Hawthorne Council to Consider Expansion of Redevelopment Area

In a move that could open the door for redevelopment, the Hawthorne City Council on Monday agreed to consider an ordinance that would declare as blighted 254 acres of land along Imperial Highway and nearby areas.

The council voted 4 to 1 to consider the ordinance despite the objections of dozens of property owners and tenants who say their homes and businesses are not blighted as defined by state law. The area includes 210 single-family homes and 527 apartment units.

A state-mandated citizens’ group that has been studying the neighborhood for more than a year generally agreed that Imperial Highway needs help. But the 25-member Project Area Committee recommended the exclusion of nine acres of land from the proposed redevelopment area, saying the 46 homes and 111 apartment units there are well-kept and unnecessary for the city’s redevelopment plans.

The council nevertheless voted to consider the Hawthorne Redevelopment Agency’s recommendations, which include the nine acres south of Imperial Highway between Gale and Grevillea avenues. Councilwoman Ginny Lambert voted against the proposal, saying she believes the neighborhood can be revitalized “without going so deeply into the residential area.”

Although substantial portions of land along Imperial Highway have been earmarked for redevelopment since 1984, Hawthorne planning officials say they need the additional 254 acres to make the area more attractive to developers.

“Without giving (the area) some additional depth, the only thing you can build there is what’s there or something like what’s there,” Bud Cormier, Hawthorne’s assistant redevelopment director, said in an interview Tuesday.

Imperial Highway, which runs parallel to a portion of the Century Freeway that is still to be constructed, has been economically depressed for years and has one of the city’s highest crime rates. The area mostly contains small retail shops, motels and restaurants.

Several people who spoke at Monday’s meeting said they agreed that Imperial Highway needs to be upgraded, but they said redevelopment is not the only answer and should be considered a last resort.

Mario Chiappe, a homeowner in the affected area who served on the Project Area Committee, said the city’s “complete lack of attention” to the area north of Imperial Highway was to blame for the blight, rather than the residents.

Chiappe, who was a liaison between the panel and Spanish-speaking residents, also complained that Spanish speakers were not adequately informed about the proposal and “don’t really understand the implications” of it.

However, city officials, who sent out notices in both Spanish and English and provided a translator for all public meetings on the proposal, said they did everything they could to ensure Spanish speakers were fully informed.

Albert J. Cadis, who lives in Hawthorne and operates a business there, told the council he came to the meeting “to condemn the city of Hawthorne for going forward with a project when 500 to 600 people have objected to it.” If the proposal was put before the citizens of Hawthorne, he added, “it would be voted down.”

His remarks referred to a public hearing two weeks earlier that drew about 500 property owners and tenants, so many that the council was forced to move the hearing from City Hall to the Hawthorne Memorial Center.

At that meeting, more than 20 people spoke against the redevelopment agency’s recommendations, and 21 written statements opposing the plan were submitted.

Many speakers said they feared that inclusion in a redevelopment area would drive down the value of their properties and would make it more difficult for them to obtain loans and to sell. Others expressed fear of losing their homes under eminent domain proceedings to make room for redevelopment projects.

Ruth McKaig, a widow and senior citizen who lives on 116th Street in the proposed redevelopment area, said her home was built with extra-wide doors and lowered fixtures to accommodate her wheelchair.

“I would never leave this house by choice,” McKaig said during the public hearing. “Finding another house would be a great burden for me. . . . I don’t see how I could ever be adequately compensated for having to make such a move.”

Hawthorne resident Martin Trouillon said the inclusion in the redevelopment proposal of a former county area that was annexed by the city in 1975 was “a slap in the face to those residents” who voted in favor of annexation.

At both the public hearing and Monday’s meeting, city officials told the property owners that being included in a redevelopment area does not automatically give the city the right to take away their homes, and they said that several more public hearings would take place before any redevelopment projects are approved.

Under state law, a city can declare an area to be blighted if it is physically or economically depressed and if redevelopment would be in the interest of the health, safety and general welfare of the residents there. Existing businesses and homeowners must be given first crack at redeveloping a depressed area.

In 1984, Hawthorne declared more than 960 acres of land throughout the city to be blighted.

Current plans in that redevelopment area include a 36-acre office and retail project known as the Oceangate Business Park on the southeast corner of the intersection of the San Diego Freeway and Rosecrans Avenue, and a 27-acre housing, retail and office development complex commonly known as the Cloverleaf project on the southwest corner of the intersection.

About three years ago, the city’s redevelopment agency proposed amending the redevelopment area to include more land. In addition to the extra 254 acres, the proposal under consideration by the council would extend the redevelopment agency’s authority to use eminent domain from 1996 until 2002. It also would increase the amount of bonded indebtedness the agency could incur to finance redevelopment, from $100 million to $665 million.

The proposal would boost the maximum amount of tax increment revenue that the agency can receive during the 35-year life of the redevelopment plan, from $200 million to $1.9 billion. Tax increment revenue is the difference between the revenue generated by a property before its inclusion in a redevelopment plan and the revenue generated from improvements to that property during the life of the plan.