The Delray CRA going forward
Act I of the drama between the Delray Beach City Commission and the Community Redevelopment Agency is over. Act II will—and should—come soon.
Three weeks ago, commissioners heard CRA Director Jeff Costello (above) present the agency’s proposed 2015-16 budget of $29 million. Many spending items and policy issues displeased them, and they let Costello know.
CRA board members—whom the commission appoints to set policy for the independent CRA—then harrumphed that the commission had some nerve to criticize the agency. Still, when the board approved the CRA’s budget last week, the agency had made some changes that aligned with the commission’s criticisms.
Although the city’s and CRA’s respective budgets are final, there will be no lull in the debate about what should happen with Delray Beach’s generally successful CRA. As with many issues in Delray and Boca, it’s a problem that other cities would love to have.
Community redevelopment agencies were created to help areas that cities had declared blighted. Boca created its CRA in 1980 to redevelop downtown. Delray’s dates back 30 years, to a Delray Beach that even those of us who have witnessed the transformation find hard to recall.
CRAs can allow cities to focus intensely on an area. As it improves, the increased tax revenue from rising property values stays within the CRA and thus within the targeted area. Imagine a business reinvesting profits in the business, and the concept makes sense.
In Delray Beach, however, the issue is whether the CRA should declare victory in some areas—notably East Atlantic Avenue—shift focus, and let some of that money go to the city for use outside the CRA boundaries.
The Delray Beach CRA comprises roughly 20 percent of the city. In the other 80 percent, which the general fund budget services, public works needs have gone unmet. New money from the thriving parts of Delray can’t go to the general fund budget. As Commissioner Shelly Petrolia told Costello during that Sept. 8 workshop, the city is “just trying to keep things going” while the CRA “seems to be looking for way to spend money”—$250,000 for a traffic signal—contemplating lots of “new stuff” for which the city will have to provide services.
One of the CRA’s key missions has been to assemble land and sell the sites, as the agency did for the iPic project and the Fairfield Inn, to name a couple of recent deals. Another CRA priority was the narrowing and beautification of Federal Highway downtown. Of course, the CRA also spent $1.2 million on those multi-colored artworks at Interstate 95 and West Atlantic Avenue that surely befuddle drivers entering Delray Beach for the first time.
The CRA is supposed to work in tandem with city government. Projects are supposed to complement the city’s master plan. For years, under directors Chris Brown and Diane Colonna, the CRA got relatively few tough questions from the commission, given the agency’s role. That has changed. Colonna took a new job last January, but my sense is that the criticism would have come anyway.
The word I hear commissioners use most often to describe their working relationship with the CRA is “disconnect.” Here are three current examples:
— Two years ago, the CRA chose iPic to develop the CRA-assembled downtown site of the former library and chamber of commerce. When the project got to the city for development approval, many questions arose. The commission finally approved the two conditional uses, but only after criticizing the CRA for not collaborating enough with city staff. The commission still must approve iPic’s new site plan, which the city hopes to get in mid-October.
— The CRA wanted to begin work in May on a major makeover of the Delray Beach Center for the Arts. Creation of Old School Square helped spark the city’s revival. When commissioners saw the plans, they were horrified. The facilitator for the meetings that led to the plans was Chris Brown, who now runs his own redevelopment company. Colonna works for him.
— Everyone agrees that Delray Beach needs to update its parking facilities and parking plan. The CRA had budgeted $400,000 toward implementation of the city’s 2010 parking plan. First, much has changed in five years. Second, as the commission noted, the CRA seemed “hell-bent”—to quote Mayor Cary Glickstein—on building a garage in the heart of downtown. Why not look a little farther away, the commission asked, so the garage doesn’t become part of the traffic problem by drawing people to the most congested part of the city? People can park and walk.
This new questioning of the CRA reflects the recent reordering in Delray Beach. Four of the five commissioners are new since March 2013. The city manager started in January. Planning and Zoning Director Tim Stillings, whose department works most closely with the CRA, has been on the job just since June.
Commissioner Mitch Katz told me Monday that it’s “hard to tell” if the exchanges this month will lead to a new relationship between the city and the CRA. “The main thing,” he said, “is that we need to stop talking about meeting, and meet.”
Costello agrees. On Monday, he said the two boards are working to arrange such a meeting “in the next couple of months.” The CRA, whose board meets tonight, is paying a consultant to analyze property tax values within its boundaries. Obviously, no meeting should take place before the report is ready. Costello hopes that the study will take about 60 days.
CRA board members may recoil at this new questioning, but they can’t blow it off. The commission doesn’t just appoint the CRA board. The commission could disband the CRA earlier than its current expiration date of 2045, and turn all services over to the city.
When this debate began, Commissioner Jordana Jarjura told me, “I’m surprised that some people were taken aback. We need to be asking things like, ‘What areas are still blighted? Do we need to move the boundaries or shift money? Have you accomplished your purpose, and is it time to move on?” Meanwhile, Jarjura said, the city’s capital improvement plan is for $132 million over 11 years. “We can’t even get to basic maintenance.”
As Katz points out, any discussion about boundary changes must involve Palm Beach County. Of that $29 million CRA budget, about $9 million comes from revenue that otherwise would go to the city and about $6 million comes from revenue that otherwise would go the county. Boundary changes could affect those numbers.
The CRA board met two days after the commission had grilled Costello. He made those “suggestions” about spending. Among other things, a silly $50,000 to explain those gateway artworks came out, though the $1.2 million for that arts center makeover stayed in. Costello did acknowledge, however, that the CRA had made “an error” in presenting its parking idea.
When that joint meeting happens, there will be much to discuss. Should the CRA spend nearly $3 million on a downtown “arts incubator?” How much should the CRA contribute to the city? Should both the city and the CRA contribute money to the supposedly independent library? There will be many more.
The CRA is a creation of the commission, not the other way around. The CRA is spending the city’s money, so the commission’s questions are not out of line. There is general agreement that the CRA has played a starring role in Delray’s success. The question is whether that role should change—and, if so, how.
About the Author
Randy Schultz was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1974. He has lived in South Florida since then, and in Boca Raton since 1985. Schultz spent nearly 40 years in daily journalism at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, most recently as editorial page editor at the Post. His wife, Shelley, is director of The Learning Network at Pine Crest School. His son, an attorney, and daughter-in-law and three grandchildren also live in Boca Raton. His daughter is a veterinarian who lives in Baltimore.
