Can a parking lot at a Caltrain station be “blighted”? That was the logic behind a convoluted Redwood City plan to build a transit-oriented development project.
The most important things are that the project be very successful and that it supports downtown as a whole, for example, by creating a lot of sidewalk activity on nearby streets. For that kind of flexibility, however, the land must fall under the redevelopment agency before it can be transferred to a selected developer.
Good grief. If a city wants a walkable neighborhood, then just sell off the parking lot and re-zone the neighborhood for higher density.
But noooo, that would be too easy. And even worse, it means the City sells to the highest bidder!
Unlike its redevelopment agency, Redwood City would have to sell the property to the highest bidder “without consideration of other factors, such as who is most experienced with similar developments, who is proposing the best project for downtown, or whether the buyer even plans on building anything,
To recap: the City Council believes it knows better than a developer how to best utilize the parcel. And they want taxpayers to subsidize the politically-juiced developer. No wonder Governor Brown wants to shitcan the redevelopment process.
Systemic Failure 
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