Supporters of redevelopment won’t disappear

Deirdre Newman

As opponents of the city redeveloping a chunk of the Westside sighed

with relief this week, supporters vowed to keep an eye on how efforts

to improve the area progress.

The City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, decided not

to add about 440 acres to the Downtown Redevelopment Zone because it

felt revitalization could be better achieved by other means. It did

agree to revisit in January the idea of redeveloping the 19th Street

commercial corridor.

The issue of redevelopment has been a lightening rod that has

polarized the city -- some residents feel redevelopment is necessary

to alleviate what they consider to be blight in the Westside area,

while industry property owners feel private enterprise can best

restore the area.

Ultimately, the industrial property owners prevailed, a testament

to their unity and perseverance. A group of them banded together to

form the Westside Revitalization Assn. to work with the city to

improve their properties without the threat of redevelopment.

“I believe that [the agency] saw the property owners of all

stripes had the genuine interest in revitalizing the Westside,” said

John Hawley, whose company, Railmakers, makes stainless steel

hardware for boats.

Residents who feel redevelopment is a necessary tool to be wielded

expressed disappointment with the decision.

“It is unfortunate that the City Council spent hundreds of

thousands of dollars on a project they apparently had no intention of

following up on,” Costa Mesa improvement activist Eric Bever said.

“Unfortunately, the City Council never laid out any plan with which

to promote the project. A project without a plan engenders fear, and

that is what we got.”

In February, the Planning Commission adopted preliminary

boundaries for an odd-shaped addition to the redevelopment area,

roughly bordered by 15th Street, Whittier Avenue and West 19th

Street. The next step would have included in-depth assessment of

blight in the area, gauging properties on physical and economic

conditions.

In making its decision, agency members agreed that problems on the

Westside would be better tackled by repaving the streets, putting

unsightly utilities underground -- work that is already underway --

rebuilding infrastructure and providing economic incentives to

property owners to invigorate their own territory.

Bever said he expects the agency to follow through on its

commitment to these measures.

“Westside homeowners are eagerly awaiting an accounting of all of

the alternate solutions to addressing our streets, drainage,

undergrounding and other issues,” Bever said.

Dan Gribble, chairman of the Westside Revitalization Assn., said

the group would continue to push for improvements on the Westside.

“We’re still going to go forward. Our role wasn’t just to be

obstructionist and stop [redevelopment],” Gribble said. “I think this

whole redevelopment issue was a wake-up call for us to take a look at

our own backyards and clean it up a bit. One of our major functions

is to provide a major voice that can communicate with the city and

work with the city to mutually improve the area and self-police

[it].”

Some of the association members are also on the Westside

Revitalization Oversight Committee, which is overseeing the

implementation of the Community Redevelopment Action Committee’s

vision and recommendations for the Westside. This will provide more

opportunities for industrial property owners to work with another

community group for the benefit of the Westside, Gribble said.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].