Can Los Angeles Bank on Its River?

Pro: Environmentalists say a plan to restore the river will have broad economic benefits as proven in other cities. By David Bergman Now is the time to think big for the Los Angeles River. For decades Southern California as a whole and Los Angeles in particular have been losing the race to improve our physical infrastructure so that it can meet the demands of a 21st century global economy. Add the L.A. River and the proposal to revitalize it to the list of overdue projects that need to be undertaken. However, with the loss of redevelopment and tax-increment financing, the job of local governments in building public improvements has been made immeasurably challenging. The new reality of public infrastructure financing means that development opportunities and public benefits must be created where none existed before. This is where the advantages of Alternative 20 of the Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility study come into play. Simply put: it creates more benefits in general and in particular creates benefits for specific properties near the river that can help fund the project. The fiscal realities affecting large-scale infrastructure projects like the L.A. River Revitalization are clear. Thinking beyond existing funding sources for single-purpose projects such as stormwater management, transportation and public health, Alternative 20 creates a tremendous opportunity to maximize multi-beneficial projects for the river through increased public-private partnerships. The federal government is getting out of the infrastructure-funding business due to ideological and practical restraints on spending. The state of California is in fiscal retrenchment and despite the stabilization of its operating budget, the appetite for major capital investments is weak. This leaves the city of Los Angeles as perhaps the key motivated financial partner interested in seeing the project move off the shelf to become a project future generations will enjoy. With the loss of redevelopment, the choices for local funding are spare. Basically they boil down to general funds or benefit assessments. But in order to raise funds for capital investments through a benefit assessment approach, you actually have to create benefits. Alternative 20 does this in spades compared to Alternative 13. Consider the following advantages: • A major new park at Piggyback Yards would incentivize new investment along the river and into North East Los Angeles. Improved connectivity will change the value dynamic for property along the river . • Alternative 20 benefits more communities. With its larger scope, this approach would create improvements in Valley communities along the river and would extend its benefits into downtown. • A bigger capital investment would better stimulate the regional economy. This means more jobs and more investment as the larger vision of Alternative 20 is built. The Arbor Study suggests that there would be significantly greater economic impacts with Alternative 20. • This is a case where bigger is better. Not only would communities get more in the way of parks, trails and habitat, Alternative 20 can help create the conditions that will allow for the project to help to pay for itself. These economic advantages also play into questions of competitiveness for Los Angeles. Substantial evidence from cities across the world supports the value of waterfronts and their ability to incite urban renewal, transforming city cores into major recreational and economic resources. From Washington, D.C. to Sao Paolo, Brazil cities have successfully revitalized their riverfronts. By reclaiming their waterfronts into the urban framework, cities have been able to catalyze impressive urban growth and development. Our inability to transform the river from its current state into an attractive public space puts us at a disadvantage. Just recently, an international design competition was held by Dallas to develop a strategy for reconnecting its downtown and the Trinity River. Immense participation and public attention to the competition worldwide affirms the importance of waterfronts. And during the decades while San Diego reconnected its downtown to the waterfront and San Francisco reinvigorated the Embarcadero, Los Angeles has stood still. For years we have been turning our back on one of our greatest potential amenities. Now is the time to support the current transformation of the L. A. River to leverage economic investment as well as ecological restoration. At the same time, we can harness the opportunity to expand public amenities, create new connections to adjacent neighborhoods and improve the quality of life for all Angelinos. Finally, the question also comes down to vision. In this year marking the centennial of the Los Angeles aqueduct, which opened up vast new horizons for our city, it’s incumbent on this generation to take a similarly bold act to improve our city. Alternative 20 offers us the crucial opportunity to move beyond a narrow focus to create a project that will provide direct economic benefits and improvement to our city today and in years to come. David Bergman is AICP Principal at Metropolitan Research and Economics, an L.A. economic consulting firm. Friends of the Los Angeles River and Mia Lehrer + Associates, a L.A. landscape architecture firm, contributed to the article. Con: Business group argues the $1 billion plan is pricey and isn’t pedestrian friendly – while basic city services lag. By Richard Fisk The Los Angeles River needs revitalization but we can’t afford the bill city leaders have in mind. There are lots of opportunities to make the banks of the 51-mile-long river an attractive destination for recreation and economic investment. It is already being done along the river in the San Fernando Valley as part of the 2007 Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan. The current L.A. River Revitalization Study is a creation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is described as a river ecosystem restoration. The report studied 11 miles of the river from the L.A. Department of Water & Power Headworks site north of Griffith Park to First Street in downtown LA. It explored 21 alternative options finalizing on four to comprehensively study: alternatives 10, 13, 16, and 20 with increasing costs starting at $375 million. The Army Corps recommends alternative 13 while the city settled on the more expensive alternative 20. Alternative 20 is effectively a combination of the other alternatives. Costing $1.08 billion, it restores 719 acres back to the riparian community (the natural habitat area between land and a river or stream) creating connections that no longer exist between isolated areas for wildlife migration. Fourteen of the streams entering the river via concrete culverts will be removed and converted to earthen swales and wetlands. It requires moving some 23 large steel power transmission towers up to 10 miles away and relocating the railroad bed to newly constructed trestles. For recreation along the river, the plan has allocated a paltry $4.18 million of the $1.08 billion to build two parking lots, three pedestrian bridges, three restrooms, a new four-mile trail and some viewing points. The proposed plan did not study flood risk management, does nothing for storm water reclamation or water quality and in fact cites a concern for increased breeding grounds for disease vectors “potentially resulting in an increase in the incidence of infectious diseases.” For economic enrichment, the desired plan cites pages of rhetoric and examples in other cities of how restoring the river creates an attractive environment, resulting in thousands of new jobs. The fact is that this proposed project directly and permanently displaces jobs, “disproportionately affect(ing) the low-income and minority populations.” By converting over 200 acres of industrial land at Taylor and PiggyBack Yards into wetlands, the economically productive land will be removed forever from the city’s tax base. Proponents of the plan say those lost jobs “may be transferred elsewhere.” Where in the L.A. area are there 100-acre parcels that are serviced by an operating railroad line? It was just four years ago that the city boasted at the chance of creating jobs and economic growth on that very land by bringing in an Italian company to assemble Metro line cars. The Army Corps report says the land surrounding the river “is essentially built out.” To restore the ecosystem habitat, they are planning on widening the river, from 60 feet in places up to 647 feet at its widest, which will require ripping out flood control concrete banks, buying land and displacing existing businesses. So where in the plan is the space to build restaurants and shops for people to meander along the sides of the river? It’s not; the plan is designed solely for ecosystem restoration to create more space for birds and fish to wander around. Other than in the few rainy months, there is not enough water running in the river to make it look like a river. Widening it will make it appear like there is even less water in it. Nearly 70 percent of the water flowing in the river is from the water reclamation plants where it then flows into the Pacific Ocean. Isn’t one of the city’s priorities to reclaim and reuse, via purple pipes, reclaimed water? This river plan doesn’t help that cause. Proponents of this billion-dollar project say we can’t pass up this opportunity for partial federal funding. But those dollars can only be spent for habitat restoration. Meanwhile, the city is about to propose new fees and taxes of up to $3 billion to repair city streets, $1.5 billion to fix sidewalks, $1 billion for free Wi-Fi, potentially billions more to seismic retrofit buildings and court-ordered mandatory storm water cleanup. We have bursting water mains, aging sewer and gas lines, exploding transformers and electricity brownouts. United Chambers of Commerce believes that the city needs to spend money for the human habitants of the city – to repair and upgrade our infrastructure and invest in projects that enhance the neighborhood and business communities. An attractive river experience can be built for far less than $100 million per mile that doesn’t remove businesses or economically productive land. With all the other expenses the city is facing, we cannot afford this Army Corps river plan. It is for the birds. Richard Fisk is the owner of Fisk Design and co-chair of the United Chambers of Commerce Government Affairs Committee.