North Hills Ghost Town Repair Firm Gets Reprieve

A North Hills community organization, facing intense pressure from city inspectors to repair three of its earthquake-damaged apartment buildings or have them declared public nuisances, won another reprieve Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Building and Safety Commission rejected city inspectors’ request that two of the buildings be declared nuisances because they had become havens for drug users, gang members and prostitutes.

The panel postponed action on a third building because the developer--Neighborhood Empowerment and Economic Development--still had not repaired a border wall that leans dangerously over adjoining property.

Commission members said they delayed sanctions because NEED had fulfilled promises it made two weeks ago to fence and board the buildings and post a 24-hour guard service to secure them against vandals and criminals.

All three buildings are located on Orion Avenue between Nordhoff and Parthenia streets, just east of the 405 Freeway.

NEED--which is run by political allies of Councilman Richard Alarcon--and an official of the Los Angeles Housing Department assured board members that financial arrangements, including low-interest government loans, were practically complete and that construction would start on the buildings in about a month.

The board acted after hearing NEED Executive Director Ruben Romero and a representative from Alarcon’s office urge it not to declare the structures nuisances.

City inspectors, having heard such promises before, had sought to keep pressure on NEED and the Housing Department until they actually start making repairs. A nuisance declaration would have given inspectors final authority to do whatever they deem necessary, including demolition, to force NEED to eliminate the hazardous conditions.

“I wanted all of them [declared nuisances] to make sure the buildings do get repaired and that they get the funding,” senior inspector Elvira Guardado said in an interview.

Guardado told commissioners earlier that she had inspected the buildings Monday and found NEED had cleaned up litter, drained the swimming pool and otherwise complied with the department’s orders.

“They are doing good,” she said.

The Orion Avenue buildings are in one of the areas most severely damaged by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

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NEED, which owns more quake-damaged buildings in the neighborhood than any other landowner, bought the buildings using loans and grants from the Housing Department. The department has awarded NEED more than $7 million to buy and repair those three buildings plus two others in the Orion-Parthenia area. NEED also used the money to buy a sixth structure, which is on Blythe Street just outside the neighborhood.

The Orion-Parthenia community is one of 17 severely damaged neighborhoods designated by city officials as “ghost towns.”

Repair work has barely started because of squabbles between the Housing Department and NEED, difficulties in finding contractors and supplemental financing, and delays in processing routine paperwork. Among the 17 ghost towns, Orion-Parthenia is the only one where repairs are not complete or near complete.

Work is finished on only one of the six buildings. Work started on a second one in early November. And the Housing Department is processing a second loan on the Blythe Street project.

After The Times disclosed the delays, the Housing Department agreed to loan NEED more money and officials vowed that such inexperienced developers would not be allowed to take on so many projects at once.

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To speed up the work, housing officials agreed Jan. 29 to ask the City Council to extend an interim loan of about $500,000 that would allow NEED to get to work on one of the three Orion Avenue buildings pending completion of permanent financial arrangements with other sources. The Housing Department has already loaned NEED $1.6 million to buy and begin repairs on the building.

The Housing Department also plans to give NEED a 24-month, no-interest construction loan of $270,000 to begin work on the other two Orion Avenue buildings. NEED will have to repay that loan when it arranges permanent financing. That loan brings the total amount for the two buildings to $1,320,000, said Sergio Tejadilla, a Housing Department finance officer.

As for the Blythe Street building, the Housing Department already has loaned NEED $400,000 to acquire the building. It is processing a construction loan now.