By:JOSEPH KELLARD
Taking another step toward making the Superblock site a reality, the city council and Philips International, the corporation selected to develop the site, are currently in the process of finalizing the terms of a contract for its purchase and sale.
We are now in the final stage of negotiations, said City Manager Ed Eaton. Initially, the developer put a non-refundable down payment of $300,000 on the property. Now, we are entering a more formal contract, with more precise terms. The terms of the contract are to be revealed after the contract has been signed.
At the Aug. 21 City Council meeting, residents questioned why the terms of the contract will be kept behind closed doors.
You really can't negotiate these things in a public forum, Eaton said. We are going to do our best to protect the taxpayer in this negotiation. We think we will do what needs to be done. We're not babes in the wood on these issues, and we've hired expert counsel on real estate.
Among the key issues of the negotiations will be the time frame within which the project will be built and its cost.
If we enter a contract with the developer, we want to know that he will not sit on it for five years, but instead that he will develop it as soon as possible. Conversely, since he will be putting down a substantial downpayment, he wants to make sure we cede the property to him on a timely basis as well.
The Superblock property is divided up into parcels that are each privately owned. The city designated the property as appropriate for urban renewal and has used its power of eminent domain to purchase the property.
At the meeting, community activist Mark Jackson asked whether the city has considered a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on eminent domain, whereby it prohibits cases where property from one owner is given to another owner for the second owner to profit from.
Eaton said that the city had considered this ruling and that it does not apply in all cases.
Courts have long deferred to municipal judgment in matters pertaining to governments taking private property under eminent domain for public use. Increasingly, city governments have used this power to transfer property from one business to another, typically for redevelopment. In over a half-dozen recent rulings in cases nationwide, however, state and federal courts have inspected more closely what exactly constitutes a public use, and they've begun to set new restrictions on this power held by cities. In some cases, the courts felt that the power of eminent domain was virtually being handed over to the private sector.
With eminent domain, you don't just take people's property, Eaton said. You have to give them the appraised value of the property. We'll have our own appraisers and the owners of the property will have theirs. But whatever the ultimate cost will be, the city will have enough money that the developer will pay the total cost of acquisition of the property.
At the meeting, Eaton addressed another issue that has been raised in opposition to the Superblock: the overdevelopment of Long Beach.
There are less multiple housing developments today then there were in 1980, he stated. In the early years, when I first started, we demolished a lot of multiple dwellings. Since January 1, 1980 a total of 1,805 dwellings were destroyed. In that same period of time, the total dwellings from development has been 1,520, and that includes the future developments of the Bay Club by New York Avenue and the White Sands by the concession stands along the boardwalk.
Some residents have raised the issue of developing a park on the Superblock site, but Eaton has repeatedly struck down the idea.
If you want a park, that's going to cost more money. The issue here is dollars and cents. The city doesn't own that property, but the city would have to build it and maintain it, and that means the taxpayers. I think we have the best park already with the beach and the Boardwalk.
