The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "redevelopment agencies" ...
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The Redevelopment Investigation
This investigation came in several installments throughout the year. The city of San Diego, unlike any other government in California, operates two redevelopment agencies outside of the traditional City Hall structure and with little oversight, running them as separate nonprofit corporations with their own presidents, boards, offices and identities. An investigation into those two public agencies, which have combined annual budgets of nearly $300 million, uncovered a rogue system of forgotten government, which was underscored by a clandestine bonus system. The president of one agency used to pay herself and her aides more than $1 million over 5 years and numerous conflicts of interests between developers and top officials.
Tags: San Diego; city government; corruption; redevelopment agencies; new media; nonprofit corporations
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Affordable No More
The Southeastern Economic Development Corp. had been tasked with "redeveloping one of San Diego's poorest neighborhoods," with the goal of building affordable housing. But people with close ties to this public agency abused the system, selling homes for much higher prices than had been approved in the agency's contract, and also "failed to file the proper deeds on the subsidized homes in the project," allowing the houses to be flipped for a profit.
Tags: Southeastern Economic Development Corp.; redevelopment; affordable housing; property flipping; fraud; title registration
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Overtown and the CRA: Agency May Have Wasted Millions
When Oscar Corral of the Miami Herald began questioning the location of parking lots being built by the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), he quickly realized something was "seriously awry with the CRA's management." The nearly year-long investigation that followed centered on Overtown, one of Miami's poorest neighborhoods -- and discovered "a pattern of mismanagement, questionable spending decisions and failed projects. The result: The community has virtually nothing to show for $70 million in spending over the past decade," and the neighborhood "remains a near-wasteland of poverty and substandard housing." The primary program charged with "revitalizing the neighborhood" spent millions of dollars, but "completed only five of 36 proposed projects and has not pushed a single housing initiative." What's more, back-door dealings resulted in dubious contracts being awarded, some of which were never fulfilled despite the CRA paying for them -- and the nepotism even included the hiring of a former prostitute and thief to run errands for the CRA chairman. More than 50 interviews with frequently elusive sources, along with numerous documents and computer-assisted analyses of databases including enforcement cases, delinquent loans, property records and building demolitions, went into getting the stories -- which resulted in city, state, and FBI investigations into the CRA.
Tags: development; business; neighborhood; economic; housing; public body; nepotism; mismanagement; building; parking lot; Florida; Miami; Overtown
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CHA Tenant Evictions Jump As Buildings Fall
An investigation by the Chicago Reporter shows that the Chicago Housing Authority is stepping up evictions in buildings it has targeted for redevelopment --a move that reduces the number of public housing tenants the agency must provide with replacement housing.
Tags: Chicago Housing Authority; CHA; families; developments; displacement; public housing
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"Falling for the Gap"
When Donald G. Fisher, owner of the hip clothier The Gap, wanted to find a location for the San Francisco company's headquarters, he got an offer he couldn't refuse. The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency rigorously avoided any competition that might have maximized the value of its bayfront land -- and the number of jobs attached to any development of that land. In fact, as it was throwing government land and largess The Gap's way, the city's Redevelopment Agency didn't bother to make the firm promise to bring jobs to, or even stay in, San Francisco.
Tags: The Gap; Donald G. Fisher; San Francisco Redevelopment Agency
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No title (id: 6576)
Valley Advocate (Springfield, Mass.) reports on a redevelopment agency that claimed eminent domain over a dilapidated train station, paying the owner of 20 years $1 for a property and building that city assessments valued at $2.4 million, Aug. 21, 1989.
Tags: MA Kraft Buntzman
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No title (id: 6291)
San Francisco Bay Guardian gives an account of the history and present status of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency; finds the agency is plagued with cost overruns and building and fire code violations; also finds the agency lacks a strategy for its future, April 26, 1989.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 5609)
Reason Magazine shows how the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (L.A. CRA) used power politics to have thousands of houses and small business buildings in Hollywood declared blighted; finds the L.A. CRA wanted to present the land to developers at subsidized prices, and describes how it doctored minutes of meetings, falsified data to exaggerate problems, and rigged special board elections, January 1988.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 2714)
San Francisco Bay Guardian article looks into the results of a 1969 San Francisco Redevelopment Agency project that was to provide 2,400 new jobs to residents of a low-income neighborhood; so far only 55 jobs have gone to those residents, the rest going to commuting workers; in addition, the community has lost millions in property tax revenues, Sept. 26, 1984.
Tags: Dupont CA