Vista Blames One Man for Stymied Redevelopment : Lloyd Von Haden Is Proud to Be a Thorn in City Council’s Side

Lloyd Von Haden hasn’t served on the Vista City Council since 1986, but there are a lot of people in the city who still think he runs the place--or, conversely, that he single-handedly is not allowing the city to run.

Von Haden, 75, is best known for his maverick eight years on the council, when he was typically the lone voice to stop growth in the burgeoning area. His adversaries on the council conceded that he was, at times, indisputably the most popular single person in town. Yet he found himself doing battle on a council whose majority was wooing development to Vista over his articulate and passionate objections.

Von Haden ran for mayor in 1986 and lost to fellow council member Mike Flick. Von Haden retired from City Hall, but not from meddling and sticking his nose into wherever his conscience chose to put it.

Literally a Tie Vote

Today, city officials say they could be well on their way to a redeveloped city--with wider streets, new bridges, better flood control and new commercial growth--if not for Von Haden.

At issue is a conceptual redevelopment plan that was put to voters in 1986 and which ended up literally as a tie vote until a judge intervened and ruled that several contested ballots should be counted in favor of the redevelopment plan.

A year later, the City Council asked voters to endorse the boundaries of the redevelopment plan, who, in a dismal 17% turnout, supported it 2 to 1.

But Von Haden still didn’t fall in line. He went to court to challenge the legality of the plan--and it’s been tied up in court ever since, bringing the city to a standstill in pursuing its goal. So, while millions of dollars in revenue have been building up in an escrow account to finance city improvements, not a single surveyor’s stake has been hammered in the ground. And that’s fine with Von Haden.

“It’s very frustrating to think that we could be two years into taking care of some of the most serious problems in our community, if one person would just step aside and let us,” said Mayor Gloria McClellan.

But Von Haden doesn’t figure on stepping aside--”I don’t ever intend to stop,” he says--and he claims he has more support in town than the council would care to admit.

His philosophy is basic if debatable:

- Redevelopment--with the improvements it will bring in widened streets, improved flood control and other public works--will encourage still more growth in Vista.

- Redevelopment is a euphemism for using public tax dollars to make improvements that should be paid for by private developers. If they want the city improved so they and others can work here, then let them pay for it, not the taxpayers, he argues.

- The four areas targeted by the city for redevelopment, Von Haden says, are not blighted as defined by state redevelopment laws. All the city is trying to do, he says, is attract new development in the city, not cure blight.

- The redevelopment plan is not economically feasible. Once the city gets in the redevelopment business, it will enter a vicious cycle in which it will continue to need new money to pay for its projects.

Thus, working at his kitchen table in his modest, hilltop home, Von Haden--a musician by profession--bangs out legal briefs and arguments like some attorney.

“For not being one, I’ve gotten pretty far up in the legal system, haven’t I?” he smiles, pleased by his courtroom successes to date.

Concept Is Simple

On every count of Von Haden’s lawsuits, city officials disagree, and they point to cities throughout California that have reversed urban woes through the bureaucratic magic of redevelopment agencies.

The redevelopment concept is simple: If an area is blighted--and there are specific definitions of blight, ranging from property values to social ills--voters can be asked to target it for redevelopment.

If that is done, the property tax base of the area is “frozen,” meaning the county, the school district and the other public agencies receiving tax revenue from that property receive no additional income as the property value increases. Instead, as the value increases, even if just as a function of inflation, that additional property tax revenue--called tax increments--is earmarked for the redevelopment agency, to be used to fund the various public improvements considered necessary to reverse the blight.

As redevelopment occurs and the land becomes more valuable, that further increases the flow of tax increments back to the agency for still more improvements. For a quick cash influx to begin the work, bonds may be sold for instant working capital, and are repaid over the years with the tax increment revenue.

Meanwhile, the redevelopment agency usually makes some deal with the other taxing agencies--the schools, the county and the like--to share some of the redevelopment revenue so those agencies don’t continue to suffer under the frozen tax base.

In Vista, four areas were targeted for redevelopment. One is in the aged downtown area, which is in serious need of cosmetic surgery; another is along north and south Santa Fe Avenue, an area in need of a commercial shot in the arm as well as widening.

Car Dealers Sought

A third area is just east of National University, near California 78--an area that is generally undeveloped, has some serious drainage problems and is eyed by the city for public improvements with the hope of attracting car dealers.

The fourth area is on the south end of Sycamore Avenue on the east side of town, which is being developed as an industrial park but which needs a variety of public improvements for access and services to the neighborhood.

The latter two areas are especially important to the redevelopment scenario because they are expected to contribute more tax increment revenue than the downtown and Santa Fe Avenue areas. Escondido used that same logic several years ago, when it included the mammoth North County Fair regional shopping mall within the boundaries of a blighted area so it could tap the tax wealth generated by the shopping center to help finance improvements elsewhere.

Combined, the Vista redevelopment areas total 2,000 acres, or about 17% of the city, which is 18 square miles in size.

The areas were selected on the advice of a 32-member citizens advisory council that literally drove around town in teams of three and four to identify what parts of the city needed attention.

“No single-family residential areas were included in the plan, and there were other areas that I thought would have been included because they were contiguous to the selected areas, but the advisory council was conservative and didn’t want to include more area than necessary,” said Bob Campbell, who chaired the committee and was later hired by the city to serve as its redevelopment director.

State Law Allows Challenge

In September, 1987, the property tax base of the four redevelopment areas was frozen. By last September, the property value of the area had increased 31%--additional revenue that was earmarked to help finance the redevelopment. Ultimately, the city hopes to generate $600 million in tax increments over the 40-year life span of the redevelopment plan.

But Von Haden put at least a temporary stop to it.

He filed suit in Superior Court, as permitted by state law that allows citizens within 60 days’ passage of a redevelopment plan to challenge it. Von Haden’s primary argument was that the targeted areas were not blighted.

The city disagreed, noting, among other things, that while the areas represented 17% of the city’s geographic area, they contributed only 10% of its property tax base.

The city asked the judge to summarily dismiss Von Haden’s lawsuit on the grounds that Von Haden had no facts to stand on, and the judge agreed. That might have ended it--as was the case in neighboring San Marcos, where a critic of redevelopment contested that city’s redevelopment plan. In that case, a judge disagreed with the critic, who chose not to appeal the matter. But in Vista, Von Haden continued his battle.

He appealed to the 4th District Court of Appeal, claiming that there were issues of fact that had to be resolved in Superior Court and that the judge, in summarily dismissing his suit there, acted improperly in not letting the case be heard.

Free to Move Ahead on Two

The appellate court heard Von Haden’s appeal and, while it didn’t necessarily agree with him that Vista’s redevelopment plan was unlawful, it said that in two of the four redevelopment areas, there indeed were issues of fact--as opposed to issues of law--that had to be tried and resolved in Superior Court. It ordered part of Von Haden’s lawsuit returned to the lower court for resolution. The appellate court, however, did agree that the Superior Court judge acted properly in throwing out Von Haden’s lawsuit that attacked the downtown and Santa Fe Avenue redevelopment areas, and the city is now free to move ahead on those two.

Von Haden still wouldn’t walk away from it. He has petitioned for a rehearing in the appellate court on the two areas where it rejected his arguments; it may be months before the court acts on his request for yet another legal go-around.

Meanwhile, given the appellate court’s ruling in Von Haden’s favor on half of his lawsuit, the city and Von Haden will still have to fight it out in Superior Court on the legality of the redevelopment of the downtown and Santa Fe Avenue areas.

“It’s not that Von Haden has won part of his lawsuit,” said City Atty. Ron Null. “It’s just that we’ll have to go back to Superior Court to try the facts of the case that are raised by him. Rather than having his lawsuit thrown out, we’ll have to try it.”

Ultimately, to address the heart of Von Haden’s suit, a judge or jury will have to decide if, in fact, the downtown and Santa Fe Avenue areas are technically blighted.

It will be months before the redevelopment battle is resolved in the courts, and that frustrates city officials.

Ask the Developers

They talk of what they want done in the city: new street landscaping, underground utilities, better street lighting, re-jiggered street intersections and better signals, new sidewalks for schools, new recreation facilities, new library, new fire station.

Von Haden is unmoved.

“Yes, we need all those things,” he said. “But the city should be asking developers to pay for these things.”

He concedes that if a public vote is an accurate measure, a majority of Vistans support redevelopment.

“But I don’t think they understand redevelopment, so therefore it’s my responsibility to do something about it. A majority of people in Vista don’t understand redevelopment, so that makes it all the more necessary for people like me to do something about it.

“Redevelopment relates directly to rapid growth, and I’m opposed to rapid growth in Southern California,” he said.