Urban Divestment
May 9, 2008Courtesy of the LA Times: Even as Los Angeles officials search for surplus public property that can be sold to help balance this year’s budget, the City Council is weighing a plan to give a three-acre site in North Hollywood to a developer who has promised to build an office tower and a seven-screen Laemmle movie theater.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s proposed budget for fiscal 2008-09 calls for raising $14.2 million by selling excess real estate holdings, among them an old animal shelter in San Pedro, three vacant fire stations and the old Cypress Park library.
Yet Villaraigosa’s appointees at the Community Redevelopment Agency are also recommending that the council hand over a site that the agency has valued at $14.9 million to the J.H. Snyder Co., whose projects include the West Hollywood Gateway retail center and the Crescent apartments in Beverly Hills. The firm’s president has contributed $160,000 to the mayor’s political and philanthropic causes.
The plan is scheduled for a council vote today. Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes North Hollywood, said he supported the Laemmle project but relied on the redevelopment agency to craft the contract points.
