Bunker Hill

* Re Patt Morrison’s June 9 column on the Community Redevelopment Agency’s request to waive its housing policy: Neither state nor city law requires low- or moderate-income housing on two parcels on Grand Avenue in Bunker Hill.

With regard to the parcels, the choices are as follows: 1) waive the CRA policy, sell the agency’s real estate assets at market rate (estimated to be valued in the range of $7 million to $8 million) and use the proceeds to support other needed revitalization projects, including affordable housing; or 2) maintain strict adherence to the policy, which in order to make the project financially feasible for a developer would require that the land be “written down” to zero dollars and that an additional infusion of approximately $6 million to $7 million be provided. The latter option would of course necessitate abandoning any project that would have been funded with the additional required infusion and abandoning any projects that would have been funded by the proceeds of the sale.

It is always preferable to pursue inclusive housing, but it is not always financially prudent, nor is Bunker Hill a blighted neighborhood where the CRA needs to encourage private investment with taxpayer subsidies.

JERRY A. SCHARLIN

Administrator, CRA

Los Angeles