Sept 4, 2007
David Zahniser
Los Angeles Times
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's volunteer boards and commissioners typically act in unison, voting unanimously on most of the big issues. But at the redevelopment agency, the mayor's appointees have been increasingly at odds over a variety of philosophical issues: how to preserve affordable housing, how much to demand from developers, even what a project should look like.
At its most basic level, the commission has two distinct camps: three pro-business members who favor the free market and three left-leaning members who aren't afraid to demand new, sometimes unprecedented concessions from developers on behalf of renters and low-wage workers.
Becky Dennison, co-director of the nonprofit Community Action Network, said the redevelopment agency for too long ignored downtown's poorest residents, razing their homes to build glitzy new projects. That changed, she said, with the addition of Joan Ling, a provider of affordable housing; John Perez, political director of United Food and Commercial Workers in Orange County; and Madeline Janis, who heads the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy, a group focused on improving the incomes of low-wage workers.
Commissioner President William Jackson makes up the pro-business bloc with architect Alejandro Ortiz and Bruce Ackerman, a San Fernando Valley business advocate.
The new board was seated in November 2005. A month later, the commission's left wing showed it was willing to push for more "community benefits," concessions ranging from job training to new low-income housing. While Bernard Parks and the Central City Assn. feel that the CRA is an obstacle to economic investments, low-income housing advocates are supportive of the commission's left voting bloc.
No one knows what will happen when Villaraigosa's newest commissioner, Natalie Cole, publisher of Our Weekly, joins the seven-member panel on Thursday, filling a seat that has been vacant for much of the year.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cra4sep04,0,4858878,full.story?coll=la-tot-callocal
