Redevelopment Is Still Touchy Issue : Growth: The City Council sees a project as a way to bring in revenue. But with elections coming and public opposition strong, caution remains the watchword.

It has been nearly two decades since the city’s voters shot down a bid to use the redevelopment process to lure businesses to town, and still the subject is a political hot potato.

Since the cash-strapped City Council began looking at a redevelopment project last spring as a way to boost tax rolls, residents have barraged City Hall with phone calls and turned up at council meetings to voice fears that redevelopment could mean the loss of their neighborhoods.

As a result, after declaring itself a redevelopment agency, the council has remained stuck on the next step, picking a potential redevelopment area to study.

After months of inconclusive discussion, the council is scheduled to vote on an area Tuesday. While members agree broadly on the need for redevelopment, proponents are concerned that the idea may prove too sensitive to deal with until after the April elections.

“Right now I don’t think anyone’s realistically trying to focus on the problem until after the election in April,” said Councilman John Tapp, one of three members whose terms expire then. “The sense is, ‘If we make it a political issue, we may kill the golden goose.’ ”

Once it has identified an area, the agency would have to make a determination that the area contains “blight.” The agency could then use eminent domain to take over and consolidate small parcels and borrow money to help finance development projects. The loans would be repaid with property tax increases generated by the new development.

So far the council has rejected an ambitious proposal to include about one-third of the city’s 4.1 square miles in a redevelopment area. That plan focused on a 1,200-foot-wide swath along the main commercial streets: San Gabriel and Valley boulevards, Las Tunas Drive and parts of Del Mar and Mission drives.

Tapp and council member James Castaneda are proposing narrower alternatives to include only about half as much area along most of the same streets, but they have yet to win support.

Councilman Dominic Polimeni, a strong backer of redevelopment, said he may suggest a much smaller area--perhaps a short stretch of San Gabriel Boulevard--as a way to rescue the strategy.

Redevelopment boosters, including most council members, think San Gabriel has lost business to communities such as Monrovia and Alhambra that have used redevelopment to broaden their tax bases.

“The city needs redevelopment to be competitive with other cities,” said Dwight French, public works director and the city’s point man on redevelopment.

But past councils have considered the approach out of reach after a 1973 redevelopment proposal failed at the polls. Unable to reach a decision on a proposal to form a redevelopment agency and initiate a shopping center project in the southwest corner of the city, the City Council at the time placed the matter before the voters. It was soundly rejected.

The redevelopment question has come up again in response to recent city budget deficits. This year’s budget is expected to be at least $250,000 in the red.

City officials have pursued a two-pronged response. They proposed a 5% utility tax for immediate relief. But voters in March rejected the utility tax. Officials view redevelopment as a long-term strategy that would attract new sales tax sources--a car dealership or large anchor store, for example--by helping investors identify and assemble property or expand current businesses.

The sales tax, the city’s largest funding source, is expected to provide about $3.2 million this year. About half of that comes from 25 enterprises, including four car dealerships, according to Finance Director David Dong.

Proponents say that with little undeveloped land left, a redevelopment effort may be the only way to put together parcels large enough to accommodate big projects and answer the crazy-quilt spread of mini-malls, which fit in much narrower lots.

Nevertheless, with springtime municipal elections looming, continued indecision over how much of the city to include in a survey area may doom redevelopment any time soon.

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” Mayor Sabino Cici flatly predicted last week.

Skeptics such as Cici doubt that it would be cost-effective to tie together the 10 to 15 acres he said would be needed to attract a big store. “I think it’s just a dream.”

The redevelopment question is especially delicate for Tapp and the two other council members who come up for election in April, Castaneda and Vice Mayor Mary Cammarano. All three came into office as slow-growth representatives of a resident’s rebellion that erupted four years ago over the pace of development. Many voters believed growth was choking streets and straining public services in the bedroom community of about 35,000.

The slow-growth movement resulted in a one-year moratorium on practically all building and a battle over a proposed hotel and restaurant center on the south edge of town that has since been approved as a shopping complex.

But “slow growth doesn’t mean no growth,” said Tapp, who along with council colleagues has watched city sales tax income fall off.

Homeowners have made it clear, however, that they are still suspicious of redevelopment.

Those around Valley Boulevard say they are worried that the pockets of single-family homes near the bustling strip will be overrun with traffic and dense building if they are included in redevelopment. They have fought to prevent nearby areas from being included in even a preliminary study. All three existing proposals include the full length of Valley Boulevard in the city’s narrow southern end as well as San Gabriel Boulevard between Valley and Las Tunas Drive.

“Even though they don’t come out and say it, I feel that our houses are in jeopardy,” said Kathryn Cangialosi, who added that she and her husband are extensively remodeling their Gladys Avenue home.

Council members and some planning officials have taken pains to confront such worries. They assert that the focus of any redevelopment would be limited to commercial sections and caution that the current effort is only a study of the potential for possible development. Any resulting proposal would require public airing and review by local, county and state agencies.

“Usually, adoption of a survey area is kind of innocuous,” French said. “But for some reason (opposition) has been very active in San Gabriel. Quite frankly, there is an awful lot of bad information going out.”

Some officials have recommended seeking bids from private redevelopment consultants who would design a survey area and attend to the delicate business of selling the idea to the public.

Polimeni said he may suggest referring the matter to a citizens’ committee.

“Somebody’s going to have to bite the bullet,” he said. “We’re going to have to decide. We can’t put it off any longer.”