How Everybody Can Win When Reviving Inner-City Neighborhoods : Development: Central City West is a landmark agreement in urban-renewal politics. Residents may actually be rewarded rather than punished.

The politics of development in Los Angeles has come of age.

The city and a consortium of major developers recently became partners to what was called “one of the most perfect plans” to revitalize a decaying inner-city neighborhood on the western edge of downtown. Unlike the city’s previous “urban removal” style of redevelopment, the plan promises not only to produce new jobs, tax revenues, office space, retail stores and upscale housing. It also includes construction of thousands of units of affordable housing.

But what most distinguishes the project, known as Central City West, is that the low-income residents who will be directly affected have blessed it. Rather than facing the threat of eviction, they can expect to see their neighborhoods preserved, their housing upgraded and their quality of life improved.

What a difference a generation makes. Roughly 17 years ago, when scores of blocks of low-income housing and small businesses downtown were being demolished to make room for office towers, a small group of residents in the Temple/Beaudry neighborhood, now part of Central City West, fought to stop construction of a Bank of America data-processing center and parking structure. The difference between what happened then and what is unfolding now testifies to just how complete the revolution in the politics of downtown development has been.

In 1974, the Temple/Beaudry neighborhood was mostly composed of low-income Latino families, many undocumented, living in dilapidated rental housing in the shadow of the Harbor Freeway. The absentee landlords included some prominent local businessmen. Few of the 600 residents were registered voters or participants in politics. To the powers downtown, they represented no threat to their redevelopment schemes.

The Bank of America project would have blithely wiped out Temple/Beaudry had not public-interest lawyers, a community activist and the local parish priest mobilized its residents and brought their plight to the media’s attention.

At the outset, the absentee landlords threatened to evict the residents. The Archdiocese pressured the priest to limit his involvement; he was ultimately transferred. City Hall asserted that the residents had no legal basis to complain. Faced with such opposition, many Latino families moved out.

But within three months, what had begun as a routine development proposal was transformed into a cause celebre. Adopting tactics then foreign to Los Angeles neighborhood politics--packing public hearings with local residents, getting affected families on television--the residents and their advocates put the bank, property owners and city officials in an unaccustomed spotlight. Plagued by mounting negative publicity and the threat of legal action that could indefinitely delay the project, the developer proposed a financial settlement, which the remaining residents snapped up. But their neighborhood was lost to the bulldozers.

Temple/Beaudry’s story could not have been repeated in the Central City West agreement, for a number of reasons. The public’s sensitivity to the displacement of viable, low-income communities and destruction of affordable housing has dramatically heightened. The Latino community in the downtown area has blossomed politically, electing representatives to the City Council and becoming a significant factor in mayoral politics.

The process of urban development has also matured, with master planning a key component. By proposing to redevelop so large an area--465 acres--under one plan, the developers’ group, Central City West Associates, knowingly took on a host of complex, high-visibility issues involving the physical, economic and demographic characters of the downtown neighborhood. Since the proposed Central City West encompasses homeowners and renters, a multitude of small businesses and residents of varying incomes and education, the plan could not possibly be characterized as mere slum removal.

Today’s political environment further undercuts old-style development politics. In 1974, Councilman John Ferraro, whose district included Temple/Beaudry, sympathized with the residents’ plight. But the affected families were a marginal constituency compared with Bank of America. The idea that he would antagonize the bank over a few units of slum housing was inconceivable.

The City of Los Angeles did not even have a department concerned with housing issues. Tom Bradley, still early in his tenure as mayor, had no staff member capable of dealing with the social and planning issues raised by Temple/Beaudry’s complaint. Only the City Planning Commission pressed the property owners and the bank to respond to community interests as a condition of project approvals.

The area defined by Central City West, by contrast, was represented throughout the development negotiations by then-Councilwoman Gloria Molina. Her aggressive advocacy of affordable housing proved critical in bringing the developers to the bargaining table early. Also adding momentum was Bradley’s own support for Central City West and other efforts to preserve low-income communities, reflected in his appointment of the attorney representing the United Neighbors of Temple/Beaudry as his housing coordinator.

Changes in state law further constrain development on the backs of low-income residents. Central is the requirement that cities actively plan for the housing needs of low-income households, allocate a substantial portion of redevelopment funds to pay for them and expand opportunities for public participation in development decisions.

Equally as important, the developer community has become accustomed to a variety of conditions and exactions--parks, child-care centers, art--to get their projects built. The Central City West agreement is remarkable only in that it focuses so sharply on improving and augmenting the affordable-housing stock, and specifically for the benefit of the existing residents.

There is no shortage of skeptics who doubt the Central City West agreement, and the redevelopment plan it represents, will become a reality. Some in the real-estate industry decry a deal that hinges on developers having to help solve broad social ills as a condition of doing business. They miss the point.

The old development-business-as-usual, conducted safely out of sight in the boardrooms and back rooms of downtown institutions, has given way to a social and political climate in which politicians, developers and residents can enjoy being caught in a “win-win” situation. The Central City West agreement makes that happy circumstances possible. As such, it should be the model for all future negotiations on downtown development.