Building to a Climax : Fate of Massive Redevelopment Project to Be Decided Tuesday

It is shortly before 8 a.m. on another workday and a Blue Line train hums down Long Beach Boulevard.

Passengers stare out at the vacant buildings, weed-filled lots, hamburger shacks, auto repair shops, auto supply stores and used-car lots that herald the way in and out of downtown. A burned-out swap meet still stands, a reminder of last year’s riots. “For Lease” signs abound.

This is the boulevard where there were 17 new-car dealerships in 1981. Now there are two.

To the west and southeast the neighborhoods are dotted with aging homes with chipped paint and sagging front porches. Dozens of apartment buildings, which sprouted during an epidemic of construction in the mid-80s, crowd once-quiet residential streets.

These are neighborhoods where people say they don’t like to walk alone at night.

Now, the area is caught in a giant tug of war between those who want to resuscitate it with a massive redevelopment project and those who say the project could bring further hardship to an area that has had enough already.

Called the Central Redevelopment Project Area, it is the largest redevelopment project ever proposed by the city. Nearly a third of the city’s population lives within its borders. It includes portions of Long Beach Boulevard, Anaheim and Willow streets, Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway--key commercial corridors that have lost their luster.

On Tuesday, the City Council and Redevelopment Agency board are scheduled to decide whether to adopt the project. The public hearing is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers. If approved, the Redevelopment Agency will soon receive a larger share of property taxes with which it can buy and clear large pieces of land for resale to developers, usually at a discount. The money can also be used to spruce up the neighborhoods with tree-planting programs, new street lighting and housing rehabilitation programs.

By the year 2038, when the project expires, hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps more than $1 billion, will have been collected and reinvested in the area, said Susan Shick, redevelopment agency director. Supporters of the plan predict that the end result will be thriving commercial corridors, stable neighborhoods, more park space, cleaner streets--in short, an urban renewal.

Without redevelopment, some city officials and residents of the area warn, a bad situation is just going to get worse because the city doesn’t have the money to invest in the area, and private developers have not shown much interest.

“What are the other options? That is really what you’ve got to look at,” Shick said. “I mean, why not do it? The strength of this city will live and die on what happens in this central core. You can’t have an area of city that is in distress that doesn’t affect the whole city over time.”

However, some residents say a massive redevelopment project might not be the answer. They have expressed concern over its size as well as the way it was created.

After the rioting in April, 1992, then-Assemblyman Dave Elder, now a special assistant to City Manager James C. Hankla, authored a bill to help the city quickly repair damage and address its inner-city problems and blight by speeding up the redevelopment process.

Few would argue that the area has long been neglected and is in trouble. A consultant’s report, based on Long Beach Police Department and 1990 Census figures, found that the proposed redevelopment area has a higher proportion of serious crimes, such as murder, than the rest of the city, and has as many as 31 gangs, including 10 of the 11 most hard-core.

Nearly 45% of the residents are in “very low-income categories,” earning less than $17,482 a year. Three-quarters of the residents are renters, and the area is “extremely overcrowded,” the report states.

In addition, according to the city’s own standards, the area should contain or have ready access to 136 acres of parkland. It has 13.

The report states that Long Beach Boulevard, once the grand dame of the city, is dying because private developers do not believe it is a safe place to do business.

The report also found that, based on city inspection reports, 80% of the buildings damaged during the riots were in the proposed project area. Of the $20.1 million spent in the city to repair public and private buildings, $19.2 million was spent in the central project area.

The area isn’t all bad. Pockets of tidy Victorian homes dot the area, and the commercial corridors still have a sprinkling of well-kept, ethnically diverse businesses.

Nonetheless, the report stated, “The quality of life for residents of the Central Long Beach redevelopment project area has diminished considerably over the last decade.”

Elder’s legislation allowed the city to shave about a year and a half off the planning process, in part by waiving the environmental impact report requirement until after the project is approved by the City Council and redevelopment agency board. It shortened the length of time by which property owners had to be notified of the public hearing.

The legislation also decreed that the plan could not be subject to referendum, and that court challenges could be filed only within 30 days after the plan is approved, rather than the usual 60 days.

Some community activists accused the city of using the civil unrest as an excuse to seize property.

“It’s prime property,” said Jesse Gay, a retired Navy cook who has lived in his house on New York Street since 1952. “I can walk from here to the beach in 15 minutes.”

Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord, who represents must of the area within the proposed boundaries said she, too, has concerns about the proposed project.

“It’s seen as a way to grab land,” she said. “There is so much distrust of City Hall. . . . People are asking, ‘What’s the hurry?’ ”

Community Development Director Shick said that, in general, the legislation was designed to help the city move quickly as possible to help the area. If the plan is not adopted by Dec. 31, the legislation becomes void.

The legislation is just one of several concerns City Council members have been hearing in recent weeks.

Though the redevelopment agency has had meetings with just about every community organization in town over the past 10 months, property owners did not receive official word of the project and Tuesday’s meeting until the first of this month, when state-mandated letters were mailed.

The letters invited property owners to a series of meetings last week, and hundreds showed up. Some said they were angry because they felt they have been left out.

Others complained that the plan only discusses in general terms what the agency wants to accomplish.

“If you look at the plan, it’s not really a plan. It’s a declaration of power by the agency,” said resident Floyd Seymour, who led a successful move to have his New York Street neighborhood exempted from the project.

Seymour said he was concerned about the agency’s power over a person’s property rights. During the first 12 years of the project, the agency has the right to condemn property.

Since preliminary project boundaries were approved in October, 1992, dozens of property owners have asked to be excluded from the plan, many in fear that they would lose their homes through condemnation.

Self-described City Council gadfly Dan Rosenberg has launched a full-scale war against the plan, making hundreds of phone calls and distributing flyers posing the question: “Renewal or removal?” Just west of Martin Luther King Boulevard, on New York Street, a couple of dozen homeowners went to a recent City Council meeting and pleaded to be removed from the project.

“I want out of it because I don’t want to sell my house,” said 73-year-old Sena Sims, pointing to her neatly kept house. “I’m too old. I’ve been here 33 years and I don’t want to move. They are not going to stick me anyplace else. I want to stay here.”

Skeptics point out that despite agency claims that it does not plan to condemn single-family homes, a committee of residents, business people, property owners and neighborhood organizations was formed to oversee the project and provide the agency with community input. According to state codes, such a committee is required when a “substantial number of low- and moderate-income families are to be displaced by the redevelopment project.”

Director Shick said, however, that a project area committee must be formed whenever the project has a large residential population even if no displacement of low- and moderate-income people is foreseen.

In the weary tone of someone who repeatedly has been asked the same question, Shick said that the agency has “no interest in wholesale acquisition of residential property. . . . That’s ridiculous.”

In fact, Shick and City Manager Hankla have said that anyone who does not want to be in the project area can be excluded as long as a majority of neighbors on the block agree. City officials have stated on numerous occasions that the agency has never condemned a single-family home, and is not about to start now.

The agency has, however, condemned numerous apartment buildings in other redevelopment areas. According to the plan, the agency expects to “remove” 395 “dwelling units” in the central redevelopment project area for future projects.

Shick acknowledged that some people would have to move to make way for one of the agency’s first projects, a shopping center at Willow Street and Long Beach Boulevard. The agency would remove a trailer park just west of Long Beach Boulevard for the project, which would include a supermarket, a drugstore and numerous retail stores.

Under redevelopment law, the agency must give each displaced resident a choice of three comparable places and pay moving costs, Shick said. Under state law, the landowner must be paid fair market value for the land.

Alan Burks, the chairman of the project area committee that oversees most of the proposed project area, said that the group has won several concessions from the agency to prevent it from taking land willy-nilly.

For example, if a house meets city codes, its owner can obtain a certificate that prevents the agency from condemning the property. In addition, before the agency can begin condemnation proceedings it must present the committee with specific plans for the site and offer the owner the opportunity to develop that project. The agency, Burks said, will also be prevented from condemning parcels of land and letting them sit fallow.

“I think the agency has begun to understand two things,” Burks said. “It’s not their money, it’s ours. And the second is that we know what we want for our area. Don’t tell us what we want. We’ll tell you.”

Burks and other supporters said the redevelopment project will offer such benefits as home loans to first-time buyers with low or moderate incomes, as well as loans to fix up homes. Other goals include a youth center, senior center and police substations.

Besides the Willow Street shopping center, the agency has plans to build a second large grocery store, perhaps on the site of an abandoned auto lot, and to assemble parcels for a new public school close to Long Beach Boulevard.

Burks said that “wicked, wicked people” are frightening residents by making it appear as though the agency were planning to take homes.

Which leads to the question asked by Councilman Warren Harwood at a recent meeting: “If the redevelopment agency is not going to condemn single-family homes, why are so many included in the project area?”

Shick replied that the agency needs the tax base. When a redevelopment project area is formed, the total property tax base of the area is “frozen” and the city redevelopment agency collects almost everything over that amount in subsequent years. As new development takes place within the project area, property values begin to rise and the agency receives more money. A larger tax base generates more dollars for reinvestment.

Shick emphasized that homeowners’ property taxes do not go up just because they are in a redevelopment zone. Under Proposition 13, which still applies to homes in redevelopment areas, taxes do not change unless property is sold or is substantially rehabilitated.

Shick also said the agency cannot say “what will be built on this corner and what will be built on that corner,” because redevelopment has to remain flexible to respond to the demands of the market.

Business owners such as Harry Boerner, who sells televisions and stereos on Anaheim Street, said that almost anything would be an improvement.

“If it fails, I think then we are in for more troubled times,” Boerner said.

“There is not enough money that can pull this area out. The city doesn’t have the money and neither does private industry. The way things are now, I know business people right down the street who can’t get loans, who can’t even sell because no one wants to move in there.”

Long Beach Redevelopment Plan

The Long Beach City Council and redevelopment agency board of directors on Tuesday are expected to approve the largest redevelopment area project in the city’s history. Supporters say it will revitalize the neighborhoods. Critics wonder if the project is just a land grab.

Long Beach Redevelopment Plan

The Long Beach City Council and redevelopment agency board of directors on Tuesday are expected to approve the largest redevelopment area project in the city’s history. Supporters say it will revitalize the neighborhoods. Critics wonder if the project is just a land grab.

Renewal Area City of Long Beach Population 135,909 429,433 Median Income $20,974 $$31,938 Ethnic breakdown: --Hispanic 40% 23.6% --Asian 20% 12.9% --Anglo 20% 49.5% --Black 20% 13.2% Unemployment rate 10.8% 7.4% Renter-occupied housing 75% 55% Persons per household 3.04 2.61

Source: 1990 census data