Bringing ‘Ghost Towns’ to Life : Los Angeles officials create reasonable plan to deal with quake problem

It’s taken a while, but the City of Los Angeles appears to have developed a reasonable plan to address the crime-ridden blight of the “ghost towns” that have sprung up since the Northridge earthquake. The approach looks good on paper; now it must be put into effect.

Citywide, about 18,000 residential units have been abandoned by their legal occupants since the quake. There are at least 38 neighborhoods with 100 or more vacant units.

Most affected are 13 communities in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the Mid-City area. In the five months since the main temblor, many of the abandoned buildings in these areas have been occupied or used by street gangs, drug dealers, prostitutes or squatters.

The problems thus created are manifest. Trespassers are stripping the buildings of useful items, some of them very costly to replace; crime is spreading in many of the affected neighborhoods, often moving into adjacent communities too. The thefts by the trespassers and the damage they are causing have resulted in a substantial rise in rebuilding costs, and the blight increasingly endangers nearby neighborhoods.

The ghost towns range from 19 complexes in a low-to-moderate-income area of Sylmar to a concentration of 11 structures in relatively affluent Sherman Oaks.

Beginning today, city building inspectors are supposed to determine which of the damaged complexes constitute public safety hazards and are occupied by trespassers. The owners of those declared hazardous will have 10 days to clear out the trespassers and seal the structures. If they are unwilling or unable to do so, the police will be called in to do the job and city crews will erect fences and otherwise make the buildings secure.

The city says it is prepared to pay for patrols by private security guards for 120 days at such locations. Officials also say that city crews can begin demolition of the worst structures within two weeks.

Contingencies and fall-back positions abound, and that is good. A task force of city department heads, convened at the request of City Councilman Richard Alarcon, said that $20 million is available in federal housing funds and that $99 million more in federal community block grants can be tapped. So can $116 million in local and federal quake recovery funds. However, several matters must be pressed with federal officials, the governor and Legislature:

1. The Small Business Administration should be persuaded to give priority to the loan applications submitted by building owners in the ghost towns.

2. Local officials should take advantage of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s willingness to consider new aid requests for ghost-town areas.

3. State legislators should be given a tour of the blighted areas. Perhaps when they see the problem firsthand they will take the necessary step of enacting a temporary quarter-cent increase in the sales tax to help fund the rebuilding.