Disrupting the knowledge and power imbalance in Community Benefits Agreement negotiations: Lessons from the Aggie Square development in Sacramento, California

Community empowerment movements challenge local government administrators and planners to emphasize people instead of development profits in the planning process. Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) are popular tools to advance this objective. Executed by and between local governments, communities, and project developers, CBAs detail how economic benefits from new development are shared with residents. One question understudied in the literature is how does a community know if it received an equitable distribution in a CBA? In this case study of a new $1.6 billion satellite campus for the University of California, documents in and out of the public domain are analyzed to determine what economic benefits could be shared with the community, what portion was disclosed to the community, and what portion of the benefits were included in the CBA. A key recommendation from the findings is to build a CBA metric that local governments and communities can use to establish an early target value for benefits before negotiations with project proponents.

Automated summary

Community empowerment movements challenge local government administrators and planners to prioritize people over development profits in the planning process, with Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) being popular tools to achieve this objective. This case study analyzes documents in and out of the public domain to determine the extent of economic benefits shared with the community in a new $1.6 billion satellite campus project for the University of California, as well as the portion disclosed to the community and included in the CBA. A key recommendation is to establish a CBA metric for local governments and communities to set an early target value for benefits before negotiations with project proponents.