Manager of the Local Climate Change Initiative Juan Matute addressed California State Assembly Members about options to finance public improvements.  Matute recently wrote a policy brief on the evolution of policy options used to fund or finance local infrastructure improvements in California.    A key finding was that though financing needs for infill settings in established communities were more complicated, fewer practical financing options existed in these areas.

On Wednesday, August 28th, the California Assembly’s Select Committee on Community and Neighborhood Development held a hearing to explore challenges to funding and financing infrastructure improvements in established communities, especially in light of the dissolution of redevelopment in California two years ago.  Matute and UCLA Urban Planning alumnus and City of San Diego Planning Director Bill Fulton gave official testimony about the challenges to infrastructure finance in established communities, where many statewide funding mechanisms are less applicable or more difficult to use.

At the hearing, the Assembly Members and witnesses discussed options to institute a more limited form of tax increment financing applicable to infill areas and high quality transit areas, a topic currently under consideration in Senate President Darrell Steinberg’s SB 1.