After months of serving as the ripest of targets for budget-cutting state officials, L.A.’s redevelopment agency turns out to be not so dead after all.
That news became official on Wednesday, when the Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of an urgency ordinance that keeps its redevelopment agency alive and intact -- by moving roughly $97 million in redevelopment funds to Los Angeles County.
Had the Community Redevelopment Agency refused to send that sum, it would likely have been forced to go out of business, under the terms of a budget deal approved nearly two months ago between Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature. Brown had repeatedly called for the outright elimination of redevelopment agencies.
Under a compromise, redevelopment agencies across the state can stay put in if they turn over $1.7 billion to other agencies this year and more money in future years. Even with those reductions, Los Angeles’ redevelopment agency will have $1 billion to spend between now and 2016 on a list of projects that was hurriedly compiled to keep the money out of state hands.
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