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October 4, 2006
"Blighted" California
Castle Watch
The reason given by the City of Santa Rosa for seizing property from thriving businesses will sound familiar to those who are following the Atlantic Yards controversy (emphasis added):
Just 50 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, Santa Rosa, Calif., a big city with a small-town feel, has sat quietly for generations, as family businesses have grown and people have found homes to call their own. The mostly industrial area of Santa Rosa Avenue has been a haven for business owners, who own everything from car repair shops to painting businesses.
“There is no good reason to make tax-paying people move off their properties,” said Casey Cambra, an activist who wants to stop the City Council and the Gateways Project in its tracks. He added, “They can’t just kick people out.”
But that haven may soon be lost—despite the opposition of the property owners—to the all-encompassing “Gateways Redevelopment Project.” With that project the City of Santa Rosa plans to displace thriving local businesses in order to turn the land over to private developers, who want to build a shopping mall and a parking garage.[1] Worse, the City justifies this scheme using an increasingly common excuse: using the façade of creating “low income housing,” when the real goal is luxury development and higher tax revenue.
Posted by lumi at October 4, 2006 7:58 AM