Pico-Aliso Residents Hopeful Over Renovation Plans : Boyle Heights: A $50-million federal grant will mean new housing for those in two neighboring projects. But a parallel upgrade of services is also needed, many say.

Residents in the Pico Gardens and Aliso Extension public housing projects in Boyle Heights say they are cautiously hopeful about the government’s plans to tear down their decaying apartments and build new units over the next five years.

The new buildings are only one improvement, some say, in what they hope will become an overhaul of the community, with plans for more social services and job training that would allow some to move out.

“Building up new buildings isn’t going to make a community,” said Breavon McDuffie, 41, who was born in the neighborhood and is now president of the Pico Gardens Resident Advisory Council. “I have seen the evolution. . .where neighborhood support and community support have all dilapidated. So I’m hoping that we can regain some of the things in the past.”

With a $50-million grant awarded last week from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city’s Housing Authority will move ahead with plans to design the new buildings, relocate the 2,139 residents and demolish the 577 units, built in the 1940s and ‘50s.

HUD approved plans in 1993 to tear down and rebuild the two housing complexes after determining that upgrading the apartments would still cost almost $50 million because it would involve new sewer and water systems, removal of lead-based paint--a health hazard--and other major improvements. The project will be built in phases, with displaced residents living in temporary prefabricated units nearby.

The new development will probably include townhouse-like units in a gated community, though plans are not final. The rebuilding project will not include the 683 apartments of Aliso Village, north of 1st Street, which is undergoing renovations.

Residents of Pico-Aliso, as the housing developments are known in the community, will hold workshops in the next month to discuss what they need and want from the new housing complex, said Teresa Soto, a Pico Gardens tenant who represents residents to the Housing Authority.

“We need a lot of support from the community, the church, the police and all the programs that can help us,” said Soto, who has lived there 22 years. “It’s a project that will be very beneficial to the families here. Now, we’re working on ways to make this work.”

Residents will have a large say in the building design and have already sought accommodations for child care, job training, education and social services.

About $8 million to $10 million of the grant will be spent on economic development programs, employment training, youth programs and enhanced security, said Housing Authority Executive Director Donald Smith.

The project calls for reducing the number of units from 577 to 500, with the idea that the job training and other social service programs will allow many residents to move out before construction is completed. The number of units could be further reduced if plans to mix low-income, affordable units with more marketable units, as suggested by HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, are deemed feasible.

“What I think the Housing Authority has to do, and in fact has started doing, is begin to look at its inventory and decide what’s marketable and what’s rehabible,” Smith said.

The first relocation will not occur for 18 to 24 months, after the residents hold information and design workshops and an architect is hired. The new units will be larger, with more bedrooms, and the overall design of the complex will reduce the density, Smith said.

“We have a lot of folks who are three- and four-bedroom families living in two-bedroom units,” he said.

The construction project is one of several under way in housing projects throughout the city, including a $28-million remodeling of Jordan Downs. Pico-Aliso was chosen for the more drastic reconstruction because it was in worse condition than any other complex in the city, Smith said.

Many residents, though excited at the prospect of living in safer, newer units, have expressed fear about being relocated and wonder whether the city will really allow them to move back.

“The relocation is the main concern of the residents--will they be able to move back in if they move out,” McDuffie said. “We have to assure them that it’s the community that will benefit from this.”

Added Soto: “I’m not going to say that we’re not going to have problems. There will be problems, but we hope we can answer questions and get residents to participate in the decisions.

“This is a job for the community. We have to have a dialogue with housing. They’re not going to make the decisions, it’s the community that will make the decisions.”

That community needs more information. McDuffie has taken it upon himself to talk to neighbors who might be fearful of the prospect of being uprooted during construction.

For McDuffie, the upcoming changes to his lifelong home will be less painful than might be expected.

“You tell me something good in life that you don’t have to wait for and sacrifice for,” he said. “These buildings are old and dilapidated, with pipes always busting. You can fix the units up to where they’re very nice, but the plumbing and everything else, the structure, what are you going to do with a 50-year-old building?”