California housing officials on Dec. 8 rebuked Anaheim’s plan to sell Angel Stadium and surrounding 150 acres at a bargain price to a private development group led by Los Angeles Angels’ owner Arte Moreno. The city contests their ruling that the deal violates a state housing law, but this offers a welcome opportunity to revisit a land deal that’s been mired in secrecy and cronyism.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development says the sale violates the Surplus Land Act, which requires affordable-housing developers to have chance to bid on surplus property. The agency argues that the city never declared the property as surplus land – and that its plan to locate lower-income units off site violates the law.
Anaheim argues the property isn’t “surplus” because the city had already entered an exclusive negotiating agreement before the deadline. The department’s deputy director Megan Kirkeby was incredulous. “The idea that you would have an exclusive negotiating agreement with an entity that didn’t exist at that time was a bridge too far for us,” she told the Register.
The city faces fines of $96 million fine, which would consume most of the sale proceeds. This is the latest complication from the city’s insistence on selling prime, entitled property for $150 million – at a fraction of its market value. This was part of its bid to keep the Angels in the city.
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The People’s Homeless Task Force in February filed a lawsuit correctly claiming that, “the decision to sell the property was made entirely outside of public view.” Anaheim concocted the deal without issuing a public Request for Proposal. It announced the sale right before Christmas and allowed no public comments. The courts rebuked city officials for providing only the sparsest details.
Had Anaheim handled negotiations openly, it could have addressed its approach to state housing rules and avoided the current impasse. This Editorial Board argued that the courts should invalidate the deal because it appears to run counter to open-meetings laws. It now runs counter to state housing laws, so it’s time to start the process over.