Lag in Quake Rehab Spurs Policy Shift

Los Angeles’ top housing official said Friday his agency will never again award major repair projects to novice developers like the politically connected firm whose failures have stalled work in one of the areas most devastated by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Gary Squier, general manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department, said his agency erred when it gave six housing rehabilitation projects totaling more than $6 million to Neighborhood Empowerment and Economic Development, a nonprofit developer run by political allies of City Councilman Richard Alarcon.

NEED is the primary developer working on quake-damaged apartment buildings in the Orion Avenue-Parthenia Street community of North Hills. The Times disclosed Friday that although repairs lag in North Hills, work at 16 other severely damaged areas called “ghost towns� is virtually complete.

Also Friday, Mayor Richard Riordan ordered a report from Squier on the NEED project.

“We want to know how the decision-making process was carried out,� said Stephanie Bradfield, deputy to the mayor.

Riordan’s chief of staff, Robin Kramer, wrote Squier asking for a report covering “the background and the current status of the project, as well as your recommended plan of action to complete rehabilitation of the earthquake-damaged properties and to stabilize the neighborhood as rapidly as possible.�

At the Housing Department, which has overseen the ghost town recovery, Squier said his agency is moving to correct problems that the NEED project has revealed.

From now on, the agency will not allow inexperienced firms to work on more than “one or two projects� at a time, Squier said.

“What needs to be done now is they need to get a work plan and they need to be held accountable,� Squier said of NEED. “The developers need to know that the entire city is concerned about these projects.�

NEED and Alarcon, who has repeatedly intervened with city officials on the agency’s behalf, defended the agency’s work, saying many of the problems are inevitable in poor neighborhoods.

Squier dismissed that contention.

“We have worked with hundreds of projects in tough neighborhoods that got done,� Squier said. “We have worked with a number of young and nascent organizations whose projects are now well managed and adding value to a neighborhood.�

NEED’s chairman of the board is James Acevedo, who was a political consultant for Alarcon’s 1993 election campaign. He and Alarcon also alleged that the Housing Department failed to properly fund their work.

Squier sharply disagreed, saying the city’s $350-million ghost-town-recovery program was equitably funded and NEED received its fair share.

“We’re not a welfare program for developers,� said Squier, who recently returned to resume charge of the agency after a seven-month leave.

Of the five NEED rehab projects in the North Hills ghost town, only the smallest, a 10-unit apartment building, is complete. NEED has started work on only one other building. Housing officials said Friday that they do not know when construction will begin on the others. NEED officials have said it will take at least a year to finish construction.

While housing officials place much of the blame on NEED, officials of the nonprofit developer have complained that city bureaucracy deserves part of the blame.

But Housing Department records reviewed by The Times showed that NEED has repeatedly been late meeting its obligations such as applying for supplemental funding, getting contracts with general contractors and architects and paying for security.

Repair costs on the buildings have been increasing rapidly while deterioration and vandalism took their toll on the buildings.

Neighboring residents say NEED’s unfinished buildings have become magnets for crime, prostitution, gangs and decay. They have complained for two years that the delays are adding to neighborhood blight.

Gary Stadig, whose firm owns an adjacent building, said Friday he may file a lawsuit against NEED, claiming slow repair work has driven down the value of his property and caused tenants to leave.

Stadig said he has been unable to rent five units because a wall around a NEED building is leaning over and blocking access to parking spaces. He said his lawyer sent a letter to NEED last week threatening a suit to cover his losses.

Harry Coleman, president of the North Hills Coordinating Council, a community improvement organization, said Friday the question of who is to blame is not important now.

“We need to stop trying to pass the buck, stop finger-pointing and just fix the . . . buildings.�