Aggressive City Council Tests Mayor’s Hold on Redevelopment Agency

It’s usually routine stuff. Each summer, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, a huge, quasi-independent agency and primary agent of physical change in the city, ships to City Hall an arcane plan to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars, and the City Council nods in approval.

But, as Wednesday’s highly unusual budget debate illustrated, these are changing times at City Hall, and an increasingly independent-minded City Council is challenging the leadership of Mayor Tom Bradley and his CRA commission.

A key part of that challenge is the balance Bradley and the CRA have struck between providing low-cost housing and building large commercial developments.

In the end, the $503-million budget for the 1988-89 fiscal year was approved, but not before nearly two hours of intense debate. Several council members, including Bradley’s expected mayoral rival Zev Yaroslavsky, sharply criticized the CRA for not building enough housing for the poor and being unaccountable for its spending priorities.

Several council members introduced a motion, to be considered later, that would shift the entire redevelopment agency from Bradley’s control to the direct supervision of the City Council.

“How can we cope with the fundamental problems of housing and transportation unless we have some control over the CRA . . . (and) without control over the planning of the central business district of this city?” said Councilman Marvin Braude, a Yaroslavsky ally and leader of the city’s slow-growth movement.

Proposal to Raise Cap

Prompting much of the debate is the Bradley Administration’s goal of raising a funding lid on downtown redevelopment projects to permit additional projects and an expanded commitment of funds to low-rent housing and social programs.

The CRA, which began the downtown revitalization 30 years ago with the Bunker Hill renewal project, is approaching a $750-million limit on the debt for downtown projects. Bradley wants to continue the revitalization and boost the cap to $5 billion.

The Bradley plan is supported by some low-cost housing agencies but has come under attack from Los Angeles County, which stands to lose $1.8 billion in property tax revenues, and some advocates for the poor, who charge the housing plan is inadequate.

Eastside Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who on a 6-8 vote nearly succeeded in blocking funding of the CRA for 30 days, was one of the leaders of Wednesday’s attack on the agency.

She claimed that, despite having built 21,000 new housing units, the CRA has not gained much ground because much of that is replacement housing for units torn down to make way for various developments.

“I wish it was housing that was getting the bigger chunk,” she said. “The budget doesn’t meet the housing” problem.

‘Shadow Government’

Yaroslavsky argued that the CRA has become a “shadow government” of the city, making major decisions without proper council oversight.

But CRA officials argued that most of what they have done over the years has been agreed to by the City Council. They also strongly defended their housing record, saying they had built more low-cost housing than redevelopment agencies in other cities, and the number of new units started this year will increase 16% to nearly 2,400 units, most of it for low- and moderate-income residents.

Council members loyal to Bradley defended the agency and managed, on a series of close votes, to prevent delay of the budget and approval of CRA development bond sales proposed in the budget.

Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, whose downtown district has been the center of the CRA’s efforts, praised the agency for ridding Bunker Hill of “firetraps . . . and building me big, fine structures. I like growth. I like progress. I like big things,” he said.