Redevelopment

Regarding Ventura Mayor Jim Friedman's comments that out-of-town money is helping to finance the anti-redevelopment movement, one might ask where the developers are from and where the money they would receive as a result of these activities would be going. Out of town, maybe? JOSEPH SIEKIEL, Ventura

Palm Springs, already in the midst of a long-overdue makeover, is now scrapping an empty downtown shopping mall along once-fashionable Palm Canyon Drive, reopening some closed streets and preparing to showcase the start of its Downtown PS redevelopment. After losing its mid-century luster and enduring decades as a second-tier tourist destination, the desert city of nearly 46,000 is building again. Its target: to attract visitors to Palms Springs' burgeoning night life, art scene and retro-cool culture, supporters say. "There's been a changing of the guard," said commercial real estate broker Mark Spohn of Sperry Van Ness.

I have been privileged to work as a teacher, counselor and now a principal in the Bellflower Unified School District for the last 25 years. Soon after I started, my wife and I moved our family into this community for two compelling reasons. First, Bellflower was a community that had a strong sense of identity and a commitment to the future. Secondly, it has always been important to me to be involved in the community I serve as an educator. As an educator, I was always fascinated with the number of students I had whose parents had attended our schools and who intended to live here when they went out on their own. When I asked them why, the answers would always contain some reference to a feeling about Bellflower having this sense of a community with direction, and that the people here cared about them and their future.

Los Angeles officials agreed Wednesday to pursue a parallel track for redeveloping the city's Convention Center in the event that Anschutz Entertainment Group and the National Football League fail to reach agreement on the Farmers Field stadium downtown. Jan Perry, chair of a special City Council committee overseeing the AEG deal, said she remains hopeful that the city can continue to work with the entertainment giant in both drawing an NFL franchise and building the stadium in the L.A. Live area.

Aaron Epstein, a Hollywood businessman, got an offer recently that a lot of people in his situation would have leapt at. Hey, said City Hall, would you like a handout, Mr. Epstein? If so, we'll give you money — as much as $200,000 — to spruce up your building, inside and out. It's all part of a Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency program to brighten up Hollywood Boulevard, and Epstein is one of dozens of business owners eligible for cash loans. And the deal gets better.

In his twilight years, Zhang Shan has simplified his daily schedule to the bare essentials: Wake up, eat breakfast, walk to Shuangxing Bathhouse and undress. The bathhouse, on the southern outskirts of the Chinese capital, is a remnant of a time long past when homes here lacked plumbing and all bathing was communal. The bathhouse was also a social gathering point where men flocked to sweat, talk politics and relax. But now, local authorities with an eye toward redevelopment appear intent on demolishing what is believed to be the last traditional public bathhouse in Beijing and the social culture that emanates from it. Zhang, 67, used to commute more than an hour by public bus to fulfill his daily ritual, but two years ago he moved within walking distance.

After the savings and loan scandal, the HUD scandal, the EPA scandal and the Pentagon spending scandal, the next scandal to be uncovered will be the redevelopment scandal in the cities across the nation. Developers are moving in and promoting the stealing of private property from owners of property just because these properties happen to be on valuable land that offers developers profit-making opportunities. The city government is encouraged to expropriate this private property, giving the rightful owners minimal compensation which would not permit them to even begin to duplicate their investment at current market prices.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has sent state officials a warning that his department could be unable to provide $26 million in vital law enforcement services unless the Legislature extends the deadline to shut down redevelopment agencies. In a Jan. 24 letter to the governor and other state officials, Baca urged them to support a bill by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) that would push the closures to April 15. If the agencies shut down as scheduled in February, Baca said, smaller cities served by his deputies could be forced to cover some continuing redevelopment costs by slashing their law enforcement budgets.

The city of Adelanto had planned to spend $15 million on affordable housing. Artesia proposed to invest $2.3 million in downtown improvements. Atascadero budgeted $53 million for upgrades including a pedestrian bridge downtown and a better wall at the city zoo. These municipal projects and many more statewide are in question because of a dispute between cities and the state over what should become of hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax...

Margueretta Gulati, the Oceanside redevelopment director who helped nurture the city's budding urban renewal effort despite sometimes-formidable obstacles, announced Monday that she has resigned to take a similar post in Riverside. Council members expressed sorrow over the departure of Gulati, who will begin work in Riverside by early March. "She has done one heck of a good job," said Councilwoman Lucy Chavez, a staunch redevelopment supporter.

Cities and counties across California faced a Friday deadline for handing over millions of dollars - tens of millions in some cases - as the state winds down more than 400 redevelopment agencies. Some cities, such as Santa Ana, are refusing to hand over the money, heralding another potentially contentious battle over the funds. Friday was the deadline for many of the former redevelopment agencies to transmit funds that had been set aside to build affordable housing. The funds will be redistributed by the counties to cities, schools and other local government entities.

Chez Jay, a hole-in-the-wall eatery in Santa Monica, became as legendary as its clientele by serving as a safe haven for the likes of Henry Kissinger, Fred Astaire, John Belushi, Clint Eastwood, Judy Garland and Rat Packers Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford. Lee Marvin once rode in on his motorcycle to order a drink at the bar. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg reportedly passed the Pentagon Papers to a New York Times reporter at the restaurant's fabled Table 10. On Monday night, in recognition of the cozy bar and restaurant's importance to the city's cultural, social and political history, the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission voted unanimously to designate Chez Jay as a local landmark.

This newly redeveloped and expanded ocean-view estate in the Palisades Riviera area blends contemporary style and classic bones. To enable large-scale entertaining, disappearing walls of glass join outdoor and indoor living and dining areas while the formal dining room can seat 20. Location: 1471 San Remo Drive, Pacific Palisades 90272 Asking price: $26 million Year originally built: 1992 Living space: Eight bedrooms, 13...

It's the most ambitious construction project in South Los Angeles in decades: The University of Southern California plans to replace its ancient University Village shopping center on the edge of campus with a $900-million, multistory complex of stores, office buildings and dormitories. USC officials call the project an "economic engine" that will generate thousands of jobs, make the area around campus more attractive and provide enough student dormitory space to free up housing for neighborhood families.

JERUSALEM - Australian technology investor Kevin Bermeister has had some hits and misses in his career. He founded the popular file-sharing network Kazaa, built Australia's largest video game distributor and was an early investor in Skype. Less successful ventures included the now-defunct Sega World theme park in Sydney and an offshoot of troubled PC-maker Packard Bell. Now he has set his investment sights on Jerusalem. After buying a 185-room hotel and bidding on a troubled Jewish development in East Jerusalem that was about to be sold to a Palestinian billionaire, he has proposed his most ambitious - some say far-fetched - plan: Jerusalem 5800, a 30-year, $30-billion redevelopment blueprint to transform the ancient holy city into a sprawling international tourist hub. The businessman, who is Jewish, envisions 50,000 new hotel rooms, a new international airport in the West Bank and an underground metro line running through the city's archaeologically rich terrain.

The redevelopment of the infamously grim Jordan Downs housing project in Watts moved one step closer to reality with the announcement last month that the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles had selected two developers to map out and execute a plan for a new community. Not that anyone should pack their bags yet, either to move out of the barracks-like 700-unit structure or to move into the envisioned urban village of subsidized housing, market-rate apartments and retail stores that would replace it. The list of further steps that must be taken is long and challenging.

The article by Dan Akst "Taking From Locals, Giving to Developers" (Aug. 18) points out how government takes from the poor and gives to the rich through redevelopment. Blighted areas are denied public works, housing, federal grants, public subsidies, low-interest loans, so cities can then take control of land by setting up urban renewal programs under California redevelopment law. Since increased property taxes in redevelopment areas go to the redevelopment agency for a period of 30 years and more, the diversion of these taxes must be made up by new taxes.

Light-rail passenger service returned to Culver City last month after a nearly 60-year break, speeding the evolution of the formerly insulated bedroom community into an urban hub of business and revelry. Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of real estate development are in the pipeline, including a project linked to the new Expo Line that would contain apartments, stores and a hotel. Restaurant operators have been so keen on opening in the gentrifying downtown that rents for retail space didn't decline during the economic downturn as they did in most markets.

A Superior Court judge in Sacramento on Thursday rejected Irvine's attempt to block the state from taking millions of dollars of property taxes that were set for use in its construction of a sprawling urban park that boosters said would rival Griffith Park or San Diego's Balboa Park. Irvine had asked for a temporary restraining order to keep the state from taking the money until the issue of redevelopment funds in California had been settled. A Sacramento judge made a similar ruling a day earlier in a case involving a group of California cities, including Glendale, Pasadena and Huntington Beach.