Norman J. Priest; Led Several Southland Redevelopments

Norman J. Priest, who led redevelopment efforts in Southern California cities such as Los Angeles, Anaheim and Ontario at a time when suburbia sprawled and established cities found their aging downtowns in need of renewal, has died. He was 67.

Priest, whose efforts made headlines as a cascade of cities began using redevelopment law aggressively--some said excessively--to finance transformations of aging urban centers and neighborhoods, died Feb. 21.

A member of the team that completed California’s first major redevelopment project, downtown Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill, Priest’s career was shaped by the controversy that dogged subsequent redevelopment efforts over the last four decades.

California’s 1945 redevelopment law enabled local government to finance urban renewal. The law empowered cities and counties to seize private property to reverse neighborhood deterioration.

By the late 1950s, the once-stately mansions of Bunker Hill had fallen into disrepair, turned into rooming houses teeming with people--6,000 living between 1st and 5th streets, the Harbor Freeway and Hill Street.

But the redevelopment of Bunker Hill, as well as other early projects in the Bay Area, proved to be controversial, in large part because they did little to provide alternative affordable housing for low-income residents displaced by the redevelopment wrecking ball.

Even Priest’s wife, Halo, was angry at her husband when the redevelopment project closed her beloved Angels Flight funicular.

Colleagues said he learned from the successes and the mistakes.

Priest recognized that redevelopment means change and, when combined with the government’s power to provoke that change, often results in a highly charged political environment. But he also believed that, when used judiciously, redevelopment could save a neighborhood, a town or a region.

“He was well respected by our profession and he was a very thoughtful man in the sense of contemplating the issues . . . in rebuilding cities,” said William Carlson, executive director of the California Redevelopment Assn.

‘This Is My Mission’

“Norm felt that, if you’re going to rebuild a community, you should help those who live there, as well as those who work there, of modest means,” said Carlson. “He was very genuine in wanting to do the right thing. It went beyond ‘This is my job.’ It was ‘This is my mission.’ ”

In a 1975 interview with The Times, Priest spoke of his work as community development director of San Fernando--his first post after the Los Angeles job--and his belief that redevelopment could help private enterprise breathe new life into a dying community that people would otherwise abandon.

“One of our problems we’ve had in our cities is the same problem they’ve had in this country since 1900,” he said. “If you don’t like where you live, then . . . pack the wagon and move the family on. . . . You can’t pack the wagon and move the family anymore.”

This was true in Anaheim, one of Orange County’s oldest cities and, geographically, its largest.

When the city, under Priest’s direction, proposed a $2.7-billion, 35-year redevelopment project to pay for street and other improvements around Disneyland in 1987, the plan hit a wall of opposition.

The public refused to believe that the Magic Kingdom was a blighted area, and residents who feared their homes would be razed in any redevelopment process helped torpedo the plan.

With admirers saying he took the fall for politicians over the brouhaha, Priest resigned in January 1988 to become director of community redevelopment for the city of Ontario.

Priest probably made his greatest imprint during his eight years in Ontario, for which he coined the phrase “The Gateway to the Inland Empire.”

Priest was hired to help make Ontario a destination city, said Carrie Bedord, who replaced Priest as Ontario’s redevelopment director and now runs Corona’s redevelopment operations.

To accomplish this, she said, Priest and the City Council said Ontario needed a convention center to draw visitors, an expanded airport and a big mall with theaters and a zoo to keep folks in town during their stays. Ontario Mills alone employs 4,000 people.

“Norm was a visionary and implemented what has made Ontario the destination center that it is today,” said Bedord.

He persuaded Cal Poly Pomona and Pitzer and Chaffee colleges to move some operations to downtown Ontario, saying the presence of educational institutions contributes to economic development.

On Board of Cal Poly Pomona Foundation

He was also on the board of the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, an organization that runs campus housing, bookstores, dining services and the conference center, a university spokesman said.

Priest was born Feb. 9, 1934, in Harrison, Neb., and graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University and UCLA. During the Korean War, he was a paratrooper and officer in the Army.

Priest is survived by his wife, Halo; two sons, Jim and Steven; sister Mary and brother Keith; and one grandchild.

The family has asked that memorial donations be made to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.