Downtown Redevelopment Plans Exacerbate Problems

by Gary Phillips

Redevelopment isn't supposed to increase blight, is it? Recently in the city of Los Angeles, there has been a lot of squall about the Anschutz Entertainment Group's maneuverings to cobble together public and private money to erect a state-of-the-art stadium in downtown.

The group proposed a swank $450 million, 64,000-seat venue replete with luxury boxes to entice an NFL franchise to move here. However, we need a larger view of how to integrate and deploy diverse resources into a more inclusive and equitable approach to economic development in Los Angeles.
The stadium became the focus of strong positive and negative attention, and even the Coliseum Commission jumped in to tout their facility where the Rams and Raiders last played before leaving. Yet the stadium was only part of a larger goal to revitalize the area. For the time being, the group has withdrawn its plans.

As the group's president, Tim Leiweke said, "We made this pretty clear to the Coliseum from the start, and when we were told we might have a challenge and some competition, we said, 'We wish you the best, and if you do that, we will get out,' and we're going to do that."

While the headlines have moved on to marquee other trials and tribulations, the City Center Redevelopment Plan continues. The plan has its genesis in the settlement of a lawsuit in 1977 between the Community Redevelopment Agency, Los Angeles County and then-L.A. City Councilman Ernani Bernardi. The settlement limited the amount of tax dollars that could be used for the redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles. Affectionately known as "the cap" by supporters and detractors alike, this limit has been reached. For years, the agency has been seeking ways to get around this spending limit and continue its role as a serious player in the transformation of downtown Los Angeles.

Thus, when a serious player such as the Anschutz Entertainment Group comes along, the agency courts its participation. Some of the group's partners are also part of the L.A. Area Land Company, which owns the Staples Center, and the LAALC has a separate development deal in place.
This past April, the stadium strategy and the modified City Center Redevelopment Plan became more widely known and criticized by the various community organizations and residents in the affected areas. The agency, in its haste and zeal to accomplish the plan sans scrutiny, had it completed in a record eight months, compared to the typical 18 to 24 month
time frames.

With more time, inclusion and consideration, this project could have been a model for real economic development. Instead, the agency set the stage for the old divisions between business and community constituencies to resurface, which ended up confirming long-stated criticisms of redevelopment and squandering lessons of the past.
At a public hearing in June at the Midnight Mission on Skid Row, more than 100 homeless and low-income housing advocates blasted the agency Project Area Committee, which makes recommendations to the agency, for not including adequate replacement housing, relocation assistance and job training and creation as part of the redevelopment plan.

To symbolize how residents hadn't been given a voice in the process, some members of L.A. Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness and the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice wore duct tape over their mouths. The county has sued the city over the plan.

Both the business community and residents want economic development that creates jobs and fosters neighborhood stability. But there are human costs to redevelopment that cannot be ignored. For instance, some 50 families were provided relocation benefits four years ago to accommodate the Staples Center. Now, those families can't afford their new housing
because their benefits have dried up. And as the plan anticipates the demolition of units, affordability guidelines should be geared to what is feasible given the kind of work performed by the people being relocated.
These folks are garment workers, janitors, produce handlers paid in cash and hotel housemaids whose incomes are a quarter of the city's median level. In exchange for the tax breaks that developers receive, they should be required to construct affordable replacement housing that is truly affordable to the people being affected.

And the agency must have the input of advocates and organizers working with our burgeoning homeless population. This is a citywide responsibility, and these homes cannot be bulldozed out of existence, its residents pushed into overburdened South Central and East Los Angeles. The agency's real estate solutions and tools cannot solve all these problems, but they can and have exacerbated them.
Gary Phillips is the communications director of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
This commentary originally ran in the Tuesday, July 23, 2002 edition of the Daily Journal.

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