Economic Development, Low Income Housing and Elections

Business failures too many to mention, chronic commercial vacancies, home and business property foreclosures everywhere you look. Drive around town and that’s what you’ll see, if you’re looking. Yes, there is the slower economy, but it’s a fact our local retail economy has been in serious decline since before the end of the home building boom in 2007. Yes, there has been some new commercial development in the past decade, but no economic growth in retail and with all the private home rentals, the lodging sector is a mess. There is unlimited potential for improvement of our tourism based local economy.

The success of our community is measurable by the quality of life we can offer residents and the vitality of our local businesses, the level of permanent, year-round employment in good pay jobs and the level of income local employment provides. Whether you’re a skilled tradesman, line cook, hospitality worker, day care giver, mechanic, shop keeper or accountant, we are all connected to and reliant on our local economy.

I applaud the City Council for recent action through the City’s Redevelopment Agency implementing our Façade and Sign Improvement Program. The Program grants Redevelopment Agency funds for qualifying Commercial Property Improvements. This is long overdue and is a good example of the things we can do and are at long last, getting done. Spending some of the millions of dollars in our Redevelopment Agency Fund incentivizing property owners to update storefronts is one reason the taxpayers voted to form the agency more than 20 years ago. However, this and the other programs recently put into place to aid small business will not by themselves bring about a more robust local economy. Our redevelopment goals need to be part of a greater economic development plan. We can improve our economic reality in a meaningful way, and maintain our environment and lifestyle standards, for the long term.

Absence of a clear vision for the future and the lack of community economic development goals allow us to be endlessly engaged in every issue that would be addressed in a good plan. Hopefully, a good plan and excellent communication would minimize the endless debates or at least make some development less contentious. The absence of a plan allows us to become engaged to distraction with hot-button issues like low income housing, private home rentals, and other development and quality of life issues instead of focusing on needed improvements and meeting goals that would benefit the entire community.

Economic development will require focus. Results will mean meeting clear goals we set for underpinning a vibrant small business community, creating good pay jobs for those struggling to provide for families, and creating opportunity for our young people that will allow them to contribute and earn a good living in the community they grew up in. This plan needs to reflect our local values and should be crafted by those with concerns and experience in business, finance and the environment. A citizen led plan, not one stamped out by bureaucrats and administrators.

A comprehensive plan for the future is the key to any real success. Our plan needs to be led by economic development goals, dovetailed with our environmental needs, aesthetic and lifestyle values and governed by our available resources and ultimate capacity.

To force low income housing development in advance of a comprehensive plan that includes clear goals for economic development seems to me a mistake and a symptom of our failure to adequately plan. This can be corrected.

Continued piecemeal rezoning and placement of low income housing to meet State housing law in lieu of fitting housing into a well thought out master plan will be detrimental to our future success. Big Bear Lake has very limited and finite land available for critical uses. Low income housing is just one need. No rezoning of commercial land should be considered without equal rezoning to replace the commercial zoned inventory.
Before the City Council election in November I would like to hear clearly, from each candidate, that they have the ability and the will to state and uphold a policy that favors the community by committing to economic development. I believe most all folks will be able to understand the need to plan our future. The City Council can put economic development and comprehensive planning for the future on the fast track, and empower our citizens to take part in their own futures with the establishment of an Economic Development Commission made up of non-elected individuals that don’t serve on other commissions or agencies.

September 22 IA Meeting: Will the City Council Sell the Village?

On September 22. 2009 at 8:30 AM at the Northwoods Resort, the Big Bear Lake Improvement Agency and the Planning Commission will be presented 9 more Low Income Housing Developments proposed by prospective development partners. In the Meeting Agenda dated 9/15/09, the Improvement Agency states it has determined where to get the best advise on where, Low Income Housing (LIH) is constructed in our city. That advise, and proposals will be heard from the developers who will ultimately profit from the federal and city funds, tax deferments and tax credits sold off to large financial institutions for construction funds.


http://www.citybigbearlake.com/documents/IAagenda092209.pdf


I have asked around, and to date, have yet to hear of any public involvement by any citizen from any of our many neighborhoods, business groups or organizations in determining where LIH might work in our city. Apparently we are asking developers where they would like to build. While we have a zoning map, it is clear the IA will implement re-zoning to meet a quota instead working to a plan that would make best use of our limited resources, and community infrastructure.

The pitfall of this latest city agenda is that there is no plan and any decisions we make approving these Low Income Housing Projects (LIHP's) will forever limit our ability to successfully craft a plan that meets even the basic guidelines and recommendations set forth in our General Plan of 1999.



As the IA has already committed it's entire 5.2 million set aside for Low Income Housing, (Knickerbocker Rd., The Crossings) the question is, where will the "funds available" advertised to the LIH development industry come from. The answer is that the IA will borrow against our future property taxes in order to make contributions equal to the Knickerbocker Development to quickly meet State mandates. All this before any City Master Development Plan can be formed with public involvement, to hell with the outcome. Big Bear Lake residents and businesses will be paying for these developments long after the City Council accountable for poor planning decisions and our top city administrators move on to greener pastures.


The threat to the Village is real with high density low income housing being proposed that would dominate the landscape and forever limit the growth of our Village Marketplace. The re-zoning and dumping hundreds of residential Low Income Housing units in the Village is poor planning on any level. The City's facilitating of these proposals is extremely risky and threatens the vitality of our retail economy. I truly regret that the city took this approach in an effort to meet current LIH quotas after 25 years of letting time pass without planning for this day.

Adding millions of dollars of debt to existing IA liabilities (that must be paid back by the year 2036) should be looked at very closely and perhaps by an independent firm, with new citizen-led oversight.

VBA Squares off Against City of Big Bear Lake over More Low Income Housing

In the September 2009 VBA Voice, President Charlie Brewster, in his Presidents Message, expresses his frustration with the lack of progress and the years of pleading with the City regarding improvements in Landscape and Lighting, Parking and Better Pedestrian Connections from the Village to the Lake. Earlier this summer, Village Merchants were awakened during their busiest season to learn a 42 unit government subsidized rental project was being approved that would create a hard boarder for future development of the Village on Knickerbocker at Pennsylvania, adjacent to the Elementary School, just as the large senior housing complex (owned by City Councilor Bill Jahn) has done on the South of the Village.

It seemed to me that at the Public Meetings regarding the hastily approved Knickerbocker Low Income Rental Complex, Residents, Merchants and the City Council (who unanimously approved the project despite pleas by Village Merchants to reconsider the location of the apartments as less than optimal for residents and the vitality of our Retail District) were assured by the Redevelopment Agency Director, that any more low income projects would be made widely know to all and certainly not be clustered in the Village area.


Apparently, the City does not consider the property on Badger and Bartlett (in the Village Specific Plan District) currently zoned Village Retail (the most restrictive zoning intentionally set aside for future retail expansion) to be worthy of mentioning to anybody, even as late as the first public workshop to update the current Village Specific Plan on August 31, 2009, that it is in the planning process for yet more subsidised housing.


As Verizon has already initiated splitting the parcel that they currently occupy, and have the property on Bartlett and on Badger in escrow pending approval of this new low income project, I assume promises have been made to the developer and Verizon as to the outcome of this latest stab by the City, to re-designate the vision and current use of Village property by the City's Redevelopment Agency and City Council.

In his message, Mr. Brewster urges all property owners and businesses to have their opinion heard by filling out his attached petition and making sure it is recognized by the City Council.

VBA Voice: http://tinyurl.com/nld932

More Affordable Housing on Pine Knot Ave.

A proposed 32 unit affordable housing complex on Pine Knot is marching forward. This development would take up prime (and very limited) land that would be better used for resort oriented development. This would make 2 affordable developments on upper Pine Knot and 1 proposed on Knickerbocker at Pennsylvania.

Upscale hotels, hi-quality restaurants and mixed use retail/office/residential development is what will allow us to compete in the regional retail marketplace for lost retail revenues and create good pay jobs for locals. This will take vision, and an updating of the development code and Village Specific Plan. Also needed is a change in policy and planning (or lack of planning) standards and an end to short sighted profiteering and the continuation of over-building our glutted residential sector. Only 30% of City Residential Dwellings are occupied full time. Nearly 80% of all DWP bills are sent out as ZERO water use. The cost of maintaining our utility infrastructure is unfairly divided among the 30% of occupied dwellings.

The City's Mayor Pro Tem, is the developer and operator of the existing affordable rental complex on Pine Knot Ave. He and his fellow council members, apparently want to concentrate the City's proposed affordable housing to constrict growth of City's Retail shopping district using our property tax dollars to subsidize the higher vacant land prices in and near the Village to create profit for low income real estate developers who don't give a hoot about our community. All in the name of meeting State mandated use of Improvement Agency funds set aside for this type of project. Only current City Council members sit on the Improvement Agency Board and alone, decide where city property tax dollars allocated to our Improvement Agency will be spent.

On March 9, 2009 the City Council voted to go forward with letters of support for the project and seek not only City Improvement Agency funds, but also other County funds for the Pacific Companies, an Out of State developer. Mayor Pro Tem Jahn may be no stranger to the Pacific Companies, as Pacific Company's home base is Idaho, with one Pacific development just down the road from Jahn's (Tetonia, Idaho) subdivision ( http://packsaddleproperties.com/). Jahn is the managing partner for packsaddle, along with Brent Tragaskis, who works for Big Bear Mountain Resorts and Big Bear Lake Planning Commissioner Craig Smith, who's wife is in charge of Big Bear Lake City Finances.

The concentration of this type of use (medium density affordable housing) will forever define and only further diminish the Village and Big Bear Lake of the ability to grow and prosper and create long term opportunity for small businesses, good pay jobs for locals and increase our standing in the regional resort field.