Council to consider former RDA property plan Wednesday
As the Redevelopment Successor Agency, the Morgan Hill City Council Wednesday will consider adopting a Long Range Property Management Plan in order to give ample notice for how the City will dispose of 18 properties formerly owned by the RDA. The draft LRPMP outlines what the City will do in the coming years with properties such as the vacant Granada Theater, Downtown Mall, Royal Clothier building, former site of Simple Beverages, VTA parking lot on Butterfield Boulevard, BookSmart shopping center and others. The properties were purchased by the RDA in 2008, but since that agency was shut down by the state in February 2012 the assets have sat in a trust fund, where they will stay until the state signs off on their disposal. The LRPMP is part of the state-mandated process to redevelop the properties. If the Council approves the draft Wednesday, the document will next require further local approval by the Morgan Hill Redevelopment Oversight Board, and will then be forwarded to the state Department of Finance for review and final approval. If approved, most of the properties listed in the LRPMP - and all of those that have frontage on Monterey Road in the downtown - would be sold to private developers willing to build mixed-use retail, residential and office projects, according to City staff. Two of the sites would be reserved for “governmental purpose,” the plan says. One of these is a small parcel on Butterfield Boulevard, adjacent to the VTA lot on the south side. The Community Garden currently leases the site, and the LRPMP lists it as a possible future site for a new fire station, park or open space. The other site the City hopes to maintain for public use is the BookSmart shopping center on Depot Street. The City wants to use leftover 2008 RDA bond proceeds to build a $10.1-million, multi-level parking structure. The parking garage proposal has incited fear among the eight tenants of the Depot Street shopping center, on which the RDA purchased an option for $1.7 million in 2010. The City, on a tight deadline to spend the remaining RDA bond proceeds, is hoping to award contracts and start construction by the end of 2014.Also on the Successor Agency’s agenda for Wednesday is a proposal to commission design firm Fehr & Peers for a traffic study related to the proposed 381-space parking structure. City staff propose spending up to $72,500 for the study. While City staff worked with representatives of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association in discussions leading up to the publication of the LRPMP draft last week, MHDA President Brad Jones - co-owner of BookSmart - said the MHDA board has not offered an endorsement of the LRPMP proposal. In fact, in September the MHDA board sent a letter to the Morgan Hill Economic Development Corporation - which has served as a kind of property manager for the downtown former RDA properties - saying the fast-tracking of the parking structure is “not favorable for some of the current businesses,” Jones said. The City is required to pay for relocation services for the eight tenants who will have to move out of the BookSmart property before construction on the parking structure starts, but the tenants and the MHDA are unsure if that means they will get to remain downtown where they prefer. “We’ve never endorsed the plan,” Jones said. “Just because we’re sitting at the table doesn’t mean we’re OK with the plan.” Cherisse White, owner of Cherisse’s Hair Salon - one of the tenants at the BookSmart property - said she has not yet found a new location, and the lack of a definite project schedule is “frustrating.” The City has hired a relocation agent to work with the tenants on a new location, but White said she has heard little from the agent. City staff also consulted with representatives of the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce - as well as the EDC - in preparing the LRPMP plan, but that organization has neither endorsed nor criticized the plan, according to Chamber Executive Director John Horner. “We haven’t taken a position on the plan,” Horner said. “I would say we would have liked to have been engaged earlier and more deeply, but we’re glad to have some input and some involvement.”The development concepts proposed in the LRPMP have been part of the City’s plans to revitalize downtown Morgan Hill, and to make it friendlier for visitors and new residents, for several years. The Morgan Hill RDA Successor Agency meeting will take place 7 p.m. Wednesday, at Council meeting chambers, 17555 Peak Ave. A special Council meeting is scheduled to start beforehand, at 6:30 p.m. at the same location Wednesday. For more information or to view the Council and Successor Agency meeting agendas, go to the City’s website at www.morgan-hill.ca.gov.
