Some Residents Fight Plan to Declare City Blighted

WESTMINSTER —  Faced with last-minute opposition from residents of one neighborhood, city officials have scheduled another community meeting for Thursday on a proposal to turn the entire city into a redevelopment zone.

The plan, given initial approval on a 5-0 vote of the City Council Wednesday night, would designate all 10.2 square miles of the western Orange County community a “blighted” area. The city would then declare it a redevelopment project area, and, for the next 30 years, would be able to tap the lion’s share of any increase in property tax revenues to pay for more than $260 million in repairs to its aging roads and sewers.

But council members agreed to hold a fifth community meeting to explain the project to residents of a neighborhood near the Westminster Mall, after a homeowner presented a petition with 58 signatures opposing the redevelopment designation.

“I don’t want my house in a redevelopment zone, just because of the stigma of that term,” said Charles D’Auria, who began collecting signatures from neighbors after he learned of the plan at the fourth community meeting June 14.

State redevelopment experts say Westminster and neighboring Stanton are the first cities in the state seeking to declare their towns blighted since 1993, when the law was changed to tighten loopholes and prevent abuses.