As he sought approval for three downtown high-rises last year, developer Sonny Astani promised the city's redevelopment agency that he would hire union workers, install expensive underground parking and donate $1.5 million to a skid row housing fund.
None of that was enough for Joan Ling, one of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointees to the Community Redevelopment Agency board. Ling also wanted Astani to provide money for affordable housing.
"I was about to say, 'How about my children?' " recalled Astani, whose downtown project was approved on a 6-1 vote with only Ling dissenting.
Downtown business leaders and some elected officials are pointing to such incidents as they target Ling, whose reappointment comes up for a vote at City Hall today, saying she has gone too far in trying to extract concessions from developers even when their projects receive no public subsidies.
Ling's case has evolved into a clash over the CRA's attempts at controlling the gentrification of blighted areas. And it has turned what is usually a routine confirmation vote into a rare public fight, with council members Jan Perry and Bernard C. Parks calling Ling -- who runs a nonprofit affordable housing corporation in Santa Monica -- an impediment to new investment.
"I am concerned that she has acted in a manner that is not only inappropriate, but may expose us to litigation down the road by . . . loading on her social agenda," Perry said.
Labor leaders and affordable-housing advocates have rallied to Ling's defense, flooding council members with letters of support that praise her real estate finance knowledge and call her one of the city's most important voices for working families and the poor. They describe her as a fair-minded commissioner who tries to ensure that developers pay their fair share once they receive tax breaks, zoning changes and other incentives.
"We are very concerned about how she is being attacked, as if she is doing something to harm our city," said Maria Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, who lobbied council members on Ling's behalf.
Ling says she is only heeding Villaraigosa's charge to balance the needs of the poor with downtown's rapid transformation into a high-cost district where rents exceed the reach of its indigent residents.
If developers "are getting all these land-use concessions that are worth a lot of money, they should be giving something back," she said.
