certain funds to schools (at the expense of affordable housing), thus easing the state's deficit.  

The debate over the fate of redevelopment has called into question the usefulness of redevelopment in places such as, say, Coronado or Palm Desert. But there is no doubt that blight still infects large swaths of the state's major cities -- and that those cities are deeply concerned about the fate of their redevelopment agencies. 

In response to the release of a draft bill that would make the elimination of redevelopment official, the mayors of the state's nine largest cities today sent a stern letter [.pdf] to Gov. Jerry Brown asking him once again to reconsider his intention to eliminate their redevelopment agencies -- along with nearly 400 others across the state. 

California is usually full of surprises. But we at the California Planning & Development Report -- like almost everyone else involved with California land use -- already know what the story of the year is.

If California's redevelopment agencies vanish on July 1, as Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed, it's clear the task of mending the state's blighted neighborhoods will likely grow more complicated. Less obvious is the fact that California's effort to clean up the Earth's atmosphere may grow more difficult as well.

Governor Jerry Brown's "State of the State" speech last night was probably so familiar that you might have thought you'd written it yourself. He outlined, in remarkably plain terms, the crisis that the state faces and, unlike his predecessor, took an adult approach to bipartisan cooperation. In his eyes, there were no girlie-men in the chamber. Instead, his rhetoric suggests that he was speaking to a group of public servants with different ideologies and a common challenge.