Alarcon Backs Idea of Redevelopment Study : Pacoima: The city councilman says he would enlist community support before offering proposals for the blighted area.

Treading on potentially controversial ground, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon on Monday backed the idea of a half-million-dollar study to see if Pacoima, the San Fernando Valley’s most impoverished community, should be designated as a redevelopment area.

Alarcon made his remarks only hours after he enlisted Mayor Richard Riordan’s help in his still-evolving plans for stimulating economic growth in the northeast Valley and gave the new mayor an aerial tour of the 7th District.

“Doing the feasibility study is certainly warranted,” Alarcon said in an interview. “This area is definitely blighted. The investment in the study is reasonable given the problems.”

Whether an official redevelopment project should be established, however, is another story, Alarcon said.

“We’re not that far yet,” he said.

Redevelopment projects in Hollywood and North Hollywood have often proved controversial, particularly among small property owners threatened by the Community Redevelopment Agency’s condemnation powers, and have become political headaches for council members.

CRA officials have estimated the cost of a project feasibility study at $500,000, Alarcon said. The study--its contents would be carefully prescribed by state law--is only the first of many steps that would need to be taken before a new redevelopment project could be created.

But the freshman lawmaker also said he wanted to test the reactions of his constituency to conducting a study before introducing a council motion ordering that it be done. “The reality is that the community has to be part of this process,” Alarcon said.

According to 1990 U. S. Census data, Arleta-Pacoima is three-quarters Latino and has the lowest household income of any community in the Valley. For years, Pacoima has had a mushrooming population of poor Latino immigrants who have supplanted blacks as the community’s predominant group.

Alarcon vaguely broached the idea of possible CRA involvement in Pacoima at a lunch meeting that he organized for northeast Valley business and civic leaders. Held at the offices of Precision Dynamics Corp., the luncheon introduced Riordan to local leaders.

“Somewhere here,” Alarcon said, pointing at the Pacoima area on a map of the 7th District, “there may be the makings of a redevelopment project.”

Don Spivack, CRA director of operations, confirmed that Alarcon has had preliminary talks with CRA chief Ed Avila about the possibility of creating a redevelopment area in Pacoima. Spivack was present at Monday’s northeast Valley briefing for Riordan.

Later, in remarks of his own, Riordan praised Alarcon’s can-do spirit and reiterated his pledge, made many times before to business groups, to streamline city government to make it easier for entrepreneurs to obtain approvals of their projects at City Hall.

“Essentially, the city hasn’t been managed for the past ten years,” Riordan said, complaining that City Hall is drowning in red tape and inefficiency.

A prominent member of the Riordan party during Monday’s tour was Deputy Mayor Alfred Villalobos, the new mayor’s economic development adviser.

In addition to the tour of the Precision Dynamics plant, which is co-owned by Walt Mosher, incoming chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., Alarcon pointed out Valley landmarks to Riordan as they flew by Fire Department helicopter from City Hall to Pacoima.

In his remarks at the luncheon, Alarcon said he believed that not enough has been done to coordinate the economic development resources in the Valley. With greater coordination, the city can get a bigger bang for its bucks, the councilman told his audience.

These resources include the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which has a Metrolink corridor running through the northeast Valley, the Pacoima Enterprise Zone and the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Trust Fund, Alarcon said.

“Quite frankly we have not done enough with the Pacoima Enterprise Zone,” Alarcon said. The zone, established under state law, provides modest tax breaks to companies within its boundaries that hire the unemployed and invest in certain capital goods.

Later, Alarcon said the city’s Community Development Department, which manages the enterprise zone program, has failed to adequately market the program’s benefits or coordinate its activities with other resources.

Alarcon pledged in an interview that he will seek to re-energize the zone with the new appointments that he will make soon to its business advisory panel.