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Abstract
Problem: As community benefits agreements or community benefits arrangements (CBAs) become more common in redevelopment practice they are generating conceptual confusion and political controversy. Much of the literature on CBAs is focused on local organizing coalitions’ inclusivity and political strategies, or on the legal aspects of the agreements, providing only limited information to planners who encounter advocacy for CBAs.
Purpose: I aim to help planners prepare to deal appropriately with community benefits claims in their communities by closely examining four urban redevelopment projects in which CBAs have been negotiated by stakeholder organizations, legislators, developers, and government agencies.
Methods: I characterize the 27 CBAs in effect in the United States as of June 30, 2009, based on their participants and structures. I then examine four of these CBAs in detail using the semistructured interviews I conducted with individuals involved in crafting, advocating, and implementing them and coverage in major daily papers, alternative newsweeklies, blogs, and the business press.
Results and conclusions: The cases featured in this article suggest that four key factors influence the way CBAs work in practice and the extent to which they vindicate or refute the claims of CBA proponents and detractors: the robustness of the local development climate; the local politics of organized labor; the accountability of the community benefits coalition to affected community residents; and, most importantly, the role of local government in negotiation and implementation.
Takeaway for practice: Public sector actors, including elected officials and the staffs of redevelopment agencies, housing departments, workforce development agencies, parks and recreation departments, and budget departments become implicit parties to CBAs and often play significant roles in implementing them. Thus, public sector planners should carefully review and evaluate the implications of community benefits claims for local government's interests and goals. Depending on the circumstances, these evaluations may lead local officials to support community benefits arrangements or to oppose them.
Research support: This research was supported by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Wendy Fleischer, Brad Lander, five anonymous reviewers, and the many local officials, developers, and civic and community leaders who generously contributed toward the creation of this article.
Notes
1. In most states, local governments are prohibited by law from imposing conditions on development as a quid pro quo for permission to rezone, but they can influence private sector behavior through agreements involving the disposition of publicly owned land or the public subsidy of activity on private land.
2. In the Citation Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state could not condition a permit for a beach house on the creation of an easement by the property owner. Similarly, in the Citation Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994) decision, which involved a plumbing and electrical supply store in Tigard, OR, the Supreme Court limited planning agencies’ ability to compel property owners to make unrelated public improvements as conditions of permitting or zoning approvals. The cases established first, that an “essential nexus” (connection) must exist between a legitimate state interest and what government exacts in exchange for granting permission, and second, if the required nexus exists, the cases established that the exaction must be “roughly proportional” to the impact of the proposed development. Some scholars contend that these conditions have constrained planners looking for creative solutions to municipal land use conflicts, noting that “scholars of negotiation emphasize the importance of considering unrelated goods in formulating options for value-creating exchanges” (CitationRyan, 2002, p. 376).
3. Sources consulted for this case description include personal interviews, Meyerson (2006), CitationGross et al. (2005), CitationLeRoy and Purinton (2005), CitationLeavitt (2006), and CitationFleischer (2007), as well as contemporaneous coverage in the Los Angeles Times, The Daily News of Los Angeles, and by the City News Service and the Associated Press.
4. Sources consulted for this case description include personal interviews, CitationLeRoy and Purinton (2005), CitationCherokee Investment Partners LLC (2007), CitationCenter for Community Builders (2007), CitationFront Range Economic Strategy Center (2008a, Citation2008b), and contemporaneous coverage in the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Business Journal, Colorado Construction, and Westword.
5. Cherokee Investment Partners took the initial steps to implement the CBA in early 2006 when it hired a union contractor to manage the building of underground utilities, sidewalks, and transit infrastructure (Merritt, 2006).
6. Sources consulted for this case description include personal interviews, CitationLeRoy and Purinton (2005), and contemporaneous coverage in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The Business Journal of Milwaukee, The Daily Reporter, Small Business Times of Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin, and UrbanMilwaukee.com.
7. These were a $150 million plan for a residential hotel proposed by Gatehouse Capital dropped in January 2009, and a housing and office development pursued for a different parcel by RSC & Associates until being abandoned in July 2008.
8. Sources consulted for this case description include personal interviews, New York City Independent Budget Office (2007), Damiani, Markey, and Steinberg (2006, 2007), Hogi (2007) and contemporaneous coverage in City Limits Magazine, Crain's New York Business, Gothamist, Gotham Gazette, New York Daily News, NY Metro, New York Observer, New York Post, New York Sun, New York Times, and Streetsblog.
9. The plan, championed by Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion, included a hotel, retail hub, conference center, and high school for sports careers (Office of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, n.d.).
10. It became clear, for example, that the Yankees would be borrowing in the tax-exempt bond market to build the stadium, then repaying the debt with payments in lieu of taxes, causing the city to forego both property taxes and revenue it would have earned from taxable bonds.
11. The Department of Parks and Recreation is implementing the replacement parks plan, but this is separate from the CBA.
12. In an unpaid consulting role with the Pratt Center for Community Development, I helped advise New York City's Economic Development Corporation and Department of Small Business Services on the structure of this mechanism.
13. In Los Angeles, the CRA administrator and commissioners are known for measures that raise living standards among traditionally marginalized populations even as they promote redevelopment and business growth. The founding executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Madeline Janis, was appointed as a volunteer commissioner of the CRA by Mayor James Hahn in 2002.