Posted on 10/15/2006 8:31:24 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Hundreds of homes that California's Department of Transportation bought up for freeway projects have fallen into disrepair over the last decade, it was reported Sunday.
Caltrans currently owns more than 12,000 acres of land and is landlord to 1,300 homes and businesses where people still live and work, the Orange County Register reported, citing Caltrans and other state and court documents.
About 40 percent of the homes Caltrans owned and rented out in the past decade had faulty plumbing, 20 percent had leaky roofs and 6 percent had rodent infestations, according to records cited by the Orange County Register.
The agency went on a buying spree from the 1950s through the 1970s, acquiring tens of thousands of acres of land through eminent domain in order to build roads to meet California's surging population demands.
"We were saving people's lives. Saving them time," said Douglas Failing, director of Caltrans' Los Angeles division. "Everyone who was building was a hero."
But then budget cuts and court fights from local residents opposed to highway projects began to force Caltrans to slow down. New state and federal laws required a more detailed study before land seizures could be made.
The agency planned some 70,000 miles of highway but only 45,000 were built.
Still, Caltrans held onto land for decades even when the projects went nowhere, such as a planned widening of Pacific Coast Highway in Orange County and an abandoned freeway loop in Hayward near San Francisco Bay.
Sidney Stone, a retired pastor, was forced to sell his home in Hayward in 1970, along with more than 1,000 others. He and his wife, who had multiple sclerosis, and their two children had to move because their custom-built home was in the path of an eight-lane highway.
"They made it sound urgent, like they were going to start construction any day," Stone said.
More than three decades later, the rotting home still stands amid weeds.
"They got it for $36,000, and I should be allowed to buy it back for that," said Stone, estimating the home should now would be worth at least $700,000.
Neglected buildings on Caltrans land have cost counties at least $78 million and as much as $297 million in lost revenue because they are off the property tax rolls, the Register estimated.
"It's outrageous," said state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks. "The financial harm is real."
McClintock authored a bill this year that would have returned seized eminent domain property to the original owners if it had not been used within five years, but the measure died.
"It's an absolute tragedy when a planned highway goes through someone's living room," McClintock said. "But what I've seen with Caltrans is they seize homes and then sit on them."
Some empty buildings on Caltrans sites have become magnets for drug addicts and the homeless. As a state agency, Caltrans is immune from local anti-slumlord ordinances, the Register said.
In Hayward, Caltrans owns 366 rental properties and dozens of vacant homes and businesses. Residents of a retirement home on the property say people camp in some of the abandoned houses and have sneaked over to steal food from residents' plates.
"We try to keep up with the vandalism and the homeless, but we can't," said Monico Corral, Caltrans' maintenance division leader for property in the region. "As soon as you have a vacant house, the homeless find out. You can't believe how fast the destruction can happen."
When Caltrans has sold off unused land, nearly half the time it was sold at a loss, with the average being 60 percent less than the state paid for it, the Register said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he has been thwarted in his efforts to get agency officials to exert better administration of its properties.
"They have this mentality of not ever thinking about that the property exists," Schwarzenegger said. "But then when you want to sell it, then they think about it day and night. And then fight it."
Caltrans' Director Will Kempton said he hopes to transfer the job of managing Caltrans properties to someone else, possibly another state agency with more expertise.
"We have to recognize this isn't something we are particularly good at," Kempton said.
There was an area in Fresno County that the Deputies patrolled that they called "Hells 40 Acres" and "Dodge City." Roughly in the 1960's the State bought up a lot of homes bounded by Belmont/First/McKinley/Maple. After the State bought the homes, it then sold them for a dollar each with the provision that the new owner would bear the expense of moving them. I heard that a man bought a lot of the homes, then rented them out, making hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. It took about 20 to 30 years or so before the freeway through that area was finally built. So it doesn't surprise me if this is still going on elsewhere in the State.
It's another good reason to vote YES on Prop 90 and NO on Prop 1B.
These folks need to be held accountable. Giving them more money at this point is the wrong way to go, IMO.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II
The folks who committed the grievous acts against the public are probably long gone and retired, living high on pension benefits courtesy of the taxpayers they ripped off!
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