Survey this past summer reveals most Morgan Hill residents
support agency
Morgan Hill – If you ask Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes to describe the city’s redevelopment agency in simple terms, he would offer the following:
“The RDA is an agency that has special powers and responsibilities to work with private investors to eliminate blighting conditions that adversely impact the community.”
Those blighting conditions exist throughout the older portions of the community west of the freeway. The agency, however, wants to immediately focus on Morgan Hill’s downtown.
Other chunks of land around town that need the RDA, according to its supporters, are the areas south of Dunne Avenue and north of Cochrane Road in the so-called historic Madrone, older industrial areas in the vicinity of Church Street.
Throughout the Redevelopment Project Area, the valley floor west of the freeway from the north city limits to the south city limits roughly, there exist infrastructure problems, inadequate parking, streets in poor condition and a lack of street lighting, storm drains and flood control – all making the RDA a boon for the city, Tewes said.
The Morgan Hill Redevelopment Agency, created in November of 1980, has been amended four times. This past November the city council amended the plan again to receive more “tax increment” funds – up to $333 million – to continue the work of the RDA.
The agency, which is run by the five members of the Morgan Hill City Council, including the mayor, has expressed a desire to focus on infrastructure – streets, pipes, drains, pumps – that will allow private investment to occur in these areas.
The agency also encourages private investment in industrial areas and creates affordable housing.
Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes believes misconceptions about the agency are due to the complexities of redevelopment laws.
Despite the ocassional misunderstanding about the purpose of the RDA, Tewes said, ” Morgan Hill people have expressed their strong support for RDA because it’s possible for them to learn and see the results of redevelopment.”
A survey conducted by the city earlier this year found that 80 percent of people in Morgan Hill are strongly supportive of the projects that the RDA has implemented.
Councilman Greg Sellers, who was the director of the Morgan Hill Downtown Revitalization Program in the early 90s, said the RDA has done a good job in the city.
“Quite often there are other cities that have had abuses, but that’s not been the case here at all,” Sellers said. “We’ve been very conservative and very judicious and have focused on the core issues that have made redevelopment agencies made sense and have really worked for Morgan Hill.”
Sellers says the agency has increased affordable housing in a community where home prices continue soar.
Concerns from a small group of community leaders, including the editorial board of the Morgan Hill Times, have questioned the recent spendings of the agency on public facilities such as the Centennial Recreation Center, the Aquatics Center, Community Playhouse, Morgan Hill Library, Sports Complex and the Morgan Hill Community Cultural Center because they’re not profitable and have been deemed “budget draining” efforts.
Sellers, however, characterizes them as resources that improve Morgan Hill’s quality of life, adding that the city council has been creative in the use of those resources and has been “very conservative.”
“We’ve been pretty creative in how we’ve utilized (RDA funds),” he said. “With the renewal (of the RDA plan) we’re really going back to basics.”
In light of the projected $1 million deficit that never happened and now that the city ended up with a $48,000 surplus and expects $800,000 a year to be pumped back into the city’s general fund because of the RDA Project Area shrinking, it seems easier for city officials to sing the praises of the RDA.
“The whole reason for having a redevelopment agency is to leverage funds so that in the longterm you’re creating a much bigger economy and a much better community than you’ve would have been able to create otherwise,” Sellers said, recalling much support from private sector investors while running the RDA-supported downtown group.
“(Private developers) saw that it (RDA) was a good faith effort from the public sector and were willing to invest their own private resources … that never could have been matched otherwise,” he said. “That’s always been the goal. We end up with a higher tax base and a healthier community.”
Tony Burchyns covers Morgan Hill for The Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106 ext. 201 or
tburchyns@morganhilltimes.
