Woo Backs Off Plan to Use Fee on Buildings for Social Services

Bowing to pressure from Hollywood’s business and arts communities, Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo is trying to scale back a precedent-setting redevelopment plan fee that would force developers to provide funds for social service needs.

Woo’s attempt to modify the fee--which would fund both social service and arts projects by collecting 1% of the building costs from developers who are financially aided by the redevelopment plan--came after art enthusiasts complained that they would have to compete with social service groups for the limited funds.

“The problem with the fee is that it pitted the arts people against the social service people,” the 13th District councilman said. “What we need to do is take care of both needs.”

Two weeks ago, the city Planning Commission ruled that the fee would be used to fund both art and social service projects. The commission’s vote broke new ground in Los Angeles’ redevelopment process because previous redevelopment plans had exacted a fee only for art projects. No estimate has been placed on the amount of money the fee would raise.

But in recent days, art enthusiasts and members of Hollywood’s business community pressured Woo to return the 1% annual fee to the arts.

“The amount of money that would be available means a great deal to the arts community, but it would only be a drop in the bucket for social service needs,” said Nyla Arslanian, president of the Hollywood Arts Council.

At a Tuesday meeting of the City Council’s Planning and Environment Committee, Woo agreed, suggesting that the fee be used only for arts projects. To placate social service needs, he proposed that once the redevelopment project begins, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency could be required each year to submit a budget detailing funding for social service projects.

Woo’s move was greeted with dismay by community activists, church leaders and social service workers, who have been lobbying for a social service fee that would represent a tangible commitment to human needs in the redevelopment plan.

‘Rather Bad Advice’

“I think Mr. Woo is taking some rather bad advice these days,” said Brian Moore, a community activist and Hollywood Hills resident who is president of the federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. “His latest proposal has no guarantee at all that social service needs will be dealt with. It’s just fancy language.”

Moore and other activists said they will continue to push for a social service guarantee in the plan. They said they have collected more than 1,200 names on petitions urging such guarantees.

“If we need more names, we will get them,” said restaurant owner Doreet Rotman, who is a member of the Project Area Committee, a citizen’s advisory panel working with the redevelopment agency on Hollywood’s renewal plan.

The revedelopment plan, now entering its final stages before it appears before the City Council in April, has undergone many modifications in recent weeks. Expected to cost as much as $920 million over a 30-year period, the Hollywood redevelopment project is being designed to alter the area’s blighted core into a thriving 1,100-acre center of offices, theaters, homes and apartments and parks.

Woo has taken a strong role recently in shaping the plan, advocating detailed language that would strengthen preservation of historic buildings and many of Hollywood’s business resources, ranging from small bookstores and coffee shops to supermarkets.

Most Controversial Element

Some segments of the Hollywood community have continued to urge more specific language in the plan dealing with traffic flow and even storm drains and sewage. But the plan’s commitment to social service needs has remained its most controversial element.

Many members of the Project Area Committee insist that the redevelopment plan does not need a specific financial commitment to social services.

“I have a hard time understanding the continuing cynicism about the CRA’s (redevelopment agency’s) commitment to social services,” said Project Area Committee President Marshall A. Caskey. “It seems to me that the kind of language the councilman is talking about should placate those concerns.”

But some committee members worry that without a specific financial requirement, the redevelopment agency might provide only token relief to Hollywood’s homeless, runaways, immigrants and poor families.

Some activists, like Rotman, have urged that a separate 1% fee on developers who get assistance from the redevelopment agency be used to guarantee a minimal amount of funding for human needs. Those funds could then be supplemented each year by the redevelopment agency’s budget funds.

“At least, it would be something,” Rotman said.

The Rev. William Thom, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church on Sunset Boulevard, suggested another alternative--requiring the redevelopment agency to commit a minimum amount of funds each year to social service projects.

“There needs to be a way to have teeth in the plan,” Thom said, echoing a comment made at the Tuesday hearing by City Councilman Howard Finn. “We have to help people as well as buildings.”

Some Project Area Committee members said they worried that any minimum commitment to social services might lessen the amount given to Hollywood’s human needs by government agencies.

“Once you put in a minimum, it becomes known and finite,” Caskey said. “Government agencies that normally provide aid can budget against that. If that happens, nobody wins.”

And Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President Bill Welsh suggested that charity and social service contributions from the private sector might also drop if developers were forced to contribute to social service programs.

“I think social service groups would find the private sector a lot more generous if they weren’t pressured,” he said.

But Thom and other social service providers questioned the private sector’s willingness to aid human needs. Thom pointed to a recent attempt to get Hollywood’s businesses to help fund a shelter for the homeless. Of 277 businesses contacted, only 12 contributed.

“I’m not at all certain that we can depend on the private sector to help out,” Thom said.