Bernson Says Blight Remains Despite Cleanup of Business Strip

Councilman Hal Bernson praised a group of Northridge merchants for sprucing up their property during a whirlwind cleaning spree Saturday but left open the possibility that their area still could be redeveloped by the city of Los Angeles.

In his public remarks, Bernson called the morning-long cleanup by the merchants, with stores around the intersection of Parthenia Street and Vanalden Avenue, a “tremendous success.” But he said in a later interview that he believes the area “was and still is” blighted “to a certain degree.”

“You’re seeing it in its best light,” Bernson said, shortly after he inspected the commercial strip, which is home to a small shopping center and several light-manufacturing concerns, including a towing business, a janitorial service and an auto wrecking yard.

But if the businesses continue to make improvements, Bernson said, redevelopment will not be needed. “There’s a very strong possibility for dealing with this community’s problems” without the Community Redevelopment Agency, Bernson said. “Now that we’ve got everybody’s attention, let’s see what happens.”

Bernson, who said the redevelopment agency should be used as a “last resort,” added that before he will be satisfied, he expects the merchants to install a uniform style of signs on storefronts, landscape parking lots, take some additional security steps and maintain the level of cleanliness he saw Saturday.

The councilman’s view that the area is blighted is sharply disputed by property owners.

“There was never any blight, either before today or now,” said Cary Tuch, owner of Tuch Metals. “No one is saying this area’s blighted but Bernson.

“If this were a blighted area, you would see empty, boarded-up stores, but here you find these are all going concerns,” Tuch said.

“It’s very disappointing . . . frustrating,” said Greg Baker, owner of Ross Baker Towing.

And 12-year-old Jason Vallejos, a member of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps--a group that deploys youngsters for cleanup work around the city--said the Parthenia Street job was a cinch. “It’s very easy here. There’s not a lot of trash compared to others I’ve worked.”

Area property owners fear the city’s redevelopment agency will use powerful tools, such as eminent domain, to force them out of the neighborhood.

Earlier this fall, the councilman ordered the redevelopment agency to begin a feasibility study to determine if the area is blighted. On Nov. 16, Bernson asked the agency to suspend its study for six months to give the businesses an opportunity to solve their own problems.

Saturday’s cleanup was the first major effort by the merchants to deal with Bernson’s complaints since the reprieve.

One of Bernson’s major concerns has been loitering by Latino males in a shopping center parking lot at Parthenia and Vanalden. The Bryant-Vanalden apartment complex, which houses hundreds of low-income families, is on the south side of Parthenia across from the commercial strip.

Bernson said before he began talking about redevelopment agency intervention, the merchants were not moving to clean up their properties.

About 150 volunteers participated in Saturday’s cleanup, including Boy Scouts, Los Angeles Conservation Corps workers, Cal State Northridge students and Los Angeles city employees.

The crews sandblasted graffiti off sidewalks, painted buildings, swept parking lots, trimmed shrubs, planted flowers, sodded dirt strips and tacked on an extra row of corrugated metal fencing to hide the cars in the Northridge Auto Wrecking yard.

Bernson also announced Saturday that he would be willing to let Walter Prince, one of the local merchants, sit on a committee that would draft a plan for revitalizing the area without redevelopment agency help. Prince, the owner of a janitorial service, earlier this year launched an unsuccessful effort to recall Bernson.

But Prince, also president of the Parthenia Property Owners and Tenants Assn., said he would not serve on such a panel.