SOUTH-CENTRAL : Group Seeks Input on Lot Development

Less than a mile from Brenda Robinson’s Gramercy Place home, illegally dumped furniture, tires and cars plague a weed-ringed lot left vacant by the 1992 riots.

“It’s definitely an eyesore,” lamented the 35-year-old group insurance administrator.

Although Robinson wants something built on the site, where a restaurant once operated, she worries that developers far from her neighborhood will build on the lot--and 300 others like it in south Los Angeles--without heeding the wishes of the community.

But Robinson and other residents with similar concerns aren’t waiting for developers to make the first move. Instead, they have joined forces with a local community-based organization that is working to ensure their participation in development decisions.

“Community residents generally don’t have a say over what’s put on the corner of their block or down the street,” said Adrianne Shropshire, an organizer with Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives, known as AGENDA.

Last November, the organization launched a campaign to cement community involvement in rebuilding efforts, starting with a four-month survey to gauge neighborhood sentiment on the issue. Of more than 760 community members randomly sampled, 82% said residents and local merchants should be involved in the process to develop the lots.

Armed with those figures, AGENDA--which formed in the wake of the riots to attack the social and economic conditions that helped lead to the riots--has begun lining up support for a list of development standards for the lots.

Foremost are provisions that new business meet the community’s need for more retail, service and grocery outlets, and that these enterprises employ local residents at “livable” wages.

The group has already won the support of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters, whose largely inner-city district suffered the most damage in the 1992 riots.

At a recent AGENDA-sponsored meeting of about 70 community members, Walters said: “I think we just really have to be sensitive to the wishes of the neighborhood as we rebuild South-Central Los Angeles.”

AGENDA now plans to rally the backing of other community organizations, block clubs and Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas as it works on its next key goal of gaining agreement from RLA, the private agency set up after the riots to coordinate rebuilding efforts.

“The idea is to get support from those people who are in the position to influence the development process,” Shropshire said.

RLA President Linda Griego said in an interview that she plans to meet with AGENDA and its supporters in May.

Attracting development to riot-related vacant lots is paramount, she said, and community participation is important to determining what businesses RLA should court.

“If the community won’t shop at a particular store, it’s not going to come here,” Griego said.

As examples of RLA’s efforts to reach out to community members, Griego cited the agency’s recent random survey of more than 1,000 residents and merchants near the vacant lots to find out their preferences for new businesses. In addition, Griego said, she meets at least twice a week with community groups to discuss RLA’s efforts.

In the meantime, residents such as Robinson wait to see the lots transformed.

“We don’t know what’s going to come, but we hope it’s something that the people in the community desperately need, or we’ll boycott it,” she said.