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I want to take a moment and follow up on my two previous blog posts (here and here), which examined the potential closure of all 425 redevelopment agencies in California. The idea was pitched by retread Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month as a cost cutting tactic to .

When I first started looking into this issue I noted a bunch of correlations between the situation in California and how it could repeat itself here in Oregon. Oregon has a comparable per capita debt, there’s a growing lobbyist core for special taxing districts against urban renewal in Oregon and there’s lots of citizens who distrust urban renewal and tax increment financing.

I will admit that the idea of Oregon losing all of its redevelopment agencies, like the Portland Development Commission here in the city, is hard to believe. But as I’ve started to look into the idea more, it definitely feels like Oregon is somewhat heading in that direction.

First is this by longtime guest columnist and Southwest Portland resident Jill Warren. Most notably Warren calls out the long anticipated project, a sustainable office tower in Northwest Portland that has been proposed for over a decade but still sits as a vacant lot. The PDC has invested more than $1.2 million in the project to help get it off the ground.

While I don’t agree with the entire column – most notably that only rich people are benefiting (sometimes the case, but not always) and that Portland doesn’t have a good enough public process (I mean, really?) – but she really hits her point home when she said:

“Here’s my problem: taxes in Multnomah County are too high. People grumble about this all the time. The PDC has the power to pledge tax dollars however it sees fit. It’s easy to lose someone else’s money.

I’m suspicious of any project that’s reliant on subsidies to exist. Development should pay for itself. Tax abatements and cash infusions from the public are out of control and should be reigned in. It’s a drain on public coffers.”

There is an inherent flaw in how urban renewal and tax increment financing is used these days: it lends a financial hand to projects that wouldn’t be able to go forward or survive without the subsidy in a normal free market, capitalist society. This is why there are still so many failed redevelopment projects: a bad project is still a bad project no matter if it gets public training wheels.

So, the public distrust for urban renewal is there, as it always has been, and it’s growing.

But in addition to public dissatisfaction, public entities that lose operating funds because of urban renewal and politicians are also getting more vocal and brash about their opposition to it.

Both the Clackamas Fire District #1 and Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue last year adopted inter organizational policies about when to support or denounce an urban renewal area within their respective regions.

Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen also sounded off against a new downtown Portland urban renewal area last October, which eventually led to Mayor Sam Adams deciding to suspend the process of developing the urban renewal area.

In an email between Cogen and PDC staffer Peter Englander, Cogen wrote:

“(Discussing the new URA) is important now because we have to remember that we’re facing a $3 billion shortfall here in Oregon. We need to see where things are with the state budget before we start freezing property taxes in specified areas.”

And while the thought of eliminating the PDC, and other redevelopment agencies like it, seems far fetched, there is .

These potential legal changes include permitting school construction and fire vehicle replacement with urban renewal funds, which would help two of the public services that are financially affected by urban renewal. Other legislation would give taxing districts affected by urban renewal a process to be removed from the plan and receive full property tax allotment. And the most drastic idea is requiring a citizens’ vote of approval on new urban renewal plans or amendments to existing ones.

The PDC and urban renewal across the state may not die, but I am pretty confident that things are going to change. And when they do, Oregon will be one of the first places to find out if urban renewal is a helping hand or an expensive illusion.