A. Unique Constraints to Development. The City of Signal Hill has found that it's redevelopment program has been essential to transforming Signal Hill from one dominated by vacant, blighted land scarred by 80 years of oilfield production and which is still the second most productive in the state, to a vibrant community with all ingredients necessary to provide a high quality living environment. Signal Hill has had to overcome many obstacles including: (i) being a low property tax city with it's property taxes reallocated to other agencies; (ii) undeveloped infrastructure due to the majority of the city being devoted to oilfield rather than urban uses; (iii) the existence of 2,200 wells, the majority of which were abandoned under historic practices no longer permitted, which can require excessive costs to be reabandoned to current standards, and the presence of other oilfield pipelines, tanks and facilities which must be removed for development, or are active facilities and must be incorporated into any development plan; (iv) the existence of oilfield-related contamination requiring significant remediation costs under current environmental standards; (v) complex issues of site assemblage due to small town lots created in the early development of the city and the sale of fractional interests in the lots to allow sales of oilfield interests throughout the United States in the 1920s now requiring the exercise of condemnation to reconsolidate the fractioned property interests; (vi) the existence of a large number of faults and geological conditions related to the hill which further constrain development and limit the developable acreage.
B. Accomplishments of Redevelopment Program. Since the formation of the Redevelopment Agency, the city has spent over fifteen million dollars in environmental remediation and cleanup costs; has spent over thirty million dollars in building various public buildings and improvements; has created some two thousand, five hundred jobs in businesses developed on SHRA projects; and has brought half of the twenty-five biggest sales tax generators to the community, who collectively pay over five million dollars in sales taxes, or sixty percent of the city's sales taxes, where sales taxes are approximately sixty percent of the city's general fund budget.
C. Remaining Property Needs Continued Redevelopment. If most of the property in Signal Hill which needed redevelopment had been redeveloped, or if the remaining blighted property did not face the same constraints as the property the SHRA has redeveloped over the last thirty-five years, then the elimination of the redevelopment agency by the State of California by AB1x26 would not be contrary to the general welfare of the citizens of Signal Hill. But in many cases, some of the most constrained parcels in the city are still the ones most in need of redevelopment assistance. The Legislature in acting quickly in a statewide manner could not appreciate the impact of AB1x26 in a small community specially impacted by oilfield blight such as Signal Hill.
D. Need for Local Economic Development Program. In the face of the state's decision to eliminate redevelopment, the City of Signal Hill must design and implement a local program within the authority of its powers under the charter to accomplish the purposes previously served by the city's redevelopment program. It is therefore the purpose of this chapter to implement a program within the authority of the city under its charter and the powers granted to the city by law.
(Ord. 2012-04-1446 § 2, 2012)