LAKEPORT – The Lakeport City Council – in its role as the city's Redevelopment Agency – is considering adding the use of eminent domain to the city's redevelopment plan language.
The issue is slated for discussion at tonight's council meeting.
The issue was first raised by Mayor Roy Parmentier at the council's Dec. 19 meeting. Acting City Manager Richard Knoll said he told the council that eminent domain needed to be scheduled on a future agenda under redevelopment agency business, not under “City Council Communications,” as it was on Dec. 19 by Parmentier.
Use of eminent domain has become an increasingly controversial issue. Knoll noted that, in fact, many cities are moving away from its use because of public opinion, and that a city needs to be able to provide a rationale for using that method of property acquisition.
Knoll's staff report to the redevelopment agency, prepared for tonight's meeting, states the city may amend its redevelopment plan to include the use of eminent domain in accordance with Community Redevelopment Laws.
Amending the plan could cost between $30,000 and $60,000, according to Knoll's report, in order to pay for redevelopment attorneys and consultants to prepare the necessary language and provisions for the amendment. He further noted that such an amount isn't included in the 2006-07 budget.
Knoll's report notes that eminent domain was excluded from the plan when it was adopted in 1999.
Documents accompanying Knoll's report include copies of e-mails he sent to Seth Merewitz, an attorney with the firm McDonough, Holland and Allen PC of Sacramento, the city's redevelopment attorneys, regarding the proposed changes.
In the e-mail exchange, dated Dec. 28, Merewitz noted that the city excluded eminent domain from the plan over the firm's objections; he called eminent domain “a necessary tool for redevelopment.”
Knoll replied, “The consultant that we used in 1998-99 recommended that we exclude the use of eminent domain and the City Council agreed.”
Merewitz then replied via email, “Consultant was Jim Burns and the goal was to avoid controversy ...” (sic).
Burns' firm, Burns & Watry Redevelopment Specialists, previously worked with the city on redevelopment issues. In recent months – as a partner with Boeger Land Development LLC of Gridley – Burns approached the city to make a development proposal on the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District land (CLMSD).
Burns and Boeger also are reportedly interested in acquiring the Dutch Harbor and Natural High properties on the lakefront in order to develop a large resort hotel complex.
In a development planning and option agreement Burns and Boeger signed with the city in November on CLMSD, the City Council gave them first right of refusal to purchase Dutch Harbor from the city. It further allows the development team to negotiate with Lakeport Unified School District, which owns Natural High, for the property's purchase without “any involvement on the part of the City.”
Burns, who reportedly counseled against using redevelopment in the past, gave a redevelopment presentation to a special joint meeting of the Lakeport City Council, Redevelopment Agency and CLMSD on Dec. 14. In the 22-page report he presented at that time, he addressed redevelopment powers and eminent domain use.
The report's cover sheet also notes that it was prepared, in part, for the Lakeport Unified School District, although the district did not take part in the joint meeting. For the last several years LUSD has turned down the city's offers to purchase the land.
Justin Braider, a teacher at Natural High School, said the school serves about 42 pupils in the high school, along with about another 50 students in two other programs for independent study and home schooling.
Burns' report places a hypothetical $35 million resort complex on the school site, and states that the school district would benefit from property tax from the complex. The report posits that the city and school district lose more than $1 million in property and transient occupancy taxes (TOT) for every year the project isn't built.
At $35 million, Knoll said the hypothetical project would be the most expensive ever built in Lakeport.
Knoll said the city currently receives between $150,000 and $200,000 annually in TOT or bed tax, which comes from hotels, beds and breakfasts, and other accommodations. Burns' hypothetical project would offer the city another $400,000 in TOT annually.
The report further suggests that teachers could qualify for the city's affordable housing program, and that the developers would propose that the Redevelopment Agency “commit all the housing funds generated by the project developed on this site be allocated to a special fund that would provide for preferential treatment for qualified teachers.”
Committing redevelopment funds to any specific project “is not a policy of the city,” said Knoll. He explained that state law requires that 20 percent of all tax increments in a project area be set aside for affordable housing, and that the city already has an affordable housing program.
City staff, he said, have been working independently on a policy for a down payment assistance program for city and public school employees and child care teachers, based on a similar policy in another city.
Burns' report concludes, “The present location of the Natural High School Facility is probably not in the best interest of the City or the District.” Its recommendation: “The District appoint a committee of two members to work with our team to see if we can develop an agreement that is beneficial to all parties.”
At the City Council's next meeting after the Burns presentation, Parmentier raised the subject of adding the eminent domain language.
Knoll said the city has been looking at a hotel project for some time, and has attempted to market the Dutch Harbor property. “It's not like we haven't been proposing and trying to further the idea of a hotel in Lakeport,” he said.
He called Natural High a “unique property” which has been a community resource “for years and years and years.”
Knoll said that the annual seaplane fly-in, along with craft fairs, pancake breakfasts, athletic events and an annual carnival all take place on the property. The seaplane event, especially, is unique in the entire state and brings many visitors to the area, he said.
“If Natural High were converted, those uses wouldn't be available,” he said.
LUSD Superintendent Erin Smith-Hagberg could not be reached for comment for this article.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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