5 Incumbents Ousted From Advisory Committee : Redevelopment: Only unopposed members of the panel kept their seats. Their election to the North Hollywood board caused an uproar last year.

Nearly a year after a similar election ended in chaos and violence, unhappy local residents and business owners ousted five of the nine incumbents Tuesday night in an election to the citizens’ committee that advises the city on redevelopment in North Hollywood.

Three of the four incumbents who survived ran unopposed.

About 40 candidates competed for 17 seats on the committee. Eleven were elected--eight of them from a bloc run by local dissidents. Six seats remained vacant because no other candidates received the required 50% of the vote.

An angry but orderly crowd of more than 200 people packed a meeting hall at the First United Methodist Church in North Hollywood to decide the composition of the 25-member Project Area Committee, which advises the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency.

The election ends a tumultuous year for volunteer members of the committee and comes at a critical time for redevelopment in the 740-acre project area. Buffeted last year by never-proven allegations of election fraud and illegal procedures, the agency is seeking to renew its taxation and land-seizure powers, which expire this month. Members of the advisory committee will help city planners decide the course of redevelopment in the area, said Donald Spivack, the CRA’s director of operations.

Critics of the agency have lobbied members of the City Council to reject the extension of the agency’s powers in North Hollywood.

Tuesday’s vote was the first under new rules formulated by the CRA to govern elections to the committee.

The new rules, expected to come before the City Council later this spring, were prompted in part by the chaos that erupted at a special election in March to fill vacancies on the North Hollywood committee. Confusion over voting procedures sparked shouting matches and fistfights. Several committee members walked out in protest.

Critics of the committee’s procedures--some of them disgruntled former members of the Hollywood redevelopment committee--complained that the committee was failing to inform the community of its plans to carry out redevelopment in North Hollywood and was a rubber stamp for the CRA. They also accused the committee of violating election rules by not providing adequate notice. Committee members denied the accusations.

In September, committee members filled nine vacancies on the committee, despite the protests of many of the same people who broke up the meeting six months earlier. In that election, in which only committee members voted, 33 people sought the positions.

About 150 ballots were issued for Tuesday night’s election, in which residents and owners of businesses in the zone were eligible to vote.

Candidates, limited to three-minute presentations, generally expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of North Hollywood but criticized the CRA’s methods. After committee members decided to allow those in attendance to vote and leave, more than a third of the crowd did so. Those who remained applauded some candidates and occasionally interrupted to protest procedures.

Many in the crowd were organized by North Hollywood Concerned Citizens, created to combat the CRA in the wake of last year’s melee, which fielded a bloc of 13 candidates. Mildred Weller, its president, said the group was “formed to stop the CRA from running roughshod over us” and to seek limits on the CRA’s powers. Eight of the 11 winners were members of the bloc.

The six unfilled seats will be filled by a still undetermined method at a later meeting.

The North Hollywood project area was created in 1979 and is bordered roughly by Tujunga Avenue on the west, Cahuenga Boulevard on the east, Hatteras Street on the north and Camarillo Street on the south.

It is the only redevelopment area in the San Fernando Valley and the third largest in Los Angeles, ranking behind the downtown central business district and the Hollywood zone.