Urban rail redevelopment may miss mark
By Dale EvansHonolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann's new land-use plans for Waipahu and other transit oriented developments (TODs) surrounding rail stations will designate nearly 200 private homes and businesses as "blighted areas."
Through eminent domain proceedings, private properties earned by hard work and sacrifice of their owners will be turned over to private developers.
Transit-oriented-developments have a dubious history. Expectations of increased property values in TODs are often disappointing.
Fruitvale Village outside of Oakland is one example that does not live up to its billing as a model of TOD success.
For over a decade, Portland's MAX stopped at a desolate Cascade Station amid vast empty acres. By 2007, city planners caved in to a big-box lease by IKEA and eliminated zoning restrictions on parking.
TODs cater to transient urban professionals, empty nesters, second-home and foreign buyers of pricey units. The absence of families with children in Portland's TODs is readily apparent.
Lagging occupancy in the gentrified TOD Pearl district prompted lavish $100,000 property tax exemptions per unit: $10,000 per year for 10 years. Three different developers went bankrupt by investing in The Round, another Portland TOD.
The following key findings on BART's effect on the San Francisco Bay Area were reported by UC-Berkeley urban planners John Landis and Robert Cervero.
- Contrary to expectations, population has grown faster away from BART than near it.
- From 1970 to 1990, job growth outside of San Francisco grew 85 percent in non-BART districts compared to 39 percent in the BART-served ones.
- After BART was completed, between 1970 and 1990, housing units within a quarter-mile of BART stations declined by nearly 4,000 additional units or roughly 11 percent. The number of housing units in non-BART-served cities grew by 20 percent.
- Property values and congestion levels near BART stations are generally too high and neighborhood services and amenities too low to attract single-family homebuilders.
- Few weekday BART riders actually shop near BART stations.
- One would expect to find higher rents for office space near BART stations. No such pattern is evident.
- Traffic congestion and motor vehicle usage has increased dramatically since 1970. As Cervero's team reported to the Transportation Research Board: "While the concepts of TOD and TJD enjoy broad appeal, in truth, the gulf between theory and practice remains large. To date, America's track record at implementing successful TODs has not been impressive."
California's Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform viii found that:
- "Redeveloped" cities produced huge debts and produced lower per capita income than in areas that did not have redevelopment agencies.
- In 1995, development agencies took 8% of total property taxes levied away from counties - away from covering the county's operational costs for police, fire, ambulance, civil defense, parks and other services.
- By 2040, TIF agencies are projected to take away 64% from county property taxes.
- Development agencies keep building up huge debts, creating new investment opportunities, to avoid sunsetting.
As Harvard economics professor Edward Glaeser explains, "Destroying lower quality, older homes means destroying affordable housing for the less fortunate. The impact of antipoverty spending may be to increase, rather than decrease urban poverty."
Eminent domain condemnations for urban redevelopment are the centerpiece of property rights cases nationwide (e.g. Kelo v. City of New London). Properties along Honolulu's rail route may be clouded for decades by potential condemnation, thus producing less property tax revenues than new, higher tax revenue-generating projects.
Oahu's people and businesses deserve to know the stakes, risks and liabilities of massive open-ended costs and subsidies for rail and TODs.
References
Honolulu's rail transit will remake Waipahu, Sean Hao, Honolulu Advertiser, 5/25/08
Rail transit unlikely to stimulate urban redevelopment, Samuel Staley and Wendell Cox, July 1, 2000
Round's problems continue sad history, Beaverton Times editorial, 8/2/07
Making Tenements Modern, Alan S. Oser, New York Times, 7/4/99
Born Again, Monica Collins, Boston Globe, 8/7/05
New Yorkers Without a Voice: the Tragedy of Urban Renewal, Arthur R. Simon, April 1966
Renewal of the West Side - A Slow-Moving Story, Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, 9/29/1982
Cracks Epidemic, News for NYC's Nonprofit, Policy and Activist World, City Limits, June/July 1998
A Thematic Chronology of Planning, American Planning Association
Best Laid Schemes - Glasgow Progress, 1978
YouTube video on Fruitvale Village & BART
FRUITVALE VILLAGE a TOD in Oakland
Given that Tri Met is now planning to spend more than $2 billion in public funds on three new light rail lines within the next decade, it's important to know if TOD is actually delivering on the promises of reduced auto dependency, decreased congestion and improved air quality.
The mythical world of transit-oriented development, John A. Charles, Oct 2001
The Life Of the City, Edward Glaeser, New York Sun, 5/14/08
Copyright ©2008 Hawaii Reporter. Published 06/03/2008.