Redevelopment Gets Mixed Reviews in Hollywood

The people of Hollywood have given the Community Redevelopment Agency decidedly mixed reviews over its handling of the massive redevelopment of the city’s movie capital over the last two years.

During a state-mandated biennial field hearing at the Hollywood Roosevelt Thursday evening, redevelopment agency officials heard speeches and critiques from more than 75 residents, activists, city administrators and advisers about the agency’s performance in engineering the planned restoration. The CRA’s seven commissioners also approved a landmark social plan to earmark up to $92 million over the 30-year life of the plan to deal with the most pressing needs in Hollywood.

But, as expected, the more than 300 people who showed up at the sometimes raucous meeting were there to speak their minds about the redevelopment plan, perhaps the most beleaguered renewal project in the agency’s history.

Several scuffles erupted when recalcitrant speakers refused to yield the microphone and were led from the podium by police, with one confrontation spilling out into the posh hotel lobby. Protest signs such as “CRA: Blood-sucking leaches” (sic) were prominently displayed, but attendees were mostly well-behaved, in contrast to the noisy, jeering crowd that shouted down CRA supporters at the first biennial meeting in 1988.

Some at Thursday’s meeting sharply criticized the CRA for failing to respond to residents’ concerns about the crime, violence and general urban decay that has plagued the 1,100-acre section of Hollywood that makes up the redevelopment district.

But others said redevelopment is needed to restore Hollywood to its former glory, and that the CRA is doing its best to engineer the renewal in the face of contentious protest groups who have filed lawsuits to block it.