CRA Has Designs for Watts

BACKGROUND

Watts, one of the most vivid symbols of inner-city poverty in America, is being redeveloped. Los Angeles and its Community Redevelopment Agency plan to pour $200 million into a huge 15-year project to build new homes, apartments, offices and industry. Twenty-five years ago, riots devastated Watts. Despite voluminous studies, widespread hopes and many promises, little has changed. The project, now in the planning stages, has generated both excitement and fear and resulted in protests and a lawsuit by some residents. The Times asked some people in the community to comment on the redevelopment idea.

People With Money Will Get the Benefit

TED WATKINS JR. is a community activist and manager for the Watts Labor Community Action Committee. As a homeowner in the area, his main concern is that gentrification is the CRA’s ulterior motive:

This project is going to benefit people with money, people who want to get closer to downtown, middle-class whites, Asians, Indians, not the people who are living there now.

The redevelopment project has been going on for quite some time. Somebody conceived it, somebody has some ideas about who will benefit from it and who will not benefit from it. What I’m thinking is that (it’s) the people who will work in those new high-rise buildings downtown, the people who will benefit from the (Blue Line), which isn’t for our community. Whoever that someone is that’s going to be moving and commuting, they will stop here or their neighbors will stop here or people who will work in those offices will stop here and they will buy here in order to be closer to downtown Los Angeles.

We are talking about a city where most property values have quadrupled. So here they have a chance to get in on the ground floor of the last territory, the last bit of cheap property. That’s an investment. Some people will jump out of a three-story building for an investment.

I don’t know how far this program has developed. I don’t know if it’s gone past the point of turning back, but I know once it’s gotten past a particular point, nothing stops that ball once it’s rolling.

Modernizing Is Needed

The Rev. EDWARD BYNUM is pastor of Lighthouse Church of God in Christ on 103rd Street and a member of an advisory council that meets with Councilwoman Joan Milkes Flores, who represents the area:

I see the various areas being changed and updated. The redevelopment plan looks like a good idea to me. The area could certainly use a lot of modernizations. It’s a depressed area. When you go into some of the other areas around here, like Carson, it looks like you are going into another world. This area could be made to look the same. You can see the difference in the areas they have been changing.

A lot of people are concerned about losing their homes. I guess we all are. But there are other areas that could be redone, commercial areas. Being displaced is a concern for people who bought these homes and need them--but sometimes you need to feel a little pain to get better. I think people should mind being displaced, but there should be something offered to them so that they would want to be displaced.

Let’s Have a Summit

The Rev. FRANK J. HIGGINS , pastor of True Way Baptist Church , is working with a group of citizens seeking an injunction that would temporarily suspend the project:

We appreciate (Mayor Tom) Bradley’s announcement (that he would oppose any redevelopment efforts that would displace homeowners), but we want legislation. He said that nothing would be done for six months. But we need some assurances for after that. We need a new feasibility study. The people have a right to that.

We want to hold everything in abeyance until the citizens have a sense of what the redevelopment is all about. They don’t understand now. They haven’t participated in the feasibility studies. They have no knowledge as to what areas are going to be redeveloped. They have no knowledge of what they are going to have to give up for this redevelopment project to come in. They have been ignored.

You can’t expect John Doe, private citizen, to have the expertise to understand the plan without the CRA affording them the professional help they need to understand it.

The CRA should be asked by the city and by the court to provide the community with interpreters of the plan, persons who have no vested interest, because it is very complicated. And it has gentrification stipulations in it, which are supposed to be good. But what one person calls good can be bad for other folks. How can you call something good if you have no idea? These are outside developers and CRA officials who don’t live in this community.

The problem with the CRA is that they have the power of eminent domain to take the community away from one group of people to give to the developers. The people know they have this power, and they are definitely afraid.

Another problem is that the new structures that they develop have no cultural input. In Chinatown, it would be a devastation to build there and have Anglo-Americans build without an understanding of the culture. Every race of people on Earth has culture when it comes to architecture. But the redevelopment plan does not take into consideration black architects giving the community a black touch. We have African-American architects, but (the CRA is) saddling us with just white architectural concepts. There ought to be a summit where the people can put together a coalition of black architects, ministers, residents to come up with an amendment to re-examine the area. Then we should take that to the CRA.

We Distrust the CRA

EARLENE BLANKENSHIP has been a Watts homeowner for 26 years. She lives in an area under review by the CRA for revitalization:

Many of my neighbors are older than I am and have been in the neighborhood longer. (The redevelopment plan) would really have a devastating effect on them if they were to lose their homes because most of them cannot afford to relocate. The money they would get, even if they received market value, would not be enough to relocate them in the same kind of home that they are currently living in.

The people in the community have sacrificed for a number of years to stay where they are and they have improved their homes. I know that the community has some blight, but the particular area where I live, the people have kept up their property. A lot of them have added rooms and remodeled their homes and now they are talking about coming in and redeveloping the area. They really aren’t being honest with the community and telling us what that entails.

We still distrust the city, the mayor and particularly the CRA.

The Next Homeless?

ALBERTA HARRIS, 33, is a renter at the Jordan Downs housing project. As a member of the Jordan Downs Resident Advisory Board, she has read the CRA’s feasibility study. She fears that public housing will be phased out of Watts:

The redevelopment project will have a negative impact in my situation. I was just reading the feasibility study Volume 1 and there they speak of public housing and multiple-family dwellings. My understanding is that they are giving a negative outlook on people who live in public housing. It looks to me as though there will be no public housing in their plan.

I don’t know where we are going to go unless we become the next homeless. I think the sacrifice is too much for the low-income people that live in the greater Watts area.

The CRA is very intimidating. When I asked, I had to beg for the feasibility study. When you ask them questions, they give you everything but what you asked for. It’s frustrating.

But what bothers me the most (is that) I just don’t know what’s wrong with the people who live in public housing in this crisis. They have not come forward and I guess they are feeling that the city is going to protect us. But they are wrong.

More Income for People

CHUNG LEE, a Korean immigrant, has owned the Watts Market for seven years. He spoke through an interpreter:

I am very pleased that the city is doing something about redevelopment for Watts. We should have had it a lot earlier than now. It will make more jobs for the people of Watts, and make it a better, safer area to live in. Watts has changed very little in the 16 years that I have been here. The only difference I can see is that there are a few big shopping centers now. But the living standard for the regular people here is not too much different--maybe it’s gotten worse. I have no idea why it’s taken so long to pay attention to Watts’s problems, but I think politicians have more concern about other areas than Watts. Watts is one of the areas of Los Angeles that has most needed attention for many years. We need many things done here.

(A program sponsored by Budweiser hires) people from Watts from ages 9 to 34 to clean the streets, collect the trash and everything. I think we should have more of those kind of programs sponsored by big companies, such as beer companies, which have so much business in Watts, and milk companies, and others. Especially for youth 17 or 18 years old, they need a job, and they’ve got to have more places to go, and they’ve got to make money. We really need things like this--not just picking up trash, but painting, repairing--generally improving the environment.

I don’t know if the redevelopment plan will solve all of Watts’s problems, but I think it will help. And also, I’d like to see the press doing a more favorable job for people who don’t have money. I see a lot of articles saying bad things about minorities, and I’d like to see more positive things about them, especially blacks and Koreans.

If the redevelopment plan works as it’s supposed to, it should mean more income for the people living here. I feel very positively that this will result in better business for Watts.

Keep Pressure On

Dr. JAMES MAYS is a cardiologist and community activist who has been involved with the Watts-Willowbrook Chamber of Commerce, the Brotherhood Crusade, the NAACP and other organizations. He is concerned about the planning processes:

An economic redevelopment plan (for Watts) is needed. However, the power structure--elected officials and developers--sometimes use plans to enhance their position, and benefits don’t really reach the people because the old-line neighborhood residents are never consulted.

The CRA has not adequately consulted the residents on redevelopment. Elected officials and developers overwhelm the community with their oratory and do what they want to do. I’ve seen this many times.

I’m concerned because a plan could call for too much displacement. I’m happy that Mayor (Tom) Bradley has come out and declared that people won’t lose their homes (through eminent domain proceedings). Residents should keep applying pressure to get him to maintain his pledge.

Also, neighborhood home renovation should be an integral part of the redevelopment plan. Funds for the renovation of homes should be made available.

Residents have not been given enough time or information to understand that redevelopment can have a tremendous impact. There should be many more public hearings and residents should have an opportunity to study any redevelopment plan.

The city should help arouse the community and provide information and education on development at town meetings. The power structure--the elected officials, the entrepreneurs, the developers--shouldn’t have total control. The residents can be leaders and decision-makers on redevelopment.

Residential Areas Will Stay That Way

WILLIAM E. BROWN is the Watts manager for the redevelopment project:

Part of the problem that really is at the bottom of the residents’ concerns is a lack of information and a campaign of misinformation by the opponents. We have had large meetings that didn’t allow the individuals to hear the message. What is very positive is that, though it has been very difficult in larger mass meetings to get the point across, when you talk in smaller groups people hear what you have to say. They may not always agree, but at least they get their questions answered.

The issue of eminent domain is very scary. We have said that we are willing to put in writing that we will not use eminent domain in the residential areas. We are willing to work with the community to identify those residential areas that we are confident where we won’t use eminent domain.

The only way that an elderly couple who own their own (home) will be displaced during any period is if they decide to sell to someone. The study says the character of Watts is residential, and it is our intention to keep it residential. The only place we intend to use eminent domain is in corridors, where there is a mixture of commercial and residential.

It’s up to the community to decide if displacement is a necessary part of the process. There are areas that are largely residential. On Main Street, you have predominantly businesses with a few houses. The community will be faced with questions like, do you want to make Main Street a viable commercial area? That is something that would be up to them to decide.

Honestly, I can’t say that in a 3-square-mile area there won’t be people who will not want to be moved. But, again, that is up to the community to decide how that area will be developed.

This is not an arbitrary project by the CRA. This is a joint process. What we bring to the table is a shopping list of solutions. What the community brings is a vision of what they want their community to look like. What (the CRA has) to do is retrench and go to smaller meetings.

One of the things I continue to say to the community is, listen to what we have to say, what the opponents have to say and ask questions of the both of us. Ask, “Hey, where’d you get that information from? How do you know that?” And then make up your own mind.