EASTSIDE : Redevelopment Plan Submitted to Council

After a year of public debate, residents, business owners and other community members involved in the Eastside Redevelopment Feasibility Study hope that their recently drafted plans get the nod from Councilman Richard Alatorre and the rest of the City Council.

If the council approves the proposals, the community--with the help of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and private consultants--will start a two-year process to qualify for state funding toward redeveloping business and industrial corridors in El Sereno, Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights. The council is expected to take up the matter this summer.

The ambitious plan to bring in state money for the area began with a 16-month study in 1992 called Adelante Eastside. Consultants, including Barrio Planners, an Eastside architectural and planning firm, completed an extensive study of a 10-square-mile area in which the number of structures and people were counted, the income levels recorded, the condition of the buildings documented and even the shopping habits of the residents tracked.

With that overview in hand, community members recommended 11 steps to begin the process of revitalizing the area. One of those steps was to conduct the Eastside Redevelopment Feasibility Study, in which consultants continued to study the area and residents were kept apprised of their progress at monthly meetings run by the Citizens Advisory Committee appointed by Alatorre.

Residents who had not heard of the process and felt they had not been included created their own group, called Union y Fuerza de la Comunidad, and held monthly meetings to keep residents updated on the progress of the study.

They feared that their neighborhoods and homes could be in jeopardy if officials wanted to tear down old and crumbling buildings and replace them with new structures.

They have said that the Citizens Advisory Committee does not adequately represent the community and hope that any future committee members are elected and not appointed, said union organizer Juan Parrino.

CRA Project Manager Al Santillanes said the third phase of the redevelopment process, which would begin after City Council approval, would need the community’s involvement to go forward.

“Now we have to take all the steps necessary to develop a redevelopment plan, which involves all kinds of reviews, hearings and community involvement,” Santillanes said.

The state government outlines which cities can qualify for redevelopment money. The are many factors to consider in the process, including determining whether an area is blighted or whether it can support a tax increase to partially fund the redevelopment. So far, the consultants hired to review the laws and determine whether the area qualifies for state money say it does meet the criteria, Santillanes said.

“Now we’re taking the steps necessary to establish a redevelopment plan that’s real definitive,” he said. “That’s why it will take two years . . . . This is a tool for positive change and we want to see if we can use it.”