Trump, Bradley Tussle Over High-Rise Plan : Development: Mayor tells New Yorker he must build replacement housing in exchange for using Ambassador Hotel site. But his organization is balking.

Mayor Tom Bradley has told developer Donald Trump that he must build 100 units of affordable housing elsewhere in Los Angeles if he wants to build a high-rise complex on the old Ambassador Hotel site.

Trump’s development proposal also conflicts with plans of Los Angeles school officials who want to build a high school on the Ambassador site.

In order to appease school officials, Trump has come up with two alternate high school sites, but school officials have objected because housing would have to be demolished to allow the school construction.

But a Trump Organization executive said Friday that Trump has no intention of building or paying for housing to replace the structures currently at the two locations.

The disagreement over replacement housing is the latest conflict between Trump and Bradley, who also has objected to Trump’s plan for the world’s tallest building, calling it “inappropriate for the area.” The historic Ambassador closed a year ago after decades of decline, and Los Angeles school officials have been eyeing the property--nearly 24 acres in the mid-Wilsire area--as a location for a new 2,000-student high school.

It is considered a prime school site in part because no housing would have to be demolished to build there.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials have said they intend to use condemnation powers to acquire the property from its owner, Trump-Wilshire Associates, a venture in which Trump is the managing partner.

In the last month, a team of consultants and lawyers working for Trump have come up with two nearby sites they say are better locations for high schools and have suggested to school officials that two schools accommodating 4,000 to 5,000 students be built.

The sites are about 16 acres each at Beverly Boulevard and Vermont Avenue--adjacent to Virgil Junior High School--and at Beverly and Washington boulevards.

“The mayor has advised the Trump Organization that from our perspective, the alternative proposal for school construction is feasible only if replacement housing is built,” said Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani. “He (Trump) would be the natural candidate to build the housing.”

Barbara Res, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said Friday the group has no intention of building or financing the housing.

“We’re not paying for it,” she said. However, the Trump Organization will help the school board find a way to provide replacement housing, she said.

Trump has said he has received an offer from a Japanese group that is willing to pay $115 million for the property, almost twice the amount the current owners paid for it. He said the schools would have to come up with that amount as the price for condemnation.

School Board President Jackie Goldberg said Friday that she is familiar with the two alternative sites Trump has suggested, but building on either would require displacing hundreds of low-income residents--a prospect the district wants to avoid.

“The question is how many people do you have to displace and where are you going to put them. . . . You may be talking about 200 (or) 300 families. Where do you find housing for those low-income people in Los Angeles . . . an apartment at $300 a month? They have nowhere to go.

“It seems to me it’s only fair to ask them as developers to assist us to provide replacement housing.”

Goldberg, in whose district the properties lie, said both alternative sites also pose other problems.

The parcel at Beverly and Vermont, she said, is located on the site of a proposed elementary school, so the district would have to find another place in the crowded mid-Wilshire area to construct that school.

The school district goes before the State Allocation Board, composed of legislators and political appointees, on Feb. 28, seeking approval of its application for $120 million to buy the Ambassador site, demolish the hotel and begin work on a school.

The state is currently out of building funds, but board approval would put the district in line to receive money if voters approve a bond issue slated to go on the June ballot.