Senior Citizen Housing Project

Your story on the Jewish Federation Council’s senior citizen housing project in Sherman Oaks (Part B, June 13), which claimed the Los Angeles City Council approved the project after “sidestepping competitive bidding procedures,” may have left your readers with a mistaken impression.

Generally, the city is required to sell surplus land at auction, the goal being to get the highest price. The same is not true when the goal is to increase the stock of affordable housing. City law provides for the sale of real property without bids if the council makes a finding that the sale would benefit the public interest.

Los Angeles lacks affordable housing for all of its citizens, especially seniors. With the number of homeless people growing daily in Los Angeles, rents spiraling at an even higher rate, and the elderly who live on fixed incomes finding their money buys less and less, it is difficult to think of a project more in the public interest than senior citizen low-income housing.

I conceived this idea to lease or sell air rights over city-owned property because it brings down the cost of housing projects. The process does not lend itself to competitive bidding; in fact, putting such projects to bid would be antithetical to the goal of building affordable housing.

We have “sidestepped competitive bidding procedures” regularly on these projects which utilize city-owned parking lots to create affordable housing, and we will continue to do so. I think it’s a good idea. And I’m proud that Mayor Tom Bradley--who last year stood before the Jewish Federation’s completed parking lot-to-housing program on Pico Boulevard and Wooster Street and announced a citywide program to build affordable housing on 10 city-owned parking lots--also thinks it’s a good idea. So, apparently, does The Times, which has editorialized in favor of the Nehemia West Project.

As The Times editorialized (“A Boost for Affordable Housing,” June 14), “Developing low-income housing is not an easy task. Giving any part of that job to nonprofit developers should pay off quickly--with more affordable housing.”

Your story left the impression that the Jewish Federation sought and received special favors. It did not. In fact, it was treated exactly the same as were the developers of other like projects.

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

Councilman, Fifth District