Panel Backs $25 Million to Fight Blight in Northridge

A proposed $25-million, tax-supported plan to improve the Bryant-Vanalden area of Northridge sailed through a Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday but is expected to face a stiffer test before the full council today.

The Grants, Housing and Community Development Committee routinely approved the plan on a 2-0 vote.

But Councilman Richard Alatorre said he plans to question city staff members at today’s council meeting about the plan’s effect on 3,000 predominantly low-income Latinos who live in Bryant-Vanalden apartments.

Larry Gross, executive director of a citywide tenants rights group, the Coalition for Economic Survival, said he plans to appear at a public hearing before the council to attack the plan as unfair to renters.

The plan calls for the city to issue $20.8 million in tax-exempt bonds and lend another $4.2 million to developer Devinder (Dave) P. Vadehra to buy and fix up 462 apartments in the blighted neighborhood.

Allowed to Raise Rents

It allows the developer to raise rents up to $175 a month to recover the cost of improvements. The city proposes to soften the blow of rent increases by subsidizing the rents of an undetermined number of low-income tenants.

Both Alatorre and Gross said they are concerned about what will happen to tenants who do not qualify for rent subsidies and cannot afford higher rents.

“I have concerns anytime you move people out,” Alatorre said in an interview. “These are poor people. What are you going to do with them?”

Craig Avery, director of the city Community Development Department’s housing division, told the committee Tuesday that the developer will try to relocate tenants to other apartments, either in the Bryant-Vanalden area or elsewhere in the city.

Alatorre is a member of the Grants, Housing and Community Development Committee, but arrived for Tuesday’s meeting after the committee vote. Voting to approve the plan were Chairman Robert Farrell and Joan Milke Flores.

Has Bernson’s Backing

The plan has the enthusiastic support of Councilman Hal Bernson, whose district includes the three-square-block Bryant Street-Vanalden Avenue area. The council usually defers to council members on projects in their districts. But Alatorre, the council’s only Latino, said the issue is important to him and to his heavily Latino East Los Angeles district because of its effect on Latinos. He said he has not decided how he will vote on the issue.

Gross, who also arrived too late to testify at Tuesday’s committee meeting, accused the city of rushing the proposal through City Council without notice to affected tenants. “Those who are directly affected have no say in this,” he said.

Bernson said he sees no reason to inform the tenants. “The tenants are not being asked to approve it,” he said in an interview. “The City Council will make the decision.”

Faces Dec. 15 Deadline

Avery said the city is speeding the proposal through the council to meet a Dec. 15 deadline imposed by the state for sale of the bonds. The deadline stems from a provision in the federal tax-reform law limiting the value of tax-exempt bonds that cities can issue.

The plan is the second proposed for the area, which has long been criticized for introducing crime and unsightly conditions into an otherwise middle-class neighborhood. The first plan, proposed last year, died after protests that it would cause mass evictions of the Latino tenants.

If approved by the full council, the plan will go to Mayor Tom Bradley.