Council and CRA certify EIR and adopt Westlake Recovery Redevelopment Plan
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
The City Council and the Community Redevelopment Agency certified the final environmental impact report, adopted mitigation and monitoring, and approved the Westlake Recovery Redevelopment Plan after staff outlined data supporting findings of blight and long-term outreach.
At a joint public meeting of the City Council and the Community Redevelopment Agency, agency staff presented written responses to objections raised at a prior joint hearing and summarized the basis for the Westlake Recovery Redevelopment Plan. John Malloy, administrator of the redevelopment agency, described a parcel-level analysis used to determine blight: staff collected dozens of data points across roughly 1,600 parcels and more than 1,400 buildings to support the findings.
Malloy said the plan does not mandate immediate acquisition of property; rather, it provides owner participation rules, preferences for tenants and mechanisms to involve property owners in redevelopment. He emphasized that any future use of eminent domain in the project area would require proof on a case‑by‑case basis and that relocation benefits will be provided to anyone displaced by the agency’s activities.
Agency and council members stressed the plan’s community outreach history: Malloy recounted advisory and project area committee meetings stretching back to 1993, with dozens of meetings and broad mailing outreach. Council members from affected districts underscored both the plan’s potential to create parks, childcare and housing, and concerns about gentrification and the need to protect existing residents.
The agency took separate motions to (1) certify that it had reviewed and considered the Final Environmental Impact Report and to adopt mitigation, reporting and monitoring programs and a statement of overriding considerations; and (2) adopt the redevelopment plan ordinance. The City Council then took the parallel actions for its own resolutions. Votes on the EIR findings and the plan adoption were unanimous for both bodies; the council and agency will send the adopted documents forthwith to the mayor and proceed with implementation steps per the plan.
What happens next: Agency staff will proceed with implementation steps under the adopted plan; individual redevelopment projects and any site acquisitions will be processed separately with additional public notice and specific findings if eminent domain is ever contemplated.