City Council Puts Watts Redevelopment on Hold

The Los Angeles City Council officially put on hold Tuesday a $200-million project to redevelop Watts, delaying plans to revitalize the economically depressed community until residents’ fears of losing their homes can be allayed.

The council voted 11 to 0 without discussion to rescind its previous approval of what would have been the city’s biggest redevelopment project.

Instead, they voted to have the Community Redevelopment Agency, which would carry out the project, and two citizens’ advisory committees work over the next six months to resolve the concerns of many Watts residents, who fear they would be driven out by the sudden changes in their neighborhoods.

The proposed redevelopment project was to have been an expansion of a 107-acre site that was established in 1968 along 103rd Street after the Watts riots 25 years ago exposed the area’s blight.