Lawsuit aiming to protect historic theater could halt affordable housing, Placer officials say

Saying that a major development project places Auburn’s historic DeWitt Theater in danger of demolition, a citizens group has sued Placer County – a move that jeopardizes a plan for badly needed affordable housing, county officials say.

The lawsuit, filed May 22 by Concerned Citizens for Community and Public Lands, challenges the Placer County Government Center Master Plan Update, a massive development project in North Auburn. The plan has been in the works for about five years, according to Kirk Uhler, chairman of the Placer County Board of Supervisors.

According to Uhler, the $37.7 million project consists of large scale construction at a 200-acre site in North Auburn that formerly housed a state-owned psychiatric hospital until 1972, and before that, a World War II hospital. The DeWitt Theater was built on site in 1943 to entertain recovering patients.

The theater, a local landmark that has fallen into disrepair, is the focus of the citizens group’s concerns. Concerned Citizens spokeswoman Kay Fegette said county provisions allowing two years for fundraising to rehabilitate the building are not strong enough, and the group does not trust that the theater and several other historic structures ultimately won’t be bulldozed for new development.

The county plans to build not only government service facilities, such as health, human and tax services, but also a 79-unit multifamily workforce housing development with a range of income limits, from 30 to 60 percent of the local average median income. Adjacent commercial and office complexes will be constructed to provide employment opportunities for residents, according to Uhler.

Affordable housing a priority

Expanding the county’s subsidized, affordable housing has been a priority for Placer County officials, Uhler said. In the county, 7.5 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Placer County is an expensive place to live, so we’re doing all we can to help them,” Uhler said. “It’s a shame to have this narrowly focused self-interested group stand in the way of what could be a great opportunity for the working people in our community.”

Concerned Citizens supports the affordable housing plan and maintains that the lawsuit would not impact the viability of building those units, Fegette said.

“The lawsuit strictly deals with a few existing buildings,” Fegette said. “The lawsuit only targets certain sections of the master plan that deal with the historic buildings.”

But Uhler said the lawsuit may bring the affordable housing plan to a halt.

The suit may threaten the financial plan for Mercy Housing, the project’s developer and builder, Uhler said, as it has only a narrow window to apply for state grants and tax credit.

“The lawsuit strikes a huge blow to the momentum the county and Mercy Housing have jointly created toward starting construction on the 79-unit affordable housing community by spring 2020,” said Stephan Daues, Mercy Housing’s Regional Director of Housing Development, in a news release from Placer County.

Placer County attorney Clayton Cook said that Mercy Housing will apply for affordable housing grants and tax credits in early July. The application process may take eight to nine months. Without these government funds, the affordable housing project will not be able to move forward, Uhler said.

“That whole process is at risk with the lawsuit in existence,” Cook said. “If you have a lawsuit that puts the viability of the project at risk, there’s a chance it wouldn’t be approved or provided.”

On June 11, the county Board of Supervisors met to approve the master plan.

“They voted to approve all the funding necessary for the funding project so they have the go ahead to apply for any grant money,” Fegette said. “As far as I see I don’t see any roadblocks at all for the lawsuit. They were just blowing smoke.”

According to a Placer County news release, the county voted to contribute $7.95 million toward the $37.7 million project during that meeting. But the county’s contribution will be provided only if Mercy’s low-income housing tax credits and state grants are awarded.

In the lawsuit, the Concerned Citizens object to the master plan update because it “allows for the demolition of numerous historic buildings,” and plans to destroy the DeWitt Theater, the DeWitt Gym and Pool, and the Senior Center to “make way for commercial and office uses that a market study demonstrated are not needed.”

Preserving the DeWitt Theater has been on the minds of locals for years. In 2014, when the county planned to lease parts of the North Auburn site to Costco, thus threatening demolition of the theater, citizens organized a Facebook group called Save DeWitt Theater.

In April, the Concerned Citizens organized a petition to save the theater, which garnered over 1,000 signatures in one week, according to Fegette.

Theater needs major renovations

Since the theater’s golden days in the 1940s, it has fallen into disrepair, and requires large scale renovation to meet current code requirements.

According to Uhler, the DeWitt Theater does not have to be torn down, and its survival depends on fundraising from the private sector to pay for its rehabilitation.

“It is a dilapidated old building that doesn’t meet any current housing safety requirements,” Uhler said. “I think that if these folks were genuinely interested in saving the theater rather than spending money suing the county, they could be saving money to save the theater.”

In April, the board wrote a provision that granted proponents of the theater two additional years to raise funds for rehabilitation, which may cost “half a million dollars,” according to Fegette.

The provision outlines that “projects within the mixed use designation that identify removal of the theater shall be subject to a public hearing before the Board of Supervisors. This provision shall sunset on July 1, 2021.”

Fegette said that verbally, the board promised to grant the group two years to raise funding to rehabilitate the theater. However, the provision is “useless, very weak.” Discussions with nonprofit organizations that would help with fundraising have come to a dead-end because the board has not promised, in writing, to not demolish the theater.

“The provision says nothing about it being not demolished or retained for this purpose,” said Fegette. “We’ve discussed that and written to the board supervisors and they don’t seem to think that they can change that language.”

Fundraising difficulties

Fundraising is nearly impossible for the group, because they are not yet a registered nonprofit.

“It takes several months for that to happen,” Fegette said. “Yes, we could, but again, we’d run into the same issue. If individual people donate, they may ask the same question, how do I know if I’m supporting something the county will honor?”

In a written response to the Placer County press release, the Concerned Citizens emphasized their support for the county’s plans to build affordable housing at the Auburn site.

“Concerned Citizens for Community and Public Lands has no intention of filing an injunction that would in any way stop the affordable housing project from moving forward,” the group said in the response sent to The Sacramento Bee. “Thus, the County’s narrative that the lawsuit is a roadblock to the housing project is misleading. We have always been supportive of affordable housing being constructed at the government center site.”

In response to the Concerned Citizens’ claims of only targeting the parts of the plan that deal with historic buildings, Uhler stated that the group cannot cherry-pick the sections of the plan to challenge.

“They’re flat wrong,” Uhler said. “They have sued the county on our government center master plan, and this project is a part of that plan. You can’t just pull out parts of the project and exempt them from the litigation when you’re suing on the plan.”

However, Fegette maintains her position.

“I think the real reason is to see if it scares us into backing down because we don’t want to stop the affordable housing. It doesn’t do any of that.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2019 at 3:15 PM.