Sacramento Prioritizes Developers…Again
On December 3rd, 2024, the Sacramento City Council unanimously rejected a Community Benefits Agreement Ordinance.
What does that mean?
The creation of this ordinance was the result of a 2021 settlement from a lawsuit filed by Sacramento Investment Without Displacement (SIWD) over the Aggie Square development project. Legal action was taken by SIWD because of the project’s likelihood of speeding up gentrification and displacing residents in Oak Park (where the project is located) and surrounding neighborhoods.
Source: siwd.org
Aggie Square is to be located at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. The plan is to develop 20 acres of campus property into additional research facilities and mixed-use development for students and employees of UC Davis - Sacramento Investment Without Displacement
The Community Benefits Agreement Ordinance (CBAO) presented at the 12/3 meeting was developed in order to require certain conditions for developers when the City of Sacramento invests more than $10 million into a project. Essentially this means that every development project subject to the ordinance would have to abide by, and meet the requirements of, the community benefits agreements listed within the ordinance. SIWD called upon the city to amend the proposed CBAO to more directly prioritize the community. However, this was not without pushback.
What did SIWD say about the CBAO?
At the meeting it became clear that the conditions that did exist under the proposed CBAO were not very strict, and did not require developers to provide the guideline benefits that the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) prompts.
Tamika L’Ecluse, Vice President of SIWD, summarized the purpose of a strong CBAO by saying:
Those investments that the city is putting into that development need to go directly to the people who are impacted by them
The proposed ordinance did not ensure investment in community members impacted by development projects like Aggie Square.
Pictured above: Mock-up of Aggie Square
Source: siwd.org/siwd-projects
Long story short: the CBAO presented on December 3rd provided no incentive or mandate for developers to ensure that the investment from the public is going back into the community.
SIWD members attending the meeting named the components of a strong CBAO: certain minimum benefits, community engagement, as well as enforcement and community oversight. They accurately pointed out the lack of any of these components in the proposed ordinance. Kiara Reed, Chairperson at SIWD, emphasized that the proposed CBAO did absolutely nothing to protect the interests of long-term residents and small-businesses, and was not on the side of the community at all.
What you have before you is a benefits agreement ordinance, it’s not a community benefits agreement ordinance. And it’s not meant to benefit members of the community, so we will not stand behind it - Kiara Reed, chairperson at Sacramento Investment Without Displacement
Members of SIWD continued to question the lack of responsiveness to their hard work around this ordinance, and shared how they believe that community is being left out from the priorities of the CBAO.
More on the minimum benefits that would be offered in a strong CBAO:
Support in place to prioritize the livelihood and anti-displacement of residents within their neighborhoods
This would look like: affordable housing, transportation, workforce development, and small and local business protections
Community engagement is a crucial element - it is important that the community is able to directly contribute their ideas throughout the process of CBA negotiations, since they are the ones to be most affected by these decisions
Enforcement and community oversight is needed to ensure that these guidelines are being enforced, and the community should be the ones to hold their city and the developers accountable
Who was opposing SIWD?
Despite SIWD’s clear presentation of information and obvious emphasis on equity and justice for those who are at the highest risk of being displaced, almost no one at the council meeting seemed to agree with their position.
Public comment, mostly from business voices in the community, rejected any modifications to the CBAO that would make it more equitable and community-centered.
Most of the opposition from the business community focused on how a “one size fits all” approach would be damaging, and how CBAs should be created on a case by case basis (versus being mandated by an ordinance). However, this would clearly allow developers to escape any accountability to the community, despite their projects utilizing city funds for construction. It was a predictable response from those who don’t want to be obligated to serve the members of the community that will be harmed by their development projects.
Unsurprisingly, former Mayor Steinberg wasn’t supportive of SIWD either as he continued to tell their members that “trust goes both ways.” Thankfully, former Councilmember Valenzuela pointed out that a lot of groups do have good reason to be distrusting of the actions of their government, when they feel ignored or harmed by that government.
I just fundamentally don’t believe that the mechanism that is designed here and will work in good faith in the way staff says that it will -Katie Valenzuela
With two major opposing views in the room, everyone was able to agree that they did not want to move forward with the version of the ordinance presented that day. For most of the public commenters, this was because they rejected the implementation of a CBAO in the first place. For SIWD and former Councilmember Valenzuela, this was because they felt that the ordinance, as it was, did not do anything to tackle the problems that it was created to solve.
The Outcome
The CBAO was rejected unanimously by the Council - but for different reasons.
We don’t know when this item will be discussed again.
Note - Aggie Square developers now have a page tracking progress regarding the Aggie Square CBA. Keep in mind that it is essentially PR for them and does not provide a realistic look at the impact of the project.
