Plan to Redevelop Valley Area in Jeopardy

Two years after the Los Angeles City Council took the first step to create a redevelopment area encompassing 6,835 acres of the northeast San Fernando Valley, the proposal has bogged down, sharply dividing a citizens panel.

The plan for the city’s largest redevelopment area is more than a year behind schedule, and the group of local residents and merchants the council formed to offer advice appears deadlocked over whether the plan should go forward.

Jim Leahy, vice chairman of the group, said he will meet with City Councilman Alex Padilla this week to urge that he pull the plug on the project.

“I’m going to tell him I think we should stop it,” said Leahy, executive director of the Volunteer Center, a social service agency in Panorama City.

The infighting and gridlock on the Project Area Committee has sparked deep concern for supporters of the redevelopment program.

Bob Fazio, a Community Redevelopment Agency planner, said he recently briefed Padilla about the option of disbanding the panel and setting up a new advisory group that better reflects other views.

Fazio said the options included replacing the elected panel with an appointed one. He said the intent would not be to silence dissent but to provide a broader representation of ideas and interests.

“It [appointment] is an alternative way of getting more diversity,” Fazio said.

Padilla said he has no plans to disband the panel, putting his faith in new elections in mid-December that he hopes will provide broader representation.

“That [disbanding] is not an option for me,” he said.

The Project Area Committee should have 23 members but only 11 seats are filled, not enough for a quorum to conduct business. Many seats did not draw candidates in previous community elections, and some members have resigned.

Unable to legally act, the committee has not advanced the plan, and probably won’t be able to do so until after the December election.

The turmoil has led to doubts among several people who have been open to the idea of redevelopment.

Advisory panel member Luke Walker said he wants to see a workable project approved, but was taken aback at an unofficial meeting of the panel last week after someone asked the audience of about 100 residents to raise their hands if they wanted the project canceled.

“It was very interesting that every member of the public except one said they didn’t want [the project],” said Walker, who owns a Sylmar cafe.

Padilla said he believes there is community support for a redevelopment proposal and that he wants a plan approved quickly but is dissatisfied with the small number of people involved in the committee.

“We need to bring this CRA plan to closure, but the community involvement needs to be greater,” Padilla said.

The Community Redevelopment Agency has proposed spending $490 million during the next four decades to revitalize a huge swath of the Valley that it says is blighted, including parts of Pacoima, Sylmar, Sun Valley, Panorama City, Arleta, Lake View Terrace and Mission Hills.

Money from property taxes generated from increasing property values in the area would be used to subsidize development of the area’s fading commercial and industrial strips and housing stock.

“The northeast Valley is an area that would very much benefit from redevelopment activities,” said Keith Richman, a CRA board member and physician whose medical office is in Sun Valley.

“There are areas out here where the streets are not paved,” Richman said. “It’s an area that is as needy as any in the city.”

Caron Caines, a lawyer who chairs the northeast Valley project advisory panel, said redevelopment will help provide the many low-income residents of the area with better housing and jobs.

“It has clearly taken far too long to approve,” said state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), who was a councilman when he proposed the project in early 1997. “It has been bogged down for at least a year now.”

Fazio acknowledged that an environmental impact report required for the project has been delayed for a year, saying the consultant drafting the study has been swamped with work on other project area proposals. A staff shortage has also contributed to delays.

*

Criticism raised by advisory committee members includes:

* The area proposed is too large, lacking focus on truly blighted neighborhoods.

* The proposal would give the agency too much power to condemn properties for private developers.

* The agency has not put forward a specific plan--with details of individual commercial, industrial and housing projects--to show how it will spend the $490 million.

Some have suggested that the creation of such a vast project area is an attempt to create a new cash cow for the CRA, an agency that is facing serious budget problems and has had to cut its staff from 350 to 190 workers in the past five years.

The proposed project would be larger than the city of Santa Monica.

“We may be taking a very large geographic area and putting it in redevelopment simply to get tax income even though only a small portion can be redeveloped,” said Fred Weinhart, who represents the Sylmar Chamber of Commerce on the advisory committee.

Weinhart said the project area will have to be scaled back and better focused to win his support.

Padilla said he is open to whatever the committee recommends.

“It may sound like it is [too big] because it incorporates various parts of the district, but I also know I have needs throughout my district,” Padilla said.

Weinhart said he could vote for a plan that is detailed and answers all of his questions.

“But If I were forced to a vote today, I’d vote against it because I don’t know what it is,” Weinhart said.