LANI Offers Real Hope : Program provides opportunities for neighborhoods in need

Today a better bus stop, tomorrow a better city. That’s the idea behind sidewalk-improvement plans in Sun Valley, North Hollywood and six more L.A. neighborhoods.

Citizens groups there have each successfully proposed $250,000 worth of fix-up projects. Befitting its source, the U. S. Transportation Department, the money will go partly for bus shelters. But it will also be spent on amenities such as street lights, drinking fountains, trees, park improvements and “welcome” banners.

These immediate improvements will raise the comfort level and signal that the residents are proud of their neighborhoods.

The communities’ long-range visions are considerably bolder. As the bus-shelter phase gets under way, the small Downtown administering agency, a private but publicly funded entity called the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative, will study “wish lists” from the neighborhoods. If granted, the wishes would attack deeply rooted problems of public safety, recreation, housing, and business and social services.

LANI, started by Mayor Richard Riordan’s office using federal transportation money, supervises the neighborhood efforts with a three-person staff. After weighing the specific requests, it will seek government aid, private money and city government cooperation, whatever is appropriate.

These big plans will strike some people as not merely bold but unrealistic. Sun Valley wants upward of $12 million worth of projects. Its planners envision newsstands, bookstores and movie houses on Sunland Boulevard, where pedestrians are presently squeezed between blank walls and busy traffic. The targeted stretch just south of the Golden State Freeway is overhung with wires and dominated by a gaudy bar. As the planners have spelled out, the surrounding Sun Valley community is beset with poverty and crime.

Still, anyone who remembers downtown Burbank only a few years ago knows that wishful thoughts can come true.

And the neighborhoods already have some things going for them. North Hollywood’s project is in its still-developing NoHo Arts District. Sun Valley’s is in a viable if downscale retail business district, and a community effort appears to be controlling graffiti and sidewalk trash.

The neighborhoods are manageably small, a handful of city blocks, and blessed with energetic volunteers who have donated many hours to developing their ideas.

An appealing aspect of the LANI approach is its flexibility. This is likely to be highly important as Washington moves into reduced social spending and perhaps the shifting of decision-making to states. Before the November elections, officials had talked hopefully of LANI spending $80 million. Now they say the only certain federal money is the first $2 million for eight neighborhoods.

In its projected two-year life, LANI will be the place for the neighborhood organizations to take ideas for refinement, consolidation and grant-writing expertise. The urgent needs will outrun the resources, but what else is new? LANI represents the possibility of real accomplishments generated by the people who know best what neighborhoods need, the ones who live there.