SOUTH-CENTRAL : RLA Chief Backs New Advisory Panel

Residents fighting for a voice in the redevelopment of riot-ravaged vacant lots have won support from one of the city’s foremost redevelopment proponents: RLA Director Linda Griego.

In a recent community meeting with more than 150 residents, Griego wholeheartedly backed community participation in her efforts for redevelopment plans over the next 18 months of about 250 parcels of land left vacant by the 1992 riots.

Last year, Griego took the reins of RLA, formerly Rebuild L.A., which was created after the riots to coordinate redevelopment efforts. At the meeting, she also invited the gathering to convene an advisory committee to meet regularly with her to discuss redevelopment issues.

At the conclusion of the meeting at Menlo Avenue School, resident Anita Thomas said she was pleased with the outcome of the meeting, especially the idea for the advisory panel.

“We’re the people who understand what are the needs of the community,” said the longtime community activist. “I’d like to be part of that committee.”

The meeting was sponsored by the South-Central-based Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives, or AGENDA, which has been working on the issue of vacant lots since November.

The group has conducted hundreds of community surveys and used other means to draft redevelopment guidelines.

Foremost among them are provisions that new businesses meet the community’s need for more full-service retail and grocery outlets, and that these enterprises employ local residents at livable wages--those above minimum wage.

Local residents have complained that outside developers for too long have saddled South-Central with low-quality businesses and that profits are not invested in the community.

During the meeting, Griego agreed with the proposals, saying that the goals are shared by RLA. She also pledged to pass out copies of the guidelines during upcoming talks with developers.

“I’m glad she has committed to these standards,” said Thomas, who has helped organize block clubs in her Gramercy Place neighborhood for 15 years. “Now I feel we have to move forward and meet with developers.”

The Griego meeting was one of a series of gatherings called by the group to line up support for the development guidelines. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters supported the proposals during one of the group’s meetings in April.

Since taking over as director of RLA, Griego has narrowed the focus of the agency to two goals: helping shore up small manufacturing firms in the inner city and launching plans to redevelop the vacant lots that seem to dot every major commercial thoroughfare in South-Central.

Discussing the latter goal, Griego said staff members and volunteers have done extensive surveys of more than half the vacant lots and discovered that none were big enough to accommodate an average supermarket.

As a result, Griego has begun studying German and Mexican models for squeezing full-service markets into smaller spaces. She also has had initial meetings with officials from the California Public Employees Retirement System, the nation’s largest public pension fund, to discuss possible financing for a string of such markets on the vacant lots.

Although community members generally expressed support for the effort, many were concerned that the markets could add to the concentration of liquor outlets in South-Central Los Angeles.

“Can you commit to us that liquor stores will not go back into these lots?” resident Elizabeth McClellan asked Griego.

Griego responded that RLA will not support liquor stores and told the gathering they had the power to thwart such stores by opposing liquor license applications at city-mandated public hearings.

In addition, Griego vowed to work with residents to bring more pharmacies, restaurants and youth centers to the area before RLA’s charter runs out in 1997.

“You’ve got me for 18 months,” Griego said, referring to the period left in RLA’s five-year charter. “I’ve got some talents. Use them however you want.”