pages: CityCouncil/2005-05-17.pdf, 33
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CityCouncil | 2005-05-17 | 33 | appraiser, Mike Dunn, was jointly retained by the City and Cocores and came up with a value of $3.7 million; the appraisal the City is using is over a year old; for a jointly hired appraiser to come up with $3. 7 million and the City to disregard the offer and use a year old appraisal that is less than half of the jointly appraised value is fundamentally flawed; secondly, the City has not followed the adopted owner participation rules required by law; the rules specify that the City will give preference to property owners within the project area, which has not occurred; the City allowed Cocores to jointly pay for an appraisal and took half of the $25,000 price for a feasibility study in 1996 that has been shelved; the City has been willing to take Cocores's money in partnership, but has not continued to follow through with any owner participation rules; the third problem is that the City claims the justification for the public use of the project is remediation of blight the area is not blighted; the blight findings are unfounded and not supported by the evidence; additionally, there is evidence that the outcome of the hearing is predetermined; news articles indicate the City has commissioned construction reports and studies and committed itself contractually towards the condemnation and project; the City is conducting a sham hearing and is committed to going forward with the project; requested adoption of the resolution be delayed for a couple of meetings to allow the City to re-engage Mr. Cocores on the fair market value issue; stated City staff offered $2.5 million to Mr. Cocores at one point and even offered $3 million if structured as $2 million upfront and $1 million over a period of years; similar negotiations could continue if the resolution is delayed; if not, the City will face a right to take challenge; good faith negotiations seem to have terminated but could be restarted; additional evidence of predetermination is the Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) that has been entered into with a developer; although the DDA is carefully worded that the Commission is not committing itself to condemnation, the mere fact that a DDA has been executed with a developer suggests there is no longer a discussion with the owner; urged delaying action to resume good faith negotiations and avoid spending resources on unnecessary litigation; finally, there are fatal, fundamental problems with the mitigated negative declaration; deferral of some of the mitigation measures are impermissible under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) i CalTrans raised problems, such as traffic impacts and impacts to certain intersections, that were not addressed; the City must comply with CEQA prior to adoption of the Resolution of Necessity; failure to comply with CEQA can create right to take challenges. Chair Johnson inquired whether the Commission could adopt the Special Joint Meeting Alameda City Council, Community 3 Improvement Commission and Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment Authority May 17, 2005 | CityCouncil/2005-05-17.pdf |