Construction of Inglewood senior center delayed
Lauren Robinson | 5-17-2010 | Comments |
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Reva Miller, 66, considers herself a patient, forgiving person. But whenever the resident of Inglewood Meadows, a low-income housing center for senior citizens, looks at the empty lot across the street from her apartment, she is filled with anger and frustration.
Ten years after council members and city administrators promised Inglewood seniors a state-of-the-art senior center, and three years after they razed the Locust Street Senior Center that used to be on the site, the lot still stands empty.
“They’ve hoodwinked us, leading us down a blind road,” Miller said. “They are not taking care of the seniors at all in Inglewood.”
The now-demolished Locust Street center was originally an old storefront that was converted in 1975 by the city to provide a place for seniors to share lunch and daytime activities.
In 2000 the city decided to upgrade the aging center and purchased the adjoining property to expand it. The center was torn down in 2007, leaving an empty lot. In its place the seniors were promised a state of the art complex complete with a 33,000 square foot mixed-use center with a commercial kitchen and dedicated rooms for billiards, computers, television, games and other activities.
So far the city has spent $5 million on demolition and a set of plans that are out of alignment with city codes.
The project is expected to cost an additional $47 million – money the city has yet to secure. “We do not have the finances as of now,” said Councilwoman Judy Dunlap, “It is the council’s mistake to have moved forward without having the funding in place.”
Councilman Danny Tabor said that city staff are in the process of completing a funding analysis and “should be coming back with directions in the next couple of weeks.”
The city is drawing upon several federal funding sources including the Economic Development Initiative (EDI), HOME (Home Investment Partnership), and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), all of which are derived from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). All additional funding will come from the Inglewood Redevelopment Agency.
Currently, Inglewood is out of compliance with HUD regulations because it has not executed the proper agreements for the project, according to Lori Jones, CDBG Administrative Analyst for Inglewood. “The city must solidify which funding they are using for the project and what percentage of funding each agency is responsible for,” Jones said. “And then they must come into a final conjoined agreement so the project can move on.”
Still, Jones said that if the council can work out the funding, “we are expecting that the senior center will be built within the next year.”
Miller and her friends are wary of such claims.
“Where is my $5 million?” Miller asked on a recent afternoon in the cramped garden area of her housing center. She and her friends had gathered at one of only three outside tables in Inglewood Meadows, which houses more than a hundred of Inglewood’s older residents.
Still, they would rather squeeze around a table there than trek a mile to the Inglewood Veterans center. For a while the city provided a shuttle, but it has been discontinued. Seniors must now wait for a trolley that comes intermittently.
“I go sometimes,” said Lula Cline, 73. “But it’s old, dilapidated, and has no air conditioning.”
Alicia Pascual, 78, said that at this rate she and her friends may not live to see the new center completed. “I am concerned about the seniors coming up because I want them to have a better life,” Pascual said. “We only have a few years to go.”
Exacerbating the construction delay is a dramatic expansion of the project last fall that called for the inclusion of 58 apartments, an addition that increased the expected cost of the project nearly six-fold, from $10 million to $57 million, complicated the application process for both site development and funding and surprised Miller and her friends.
“We were promised a new center, not housing,” said Vesta Robinson, 63. “That’s the only reason we let them tear it down.”
Inglewood currently has six senior housing centers, three of which are within a one-block radius of the Locust Street Senior Center site, totaling almost 700 units.
Councilwoman Judy Dunlap said she opposed the addition of housing to the senior center project and is trying to get it removed from the plan. “I want a stand-alone center,” Dunlap said. “We don’t need housing, we need to take care of the seniors who are here in Inglewood.”
Architectural drawings for the center have been completed, but because this project has been several years in the making, certain city codes have changed causing a long stall.
Inglewood’s Planning and Development Agency approved a Special Use Permit No. 976 for the seven-story complex with subterranean parking levels located in the C-1 (Limited Commercial) zone at 111 N. Locust Street on October 9, 2009.
There are several provisions in the special use permit. First, the senior center complex would allow the density of the building to be increased from 55 dwellings per acre to 76 dwellings per acre.
Also, the city is proposing four washer and dryer units to be located at the end of each floor to be shared by residents. According to the Inglewood Municipal Code (IMC), individual washer and dryer hookups must be located in units that contain two or more bedrooms. The proposed center has 19 two-bedroom units.
Next, the permit allows the balcony floor area for 11 of the 58 units to be below the minimum Code-required 80 square feet.
In addition, one 28-foot wide driveway will be built in lieu of the two 22-foot wide driveways required by the IMC. The amount of on-site parking is also included in the special permit. IMC requires at least 203 on-site parking spaces, but the center will have only 164 spaces with 40 at an off-site location.
Last fall Inglewood resident Juanita Presley filed an appeal, representing “Concerned Inglewood Taxpayer and Residents.” Presley gathered signatures of more than 300 Inglewood seniors in protest of the city’s exemption of their own building codes.
The seniors who signed Presley’s petition asked the city to remove the housing and instead add other amenities including more outdoor spaces with rich landscaping, an exercise facility with a pool, and a more open floor plan. In the current plans, the only outdoor space at the center will be a lone roof garden on the third floor.
Despite the appeal, the city approved the special use permit on December 15th.
Presley also questions the estimated cost of building. No other senior centers of comparable size in surrounding cities cost as much as the Inglewood project. In Cerritos, a center comparable in cost is being built, but consists of 247 apartments, a 13,000 square foot center, a 4.4-acre park, and a swimming pool and spa. In Pomona, a 70-unit complex opened in 2009 for $10 million.
Another concern among seniors is the cost to live in the new center. One-bedroom units are expected to rent for $600 per month, and two-bedroom units will be $800 per month.
Miller said she doubted that those rates will be affordable for most Inglewood seniors, who are living on meager fixed incomes and can only pay a few hundred dollars a month for rent. Whoever came up with the plan to include housing at the center “must be dead,” Miller said, “because no one wants that.”
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