Sunday, September 15, 2013

THEY want you on the grid, enslaved in urban blight drug cities, that can be effectively controlled with mass surveillance...that's Agenda 21

SmartGrowth is the vision of UN Agenda 21 and is the preferred construction style for Redevelopment. By moving people from their small suburban homes to high rise apartments

NEXUS BETWEEN REDEVELOPMENT AND UNITED NATIONS AGENDA 21 NOTE: Redevelopment is also referred to as Urban Renewal, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), and Revitalization

As you know, a municipality’s General Plan (Comprehensive Plan) takes precedence over zoning. Redevelopment areas are routinely re-General Planned for high density urban development/mixed use and transit oriented development (TOD). These areas are often covered by Form-Based Zoning requirements that dictate the design of the buildings of the future (must be three stories with ground floor retail and two floors of residential above, built to the edge of the sidewalk with parking accessed through alley; one car/unit.) This is the preferred development style for UN Agenda 21. It also damages the property rights of the existing property owner, because seldom is the existing building constructed in this way. That means that the existing use is legal non-conforming. Under Redevelopment Law (Health and Safety Code ss 33000) non-conforming properties are blight. Therefore property in a Redevelopment Area is vulnerable to eminent domain abuse.

Redevelopment gives a municipality the right to take under eminent domain for a minimum of 12 years. The municipality can extend merely by voting itself an extension at the end of 12 years; saying that there is ‘still blight.’ Uncertainty regarding potential long term use is damaging to a property owner, creates financial stress, and discourages investment. This condition results in an exacerbation of or a creation of blight. Therefore a condition that should be alleviated by Redevelopment is instead used to create blight and this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. A deteriorating area is ripe for UN Agenda 21 because it can be demolished with less cost to the municipality, and re-designed as SmartGrowth.

SmartGrowth is the vision of UN Agenda 21 and is the preferred construction style for Redevelopment. By moving people from their small suburban homes to high rise apartments they will presumably be using less energy. Condominium and apartment living are supposed to encourage community but instead place stresses on those not accustomed to urban life. More services are required for these areas but because they are in Redevelopment areas only a small portion of the property taxes go to the General Fund. That means that less services are available. Less available services leads to reduced property values which then becomes a cycle. This is a goal of UN Agenda 21.

In redevelopment consultants’ reports justifying blight, one of the factors contributing to ‘blight’—a legal term—is ‘too many local businesses.’ This means that corporate business/national retailers will have a clear path to move into an area and dominate it. This is a goal of UN Agenda 21: less independence.

Although redeveloped areas may look nice in the beginning, they will be funneling the property taxes above a base year into the pockets of bond brokers for 30-45 years. When these properties travel through the cycle of economic life and arrive at a decline in 20-25 years there will be no money available to redevelop them at that time. Money that would have been available through the General Fund will not be there. Police and Fire will not be funded. Parks and roads will not be funded. Hospitals and schools will not be funded. This is a goal of UN Agenda 21: a collapse of the affluent lifestyle of Americans.

When SmartGrowth buildings are new the property owners (for-profit owners) will expect high lease rates for the ground floor commercial space. This space is often empty for years because it is poorly configured and too expensive. SmartGrowth design often creates commercial bays that are unsuitable for small local businesses because they contain more space than small businesses can afford. Maximum glass line space (retail with lots of windows) is expensive to maintain and insure and the new property owner will expect to get a much higher lease rate than that local business person was paying before (in the older pre-redevelopment building.) This is a casualty of UN Agenda 21 and creates job loss and dependence on government subsidies. Public private partnerships—a mainstay of Redevelopment and a cornerstone of UN Agenda 21—take advantage of the vulnerability of financially strapped government by partnering it with corporate interests. Often large companies wish to benefit from government money and regulations, and there will be a cross benefit to government officials transitioning to private industry. Small business and property owners who don’t have a ‘track-record’ constructing SmartGrowth will lose out to corporate players through the inability to qualify for loans. SmartGrowth itself requires government subsidies because it doesn’t ‘pencil out.’ This is a factor in UN Agenda 21 because it encourages and increases government dependence on corporate money and decreases private property ownership.

Private property rights suffer with redevelopment and UN Agenda 21 because there is no level playing field with some insiders receiving government subsidies while the small owners and businesses are labeled blighted and removed or starved out. Corporate interests are allowed to dominate since they are a safe bet for local redevelopment agencies that can’t afford to allow the area to develop organically—it won’t produce the tax revenue needed to pay off bond brokers. UN Agenda 21 benefits a few big investors while serving as a green smokescreen.

Here's the latest in California: Senate Bill 1156 sponsored by Darrell Steinberg (author of SB 375 the anti-sprawl bill). This quote from Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters lays it out: Senate Bill 1156 would allow cities and counties, separately or together, to create “Sustainable Communities Investment Authorities” with the powers of the old redevelopment agencies. They could issue bonds, divert some property taxes and acquire property — seizing it by eminent domain, if necessary — as long as projects furthered the dense, transit-oriented, greenhouse gas-reducing development that a previous Steinberg bill mandates. Steinberg said, via letter, that the bill “sets forth a new vision of local economic development and housing policy for the 21st century, focused on building sustainable communities and creating the high-skill, high-wage jobs that are the key to our future prosperity.” He also expressed hope that cities and counties, which battle over tax diversions, would cooperate “in furtherance of sustainable economic development.” A worrisome provision of SB 1156 is that the new entities would not have to prove blight before creating projects, thus expanding their scope and potential for crony capitalism. Redevelopment is dead. Long live Redevelopment.

http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/redevelopment-and-un-agenda-21.html