Central City West

Anewly renovated 29-unit apartment complex for formerly homeless residents with mental disabilities opened its doors June 13 in the Central City West area of downtown Los Angeles, just west of the 110 Freeway. The complex, located close to bus lines and local health services, was built by A Community of Friends, a nonprofit affordable-housing development company. Each studio unit features a private kitchen and bathroom.

One of the best kinds of news stories involve good intentions gone bad. They are sad stories, about well-meaning people ground down by the law of unintended consequences. They interest me because they reflect my view of politicians and bureaucrats. Only a few are crooks. Most want to do good. But, like the rest of us, sometimes they just screw things up.

Watt City Center is one of several projects suffering from what seems to be a growing commercial real estate malaise in Los Angeles. Developers W&M Partners have spent the last several years jumping through an almost endless series of hoops to get their $600-million office project approved by the city of Los Angeles. Two towers totaling 1.6 million square feet of space are planned just west of the Harbor Freeway, between 7th and 8th streets.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles' Central Area Planning Commission has an important choice to make: whether to force G.H. Palmer Associates to meet the city's affordable housing requirement for Palmer's next luxury apartment project, the Visconti at 3rd and Bixel streets. The city should not grant the waiver Palmer has requested.

Although the Los Angeles Board of Education will proceed with plans to buy a 24-acre site in Temple-Beaudry for a new school, many residents still oppose the idea of putting another school in their neighborhood. At a recent community meeting, board member Vickie Castro proposed a mixed-use plan that would set aside four acres for housing around the proposed school site, bounded by Toluca and Colton streets, Beverly Boulevard and Beaudry Avenue, across the street from Belmont High School.

It's been more than a year since my last report on the rebuilding of the Echo Park Library, a tale which came to the waffling conclusion, "We'll see." Though much has happened since then in the bureaucratic and political arenas, the outcome of two years of planning can still pretty much be summed up in the words, "We'll see."

Although she has moved on to the powerful County Board of Supervisors, Gloria Molina is casting a long shadow over the June 4 special election in which six candidates are vying to succeed her on the Los Angeles City Council. Most of the hopefuls say that they want to carry on the combative style and policies of Molina, believing the mostly impoverished 1st Council District needs another advocate to fight for its fair share of city services and programs.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an ordinance fixing a flat fee of $3.50 for all taxicab trips within downtown Los Angeles, regardless of the number of passengers. The law will go into effect sometime in December on a 180-day trial basis, in part to lure holiday shoppers out of their cars and into the city's 1,350 registered taxicabs, said Kenneth Cude, engineer for the city's Department of Transportation.

Residents may review and comment on the design of the new Echo Park Branch Library at a Jan. 12 community meeting. Lang/Lampert Architects of Irvine will present floor-plan proposals and concepts and solicit input from residents for the new library, the location of which has been debated. The 12,500-square-foot building, to be built at Temple and Douglas streets, will be almost twice as large as the current library on Laveta Terrace.

The slums just west of downtown Los Angeles have been hammered by government for years. Blocks of old houses and apartments, home to generations of Mexican immigrant families, were ripped down to make way for a huge real estate development, Central City West, which fizzled with the shattered commercial real estate market. Nearby, overcrowded apartment houses seldom see a city inspector. Garbage and refuse litter the curbs. The message is clear: Nobody cares.