pompano beach cra redevelopment failure

8/3/2019 Pompano Beach CRA Redevelopment Failure

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For Immediate ReleaseThe Pompano Beach CRA Sits on Illegally Seized Lands and Fails to Provide Real

Community Redevelopment

Pompano Beach, FL, October 10, 2011 The Pompano Beach Community RedevelopmentAgency still seems stymied about what to do with the vast amounts of prime real estate property they stolefrom residents over many years, and how to go about so called community redevelopment. An August 11thPompano Forum article by Rebecca Dellagloria reported that the Pompano Beach Community

Redevelopment Agency was hosting a panel of experts from the Urban Land Institute and developers torecommend development strategies for the Hammondville Road corridor within the citys northwestcommunity redevelopment area and would include a public session to afford the community a chance tospeak. Unfortunately for the public, the article released the same day as the beginning of the publicsession, affording residents little time to make themselves heard in this latest go around. This may be just

part of a larger problem, as according to many disenfranchised residents, no matter how many meetings areheld over the last decade, community redevelopment has been anything but, and has hurt rather than helpedthe community.

The Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency may still be haunted by the fact that ithad no authority to exist as an agency according to a 2007 Broward County Court ruling in the PompanoBeach Community Redevelopment Agency v. Derriek Phillips case, when it had been taking property long

before 2007 and even continues to do so since. In the ruling, Broward County Court Judge John T. Luzzowrites,

Broward County is a home rule charter county. Any community redevelopment powers notspecifically delegated by it to the City of Pompano Beach were reserved exclusively to thegoverning body of the county pursuant to section 163.410, Fla. Stats. (2005).

Broward County, by Resolution dated October 14, 1980 ... delegated certain powers pertaining tocommunity redevelopment to the City of Pompano Beach. This Resolution authorized the City ofPompano Beach to establish community redevelopment districtsand delegated to the City ofPompano Beach the power to condemn property for these districts. Broward County did not,however, authorize the City of Pompano Beach to further delegate these powers to a CommunityRedevelopment Agency. Specifically absent from Broward Countys delegation of authorityto the City of Pompano Beach was the authority to create a Community RedevelopmentAgency pursuant to section 163.356, Fla Stats (2005).

Now this idea of the Pompano Beach Commission having authority to delegate a community

redevelopment area, but not having the authority to create a community redevelopment agency, still seemsa bit confused within the Pompano Beach city limits. First case in point is the fact that there still exists aPompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency. How could that be after such a ruling where theagency was denied its petition to take Derriek Phillips property on the grounds that the Petition inEminent Domain was filed by a community redevelopment agency which was never specifically authorized

by Broward County and called jurisdictionally defective. How come the land seized by the unauthorizedAgency was not returned, and how could the agency not only continue to exist, but continue to take other

properties all the way into 2011? These questions remain unanswered in the minds of residents and thePompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency has not helped to clarify the issue.

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Hmmm, sound familiar? The problem is, according to Floridas eminent domain procedures, this plan wasalready supposed to be specified and in place, before private properties are taken. Going back to anotherinteresting part about that 2007 Derriek Phillips ruling is that it was found that the CRA would take

property under the auspices of providing affordable housing, but with no actual specific plans for how itwas going to accomplish that. The ruling states specifically, the CRA failed to prove with specificity that ithad a public purpose in redeveloping the area with affordable residences. The testimony at trial shows therewas no objective standard of what would be built on the subject property. Testimony further shows that all

of those issues would be addressed later which is insufficient as a matter of law for the taking of privateproperty.

So even now in 2011 the CRA just convened another meeting to determine what it should do withproperties taken years and years ago, when it should have already had plans in place long ago. In themeantime, where there once was no blight, and the objectives the community redevelopment agency nowclaims it desires to meet were already met, the Community Redevelopment Agency has in effect created

blight. So it seems the Urban Land Institute has been brought in to fix quite a mess and it remains unclearhow development on these lands can even proceed without legal repercussions from disenfranchisedresidents that had their properties taken by an unauthorized agency. Those named to attend theredevelopment meeting were Carla Coleman, executive director of the Urban Land Institute for SoutheastFlorida and the Caribbean, Neisen Kasdin, former mayor of Miami Beach and vice chairman of the MiamiDowntown Development Authority, Thomas R. Kohler, principal at RERC Strategic Advisors in Orlando,Bruce Terzsch, principal at RLC Architects at Boca Raton, Tony Tella, president of the Meranth Company

in Deerfield Beach, Suri Yaffar, principal of Zyscovich Architects in Miami, Douette Pryce, president ofPryce Resources in Sewalls Point, and Rafael Rodon, executive vice president of Flagler Development inCoral Gables.

For more information on Pompano Beach CRA Gate visit:

http://www.wojspubs.com

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pompano beach cra redevelopment failure

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