The City Council unanimously agreed Tuesday to take over responsibilities for the non-housing functions of the city’s former redevelopment agency – but chose not to take over its housing assets and project management functions. The city – as “successor agency” to the now-defunct Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency – will be responsible for winding down more than $787 million of outstanding obligations over the remaining life of prior redevelopment projects, which varies by project from a few years to nearly three decades. The city Housing Authority will take over the housing assets and functions – including $81.7 million in assets and managing $80.6 million in outstanding loans r

Mere days before the Feb. 1 deadline to end redevelopment, the City Council is faced with two important decisions: what role the city will take in the aftermath, and what will happen to agency staff when redevelopment ends. Although the City Council did not take any action at the meeting Tuesday, City Manager John Shirey outlined the next steps for council members as the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency winds down. Shirey is the former executive director president of the California Redevelopment Association. SHRA is the agency responsible for redevelopment in Sacramento County and the city. An important factor in the process is figuring out what responsibilities the city wil

SACRAMENTO, CA | U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Regional Administrator Ophelia Basgal joined Congresswoman Doris Matsui in Sacramento announced on January 10 that Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency will receive a $300,000 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant. Sacramento is one of 13 cities nationwide receiving this funding to begin grassroots efforts to revitalize the Twin Rivers Community Housing, a distressed public housing development at 321 Eliza Street, and transform the Sacramento River District-Railyards neighborhood. “All across the country, local planners are serious about rolling up their sleeves to transform distressed neighborhoods into choice n

  SACRAMENTO, CA | For the first time in its history, the Housing Authority of the City of Sacramento has received a High Performer designation on the Public Housing Assessment System Score Report from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Housing Authority received a PHAS total score of 90 out of 100. The assessment period covered the fiscal year ending December 31, 2010. “This is a great accomplishment for the Housing Authority,” said La Shelle Dozier, Executive Director of Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, a Joint Powers Agency which includes the Housing Authority. “We redoubled our efforts to improve our performance in all of the scoring categories and

In what has been called a David versus Goliath victory, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to disband redevelopment agencies in California, and opponents of redevelopment in Sacramento wasted no time to celebrate the success. “After years of opposition to redevelopment activities, the abuse of government power and confiscation of property for private use, our day finally came,” Moe Mohanna, a local real estate developer, said Tuesday. The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday to uphold the redevelopment “elimination” bill, but struck down the bill that would have allowed agencies to make “continuation payments” to stay in business. The two

Sacramento City Council members had their hands full this year – from balancing the budget to redrawing district lines to a citizen uprising that found its way to the doors of City Hall. Here’s the city government year in review. CITY MANAGER DRAMA The year started off with interim city manager Gus Vina not being promoted to the open city manager spot. Vina replaced previous city manager Ray Kerrige when Kerrige resigned in February 2010. Vina resigned two months later – just a few weeks before the budget was due to the City Council. He later became the city manager of Encinitas. The City Council was criticized for making decisions about the city manager position in closed sessions bef

Sacramento, CA | The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced that Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is a recipient of a $150,000 Community Challenge Planning Grant from the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. The Agency will administer the grant on behalf of the Housing Authority of the County of Sacramento and is one of only two grantees in the state of California. The highly competitive 2011 Sustainable Communities grants totaled $97 million. Only 27 communities and organizations will receive the Community Challenge grants. The goal of the Sustainable Communities grants is to help communities improve their economic competitiveness by connect

The City Council unanimously approved a program that allows the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency the ability to grant developers a “first look” at foreclosed properties for rehab and resale in Sacramento's low- and moderate-income neighborhoods – before the properties are put on the open market. Through the new program – called the Pilot Foreclosed Property Access and Rehabilitation Program – developers can purchase vacant, foreclosed properties at discounted prices and then rehabilitate and resell those properties. The benefit to developers is the early access to foreclosed homes provided through SHRA, allowing developers to purchase at a price lower than the developer could

District 8 City Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell hosted a bus tour Thursday highlighting recent redevelopment efforts and future growth opportunities throughout the district with a group of developers, real estate brokers and city employees – along with a few district residents and neighborhood association representatives. “This is going to be a tour of opportunities,” said City Manager John Shirey at the start of the tour. “We’ve got a good future for this district.” The Meadowview and south city areas have seen the second-greatest rate of growth in all of Sacramento, second only to North Natomas in District 1, Pannell said. “We have had a lot of growth (in District 8),” Pannell said, “and

Public Agency Lawsuit to Seize $21,000 Home from Rightful Purchaser near Sacramento, California... In the rustic, antique wood-built town of Locke, California, founded from 1912 to 1920s, the Locke Management Association (LMA), a thirteen (13) member board put in place in 2003 to maintain, preserve and manage the town is prioritizing its limited $60,000 operating budget to attempt to undo a recent property purchase that occurred. The buyer, Martha Esch, struck a deal to purchase one of the town’s dilapidated properties with seller, Dona LaBlanc for a $21,000 purchase price. The LMA claims both women circumvented the agency’s rules in order to complete the sale. The property was previously

The former site of a gas station at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 12th Avenue has been transformed into the city’s ninth community garden. The garden’s grand opening on Saturday offered free seeds, magazines and workshop information to several dozen attendees. Bill Maynard, Sacramento’s director of community gardens, has been working on this project for four years. He said half of the garden plots have already been rented at a cost of $25 to $50 per year. WIC, a federally funded organization that focuses on nutrition and health for women, infants and children, rents space in the garden, which is near their office building. Andrea Kennedy, one of several people tending gardens at

With three weeks until the historic Maydestone apartment building opens for an art show downtown, the fences have come down, the façade has been painted and several units have been staged as residences even as final work is completed. The $7 million affordable housing project at the corner of 15th and J streets received $6.1 million in loans from the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. Presentation Development, LLC – set up by D&S Development, Inc. – contributed $900,000, according to Bay Miry of D&S Development. “We’re trying to design it more like a European residential unit,” Miry said. “(Europeans) like to live where there’s a lot of interaction with people, and they don’t

Redevelopment in Sacramento will continue, but it will cost the city more than $20 million. The City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday that allows the city to make an initial $18.3 million payment to the state in order to maintain the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. The ordinance – an emergency measure that takes effect immediately – authorizes the city to participate in the “Voluntary Alternative Redevelopment Program” (VARP) under a new state law (ABx27) enacted in July. Participation in the program allows redevelopment agency activity to continue as long as continuation payments are made to the state each year. La Shelle Dozier, SHRA executive director,

Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) has been named a 2011 recipient of the prestigious National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) Merit Award for its efforts to reorganize electronic database waiting lists for the Sacramento region. SHRA received the award for the Access Code for Wait List in Administrative Innovation category. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in housing and community development programs throughout the nation. “I am very proud of this unique model that the Sacramento Public Housing Authority has developed for our applicants,” said SHRA Executive Director La Shelle Dozier. “This process has created greater efficiency and

The new California state budget reduced spending by $15 billion and potentially includes an additional $2.5 billion in cuts – but it’s not all bad news for Sacramento. Some of the impacts of the state budget on Sacramento were outlined at the City Council meeting Tuesday, most notably problems stemming from changes to redevelopment, realignment and motor vehicle license fees. “The best thing I can say is that it was an on-time budget,” said David Jones, lobbyist for the city of Sacramento. The budget was balanced using $4 billion in projected revenue increases, Jones said, and about 40 percent of that is “just hopeful thinking and subject to litigation or challenges.” That’s good news

The future of development and affordable housing projects in Sacramento is starting to look pretty grim. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state budget into law June 29, putting two new bills into effect that significantly impact redevelopment agencies: ABx26 and ABx27. “There is no good news in any of this,” said La Shelle Dozier, executive director for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA). “It’s very detrimental, given the fact that we have an economy that’s struggling.” The two bills go hand-in-hand. ABx26 says redevelopment agencies can opt to discontinue redevelopment activities and be dissolved. ABx27 says that if redevelopment agencies pay a first-year lump sum paymen

Officials from the County Redevelopment Agency (www.shra.org) and developer BRIDGE Housing Corporation broke ground today on a new 138-unit apartment complex for low income seniors in the Old Foothill Farms community at 5400 Auburn Boulevard, the site of a former Kmart retail center. “I think this project is going to be a great synergy for the community and for this corner,” said Supervisor Susan Peters whose district includes the Old Foothill Farms community. The development is the first project that BRIDGE Housing will build in Sacramento. President and CEO Cynthia Parker says the apartments will be a catalyst for revitalizing the area. “This is a first step to attracting other develo

Construction has begun on Sacramento's newest single-resident occupancy building downtown. On Monday, a backhoe operator and other construction workers continued demolishing an old foundation at Seventh and H streets. The eight-story, 150-unit mid-rise being built there by Mercy Housing is the first new structure going up in the railyards redevelopment project area. Once completed, the $47.4 million affordable housing project, known simply as “Seventh & H,” will be one of the city's largest permanent supportive housing projects. Half of the units will be reserved for homeless or recently homeless people, and the rest is aimed at downtown workers making $20,000 to $25,000 a year. "Sevent

Close to 150 people braved the rain Saturday afternoon and came to the Hagginwood Community Center for the dedication of the Grantland Johnson Soccer Field. “It’s quite an honor, I must tell you,” said Grantland Johnson to the crowd crammed inside the lobby of the community center. A native resident of Sacramento’s Del Paso Heights neighborhood, Johnson graduated from Grant High School where he played for the Pacers football team. He received his B.A. Degree from Sacramento State in Government and later received honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from both Sacramento State and Golden Gate University. “I would not be the person I am today, had I not grown up in this great community of

City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy, along with the Hagginwood community, will be gathering Saturday in honor of a new soccer field recently constructed in Hagginwood Park. The soccer field will be named after Grantland Johnson, a former city councilman and county supervisor representing all of North Sacramento. “We’re expecting about 60-100 people will show up,” said Jim Cones, director for Sacramento’s Parks and Recreation Department. “Recently we had a grand opening of a park in North Sacramento, and there were several hundred people.” Cones said the plan to implement the soccer field came from a survey that was conducted in 2008. “Some of the parks in the city were not as safe as they s