The Eastside Is Targeted for an Economic Shot in Arm

The Los Angeles City Council is moving to adopt a $158.7-million redevelopment plan for Boyle Heights and El Sereno that boosters hope will revive the sagging Eastside industrial and business corridors, despite protests from some residents who fear the project will displace them.

The effort will redirect a portion of local property taxes to the Adelante Eastside project, which the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency will use to eliminate blight and promote new investment in the community.

Advocates say the infusion of funds--to be carried out over 30 years--will help rehabilitate old buildings, repave streets, create new community centers and attract new businesses and jobs to the area.

“It will be a major face lift for the community,” said Al Santillanes, Eastside project manager for the CRA.

Members of the council last week gave their unanimous approval to several motions on the project, stopping just short of passing it because only 11 of the required 12 votes were present. Approval is expected Wednesday.

Some residents who oppose the redevelopment plan, yet are resigned to its passage, said they fear it will cause upheaval in the community like the freeways that plowed through the area decades ago and, more recently, the proposed Red Line subway extension that has led to the demolition of local homes.

Mindful of those experiences, opponents worry that the CRA will use eminent domain to push out the poor, although the plan explicitly states that officials cannot force people in exclusively residential areas to move.

“I’m just so afraid what they’re going to do here,” said Ernestina Montellano, 68, who circulated a petition to stop the project. “People are going to be pushed out of their homes and their little businesses. Why do they keep doing this to our community?”

Their biggest concern, residents said, is that families who live above small shops along the commercial corridors will be forced out as new development comes in.

“We like where we live and we don’t want to leave. It’s a small house, but it’s ours,” said Victoria Vasquez, 79, who has lived in her 1st Street house for 54 years.

CRA officials and project supporters have spent the last few years trying to convince distrustful community members that the redevelopment will not oust locals. Even in nonresidential areas, eminent domain will be used selectively, officials said; an amendment the City Council passed last week requires the CRA to get council approval before moving people.

“Clearly, this is a difficult issue for a community that has never had a lot of faith ingovernment,” said Joe Coria, chairman of the 37-member community advisory board that has been working on the project with the CRA. “The older generation still has a lot of scars from the past. . . . We respect our elders and their fears, but we want to move on.”

Supporters expressed relief that the plan was approved after years of contentious debate in the community.

Councilman Richard Alatorre, who has pushed strongly for the plan’s completion, called the project “extremely vital to the economic viability and growth” of the area. “I believe it will pass next week and we can end the long drawn-out process that we have undertaken to create a redevelopment area that is going to fulfill the economic needs of the people in Boyle Heights and El Sereno,” he said.

Most agree that the Eastside needs help. Old housing stock and a crumbling infrastructure have made it difficult to attract new businesses to the area. A 1992 study found that $472 million in disposable income was leaking out of Boyle Heights and El Sereno to other nearby communities each year.

But getting the project before the City Council took at least twice as long as officials hoped it would.

Eastside redevelopment was first recommended at least five years ago. In 1996, a community advisory committee began debating the issue, but the meetings were marked by dissension and distrust. The group spent months rewriting bylaws, arguing about rules for electing committee members and discussing the plan’s wording.

Eventually, the original 10-square-mile area that was studied for revitalization was whittled down to about 3 1/2 square miles of commercial and industrial corridors.

The community advisory committee will remain intact for the 30-year life of the plan and will help develop priorities for the annual budget.

If the plan is approved this week, the redevelopment project will start after a 90-day challenge period. CRA officials said they expect the first major funding to be available in three years.

For some residents, it won’t be a moment too soon.

“There are some people who will never believe good things can happen on the Eastside of Los Angeles, especially if it is done by elected officials,” said Ross Valencia, president of the Boyle Heights Homeowners Assn. “But for those of us who have been waiting for our slice of the pie, this is the moment we have been waiting for.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

EASTSIDE REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT

The proposed Adelante Eastside redevelopment project encompasses 2,200 acres of commericial and industrial streets in Boyle Heights and El Sereno. The 30-year project, which officials say would provide $158.7 million to revitalize the area, will be voted on by the City Council this week.