Distressed Valley Areas to Get Aid

In a new bid to rescue poor communities, Mayor Richard Riordan is set to announce today plans to spend $9 million to revitalize distressed neighborhoods and commercial strips in the San Fernando Valley.

Five months after a divided community scrapped plans for the city’s largest redevelopment project in the northeast Valley, Riordan will designate sections of Pacoima and Lake View Terrace, both centered around Osborne Street, as one of three areas in the Valley to be added to the city’s Targeted Neighborhood Initiative program.

The other two will very likely be parts of Van Nuys and Valley Glen, sources said. The mayor’s office would only confirm the Pacoima/Lake View Terrace designation.

Each area selected would receive $3 million over four years, with the funds spent on improvement projects to be proposed by residents.

Riordan is expected to designate a fourth site--in the Harbor area--today, on top of the eight sites he announced Monday. The city is wrapping up work in 12 neighborhoods selected in 1996 as the first to be targeted under the program.

“We’ve had tremendous success with our original Targeted Neighborhood Initiative, improving the quality of life for Angelenos throughout our city,” Riordan said in a statement released Tuesday. “By expanding the TNI, we will provide even more communities with the resources necessary to make our neighborhoods healthier, brighter places to live and work.”

The Pacoima/Lake View Terrace project was selected in a competition with other community proposals submitted by City Council members and judged, in part, on whether at least 51% of residents have low or moderate incomes, according to Claire Bartels, the city’s Targeted Neighborhood Initiative administrator.

“This area is a well-deserving community that has a lot of opportunities,” Bartels said of Pacoima/Lake View Terrace.

The new Pacoima/Lake View Terrace project is near a project designated three years ago for sections of Pacoima centered on Van Nuys Boulevard.

That project, expected to wrap up by March, has produced paved streets and sidewalks and will soon lead to an improved Van Nuys Boulevard, including a major tree-planting effort and installation of bus shelters and other amenities, said Marlene Grossman of the group Pacoima Partners.

“It’s a big boost for the community,” Grossman said.

“It is finally showing the community that when they ask for something they can get it.”

The new area centers on the stretch of Osborne Street between the Golden State Freeway and Foothill Boulevard, an area offering a mix of small commercial strips and older residential neighborhoods.

“This is great news for the district,” said Councilman Alex Padilla, who proposed the area.

Padilla cited a recent series in The Times, which found that a lack of affordable housing, health care and basic city services in the northeast Valley have reached crisis levels.

“It has a lot of needs for basic public services,” Padilla said. “I hope at the end of the day that everyone living and working in the area can look out their windows and doors and have pride in the area where they live.”

Efforts to revitalize the northeast Valley received a setback in August, when Padilla decided to delay creation of a large redevelopment program after it badly split the community.

The mayor has budgeted the first $250,000 to be released to the project in April for planning purposes.

Padilla said some of the money should go toward paving streets and sidewalks and installing street lights, basic public improvements that he said have been neglected in the area.

He also envisions upgrading and beautifying homes and businesses in the area.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski asked Riordan to approve a section of Van Nuys Boulevard between Sherman Way and Van Owen Avenue in Van Nuys.

Councilman Mike Feuer proposed Valley Glen, which includes parts of North Hollywood and Van Nuys.

Today’s announcement is scheduled just hours after Padilla and Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) plan to announce their endorsement of City Atty. James K. Hahn for mayor.

Riordan has endorsed advisor Steve Soboroff for mayor, and has had some friction with Hahn.