Burbank Wins Battle in Turf War With Gangs

BURBANK —  Burbank police were losing the turf war with gang members over West Elmwood Avenue. So the city rolled out a weapon against which gangs couldn’t compete: Money. Lots of it.

Using the millions of dollars at its disposal, the city staged a wholesale takeover of one of its worst areas, the notorious 100 block of Elmwood, buying 11 buildings and performing drastic surgery on a cul-de-sac that was once a magnet for trouble.

It has been called “neighborhood intervention,” an aggressive new crime-fighting strategy available to cities willing to spend big to take control of their meanest streets.

The result on Elmwood is an enclave of neat, brightly painted buildings instead of the borderline slums of old. The jewel of the neighborhood is a tutoring center for children and a new gated playground.

At night, the lights can be seen for blocks.

Only a few cities have tried pouring such an intense concentration of resources into a neighborhood. But those that have believe their efforts have succeeded where more limited programs have failed.

In Burbank, a first step was the city’s purchase of the gang members’ turf. “We took away their homeland,” one police officer said. Then, with most of the block in hand, the city overhauled the neighborhood, effecting a transformation so complete that children there jokingly call the area “Disneyland.”

“It’s a notion that if you just do one building on a crummy block, you are just throwing money away,” said UCLA urban planning professor Allan Heskin.

The block on Elmwood is an isolated strip that dead-ends at the Golden State Freeway and is cut off by a major street several hundred yards away. It was a bad pocket that stood out in a more stable neighborhood of modest apartments and homes.

It was once so well-known for crime that police made it a routine stop every shift. “At roll call, I used to always say, ‘And keep an eye on Elmwood,’ ” said Sgt. Eric Rosoff.

Pizza delivery services were afraid to venture there. In one incident, a stray bullet partially paralyzed a woman sitting in a window at her home. By 1992, 60% of the reports of gang-related gunfire in the city came from the vicinity of the block, police say.

Today, the atmosphere resembles that found at a Sunday parade.

Dozens of children play in the area, zooming around the flower beds on skates and bikes. Grandparents push strollers. Stairways are thick with parents cradling babies and chatting. There are fresh paint, green lawns, rosebushes. There is no music. No drinking. No revving engines. No guns. No sense of menace.

In all, the city spent $6.5 million in local and federal funds to acquire and renovate buildings and to pay for social programs on this one block.

Longtime residents such as Maria Alvarez hardly recognize the place they call home.

“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what happened,” said Alvarez, who lived in a motel for six months during the construction. “Everyone thinks of Elmwood as a bad place, but now I tell people, ‘You don’t have to be afraid.’ ”

Burbank’s approach resembles other projects in California. The basic formula is single ownership and uniform management of most or all of the buildings in a neighborhood, and lots of money for rehabilitating buildings, landscaping, street improvements and education and jobs programs.

In Anaheim, the city is at work on its second major neighborhood overhaul since the late 1980s, the $23.5-million Paseo Village project, in which the city and a private developer have transformed a gang-plagued neighborhood into a groomed, affordable housing community that will eventually be gated. Paseo Village manager Fernando Yela says his strict policies include checking people’s criminal records before they move in.

The program began in 1989 in an attempt to unite residents, business owners, churches--anybody who has a stake in the neighborhood. Police and city officials rely on code enforcement, drug sweeps and neighborhood cleanups to drive out gang members, drug dealers and other criminal elements.

Typically, narcotics officers make a series of drug sweeps and buys over a period of months to arrest drug dealers or pressure them to move their illicit activity elsewhere. The tactic has been effective in keeping dealers out of targeted neighborhoods, officials say.

The strategy produced dramatic results on Guinida Lane. During the first six months of 1993, residents made 1,022 calls to Anaheim police about criminal activity. In the first six months of 1994, the number of calls numbered just 381. Robberies, burglaries, assaults, car thefts and other crimes were down significantly.

Anaheim officials said the anti-crime program has additional benefits, like reducing graffiti and encouraging landlords to play a more active role in maintaining and improving their buildings.

The program is funded by the city with county, state and federal grants. Some business owners also contribute.

In Rialto, Calif., fountains, wading pools and topiary teddy bears were the city’s answer to Glenwood Avenue, a block that had become so run-down, most of the buildings were boarded up. The Southern California Housing Development Corp. took over in 1994 at the city’s request, and the rehabilitated neighborhood is now 88% occupied.

And in San Jose, the city has acquired or condemned all of the properties on Poco Way, once an open-air market for black tar heroin. The $21-million project includes renovation of one side of the street, new buildings on the other, and construction of a playground. Here again, the whole block is managed as one building.

“We couldn’t do it piecemeal” because Poco Way’s problems were so severe, said John Burns, executive director of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority. “We had to have control of the whole street.”

Heskin, the UCLA professor, said such projects address a problem many Southern California cities are facing with increasing urgency--the deterioration of apartments into slums.

But few cities can afford neighborhood intervention. Los Angeles is so huge that an effort like Burbank’s would be “just a drop in the bucket,” Heskin said.

Former Los Angeles housing chief Gary Squier goes one step further. In L.A., he said, spending so much in one place “would say all the wrong things about allocating scarce resources. L.A. doesn’t have the money to dump all that in one neighborhood.”

Los Angeles runs a 4-year-old program that targets 27 problem neighborhoods and treats them with a broad menu of programs, from increased policing to loans to property owners. But purchases are not in sight, according to Samuel Luna, director of the Neighborhood Recovery Program for the Los Angeles city housing department.

“If I had the money to do that, we’d be doing it too,” Luna said. “But with limited resources, we find partnering with lenders and business owners is really all you can do.”

Burbank officials readily acknowledge that their program was successful in part because, as city manager Bud Ovrum put it: “In Burbank, you can count the trouble spots on one hand.”

The Elmwood of old was a street infamous for gang fights, said resident Moses Sanchez, now 19. “Everyone knew Elmwood,” Sanchez said. “At school, you just mentioned the name and they’d look at you.”

Built in the 1950s, the six-unit and eight-unit buildings are flat-roofed rectangular boxes of the type that blanketed vast tracts of Southern California in that era.

“There were many cholos,” said resident Maria Luz Lopez, 36. “They came from all over. They would drink, play loud music. It was very ugly.”

Resident Maria Alvarez said her children would look out the windows and see cars cruising slowly past with gun barrels pointing out or young men shooting drugs into their veins.

At times the cul-de-sac was a battle zone. “You’d hear someone down the block yell [the name of a rival gang] and then you’d see all these guys run out of their apartments with shotguns,” said Sanchez, the 19-year-old.

Residents describe those years as a time when they spent most hours shut inside for safety.

Burbank’s full-bore attack began in 1992 with a version of the gang injunctions now in force in parts of Los Angeles. The restraining order was served on 44 members of the Elmwood gang and gave police a new tool to break up the gang parties. Gang crimes dropped sharply. The city counted 30 significant gang-related incidents on the block in 1992--most involving arrests. In 1993, there were 10, and seven of those were for violating the injunction, said Juli Scott, Burbank’s chief assistant city attorney.

But in the city’s view, more action was needed.

So in 1995, the city approved the cash purchase and renovation of Elmwood apartments with a combination of federal and local redevelopment funds.

“There was a tremendous amount of trepidation” about the risks of such a huge investment, said Councilman Dave Golonski, a 38-year-old computer systems manager, who sometimes held swimming parties for the Elmwood children. The city could have spread the money into other projects as it had in the past, but “we realized if we were going to battle gang problems in a tough neighborhood, we had to do it from all sides,” he said.

After purchasing the buildings at market values, tough new management was hired to weed out tenants who drank beer in the driveways or dealt drugs. Fliers bearing new rules and a “zero-tolerance” drug policy were handed out. A 10 p.m. curfew for children was set. Remaining landlords on the block were urged to adopt the new policies in exchange for city funds to revamp their properties.

“The approach was not to just hammer [tenants] with rules,” said Charlotte Ives of Jenkins Properties, the management contractor. “But there has to be some foundation. You know: No drinking of alcoholic beverages outside. No hanging out in the parking lot until you are so blasted you start breaking windows.”

Nine families were evicted, four for drug activity, five for nonpayment of rent. Other families moved on their own. Most of the remaining tenants--28 families--accepted the city’s offer to be put up in motels while the buildings were renovated, Ives said.

Last year, the apartments were ripped apart and refurbished with new wiring, plumbing, roofs, carpets, even shiny new bathroom fixtures. The cul-de-sac was shortened.

Meanwhile, the rest of the street was rebuilt like a mini version of a Beverly Hills boulevard, with trees, flower-covered medians and concrete planters. Last year, an “achievement center” and playground were unveiled. Street lamps with an old-fashioned flair were added this summer. They are so bright their glow can be seen for blocks.

Still to come is a Habitat for Humanity townhouse project that will replace two apartment buildings.

The new street design has a distinctive law enforcement stamp. Officers reviewed blueprints at every step.

Police recommended a 14-foot-high wrought-iron fence be erected just behind the buildings, blocking the normal escape routes used by gang members when police cruised down the block. The city built curbs too high to drive over, but not so high they become inviting places to sit. The new decorative plants are covered with spines and thorns to discourage the hiding of guns or contraband.

The changes caused tensions. Residents say gang members threatened to burn down buildings. A few people say that they resent the inconvenience of the construction and that the changes were forced upon them.

And fear on Elmwood lingers: Several residents interviewed in recent weeks would talk about gangs only on condition of anonymity.

But police say there is now virtually no gang-related activity on Elmwood. Calls have dropped to almost nil, said Det. Kevin Krafft of the Burbank police. There has been one incident of tagging this year.

And for the residents, most agree that their quality of life is vastly improved.

“You couldn’t play out this late at night when I was growing up,” said Sanchez, watching a crowd of children skate by on a recent evening. “It’s incredible. It’s worth it.”

Times staff writer H.G. Reza contributed to this report.