Critics of Big Project in Watts Sue City

Critics of a massive redevelopment project proposed for Watts sued the city Monday, claiming that it threatens to displace longtime residents to make room for commercial development.

Even as the suit was being prepared, an aide to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was seeking to allay fears of Watts residents that their homes would be lost to the $200-million project.

“I was trying convey to people that the mayor is in agreement with their concerns about eminent domain,” said Gary Boze, the mayor’s office coordinator for South-Central Los Angeles. “And I was trying to tell people that if there was a way to do redevelopment without eminent domain, the mayor would embrace it.”

Covering about 2,000 acres, the redevelopment project would be the largest ever in Los Angeles. It is regarded by many city officials, including Bradley, as the realization of a dream for a new Watts, a dream that has been largely deferred since the 1965 Watts rioting brought the community’s plight into national focus.

The proposed redevelopment project would bring together public and private investment to create an array of industrial, commercial, and cultural facilities, as well as build new homes and rehabilitate existing ones.

The project ran into trouble earlier this month when residents became alarmed that they could lose their homes to new development. Many expressed anger that they had not been told that the project was being planned for the last 18 months.

Some residents, moreover, see see the project as an attempt by politicians and prominent developers to exploit Watts’ fortuitous location at the center of a new network of commuter rail and freeway lines, linking downtown with Long Beach, Los Angeles Harbor and the Los Angeles International Airport.

The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court by the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles on behalf of three Watts residents.

It argues that city officials responsible for the Watts plan violated state redevelopment law by giving residents inadequate notice of the project. It also claims that the project as proposed does not reflect the desires or the best interests of Watts residents. The suit contends that the project places a misdirected emphasis on commercial and industrial uses as opposed to rehabilitating homes and apartments.

“Plaintiffs allege that such redevelopment . . . is not justified and has the effect of undermining plaintiffs’ and other residents’ quality of life,” the suit states.

The suit is particularly critical of a proposed “cultural crescent,” to be established between the Watts Towers and the Watts railroad station. Seen as matrix of cultural institutions that would attract new private capital into the community, the crescent is derided in the suit as “a cultural curiosity” designed for the benefit of outside investors.

The suit asks the court to cancel all plans for the redevelopment project until “the Los Angeles City Council adopts procedures . . . that are in compliance with . . . requirements of the Community Redevelopment law.”