Yaroslavsky Urges Home Renovation : Housing: ‘Operation Rebuild’ would take the place of a city program to demolish abandoned dwellings that had become drug dens.

Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who two months ago called for a moratorium on a city program that sought to demolish abandoned homes that had become drug dens, presented an alternative Thursday to the controversial program.

Dubbed “Operation Rebuild,” Yaroslavsky said at a news conference that the program would be the “antithesis” of the year-old Operation Knockdown and would target derelict homes for rehabilitation rather than demolition.

“There’s no reason for any house to be allowed to deteriorate to the point we have to knock it down,” said Yaroslavsky, adding that Operation Rebuild would “bring to a grinding halt the senseless, inane policy of demolishing low-income housing.”

The program is Yaroslavsky’s response to Operation Knockdown, which was kicked off in January, 1989, with the goal of destroying abandoned, run-down buildings that had become havens for drug and gang activity. However, a year after its inception, The Times reported that among the structures destroyed under the program were salvageable homes in low-income areas desperately in need of affordable housing. Some had been used by homeless squatters who had nowhere else to go.

The Los Angeles City Council in January placed a 60-day moratorium on the program.

Operation Rebuild would target buildings that are deemed unliveable but repairable, focusing on vacant single-family homes and apartment buildings of four units or less, Yaroslavsky said. Under his plan, buildings would be salvaged before they became drug havens.

If such structures were not brought up to par after being cited repeatedly by the Department of Building and Safety, the city would be able to acquire the properties with Community Redevelopment Agency funds. The buildings would then be sold to nonprofit housing corporations, which would repair the homes and sell or rent them to low- and moderate-income tenants.

Anticipating a cost of $3 million to $5 million to buy 50 homes and buildings during the program’s first year, Yaroslavsky said Operation Rebuild could tap into $12 million of CRA funds now designated in the 1990-91 budget for unspecified housing programs. He added that the fund to buy the buildings would be replenished by the sales to nonprofit corporations.

Yaroslavsky said he plans to make a motion to the City Council today requesting that the CRA develop the program.

Michael Bodaken, head of a task force formed by the mayor to review Operation Knockdown, said Yaroslavsky’s proposal was worth considering but was in no way a final solution to the problem of replenishing the city’s affordable housing supply.