Volume 6: Issue 1
The Heavy Hand of Redevelopment
In late 2002, Elaine Evans, together with business and residential owners of 22,883 other parcels in over twenty separate neighborhoods of San Jose, were notified by the local redevelopment agency (RDA) that their properties were “blighted.” Neither the 120 property owners who opposed the designation at the agency’s public hearing, nor the 1,422 who protested in writing, nor the several thousand whose properties were not – except perhaps in a most technical sense – blighted, nor Elaine Evans’ court challenge, were successful in derailing this eventual massive government condemnation of their properties....