Molina-Pacheco Feud Stalls Housing Project

A feud between county Supervisor Gloria Molina and City Councilman Nick Pacheco has stalled plans to replace about 100 homes in Boyle Heights that were wiped out to make way for the now-abandoned Eastside subway extension.

The wrangling over how to replace the homes and where to put them taps into years of resentment of local government by many who live east of downtown Los Angeles.

Pacheco is accusing Molina of trying to steal from Boyle Heights by pushing to replace the housing with new homes in the unincorporated section of East Los Angeles. There is $2.6 million available from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in a lawsuit settlement with several Boyle Heights community groups.

The money was originally targeted for Boyle Heights, which is inside the Los Angeles city limits. About 100 homes there were razed in anticipation of the Red Line subway extension. The transit project was abandoned after county voters approved a 1998 ballot measure against spending any more local sales tax money on new subway construction. Residents subsequently sued the MTA over the lost housing.

Molina--whose supervisorial district overlaps Pacheco’s in Boyle Heights--has refrained from speaking publicly about the replacement housing, though several community leaders say she has privately relayed her side to them. She declined to be interviewed for this story.

Her staff said the proposal to use unincorporated land stems from concerns raised by Pacheco over the dearth of vacant land in Boyle Heights to build new homes. The supervisor wants to build at least 50 replacement homes. The councilman wants more flexibility to also rehabilitate vacant houses in Boyle Heights.

“They can’t seem to decide what the best method is to get that money out on the street,” said Maria Cabildo. Her East Los Angeles Community Corp. has been waiting for more than a year to apply for loans from the settlement to spend on new housing in Boyle Heights.

At Pacheco’s urging, Molina’s version of the MTA settlement plan was amended to mandate that all replacement housing be in Boyle Heights, without stipulations on new construction. Families displaced by the Red Line project, all of whom have since relocated, will also get first dibs on the apartments and houses.

“I don’t know why . . . Supervisor Molina would want to violate the lawsuit settlement, but [her plan] clearly violates it,” Pacheco said.

The revised plan has been approved by the city but still must be reviewed by the MTA, of which Molina is a board member. She has indicated previously that Boyle Heights should get most of the replacement homes, but it is uncertain whether she will recommend board approval of Pacheco’s plan. A decision is expected this week, MTA officials said.

Molina spokesman Miguel Santana said the supervisor believes the MTA should be responsible for replacing lost housing in Boyle Heights with newly constructed homes. But he added, “We don’t want to let the MTA off the hook by allowing them to stop building the replacement housing simply because they can’t find the land.”

The portion of unincorporated land the supervisor hopes to include lies near 1st and Lorena streets, where several homes close to the city-county border were razed for the abandoned subway right of way.

Land at the intersection already owned by the MTA is being looked at as a station site for the planned six-mile light-rail extension into the Eastside. Eight more stations on the Eastside and in unincorporated East Los Angeles would be built for the extension, officials said.

Molina supporters said Pacheco wants to wage a turf war over a housing problem that affects both city and unincorporated neighborhoods. Boyle Heights residents and activists are divided.

“The property was taken out of Boyle Heights; it should all go back to Boyle Heights,” said Ernestina Montellano, 69, a lifelong resident. “Put the homes back.”

Laura Pizana is eager to move back to Boyle Heights from Bell Gardens. In 1996, her family was the very first to be displaced by the Red Line. To her, the dispute is petty.

“Boyle Heights and East L.A. are the same thing,” said Pizana, a member of a resident advisory group on the Blue Line project. “Why are we fighting over these minor details? The money is there and we need to build. We need to get this project moving.”

For others, the dispute has triggered resentment over other empty lots owned by the MTA.

Backed by Pacheco, some residents are demanding in a petition that Molina help return to the city an empty parcel on Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Soto Street owned by the MTA.

MTA officials said the property may be needed to store materials during construction of the Eastside light rail extension, scheduled to begin in 2003.

Pacheco argued that the property could be purchased from the MTA by the city for development. Molina is agreeable, Santana said, as long as materials can be stored elsewhere.

Gerardo Salas, whose Union y Fuerza de la Communidad was among the plaintiffs in the MTA lawsuit, said: “The feeling that most of the people have is that those properties have to go back to the community, and something that is good for the community has to be built there.

“We’ve already seen far too many delays and far too many failures with the MTA,” he said.