Greed-driven developers and flippers are gobbling up West Adams properties — and displacing longtime residents, reports the Los Angeles Times. It’s more proof that gentrification is a runaway train in L.A., and homelessness is spiking — Vote “Yes on S” on the March 7, 2017, ballot to save our neighborhoods.

Here are key passages from the L.A. Times:

The boom is bringing excitement among some who have long clamored for more investment in South Los Angeles. But it’s also displacing tenants and, with many of the new residents white and wealthier, sparking tension in an area with a problematic history with race.

It’s a dynamic seen across Los Angeles in recent decades as home prices have soared amid job growth and a lack of new housing, especially in wealthy neighborhoods where development faces significant resistance. Priced out of more expensive areas, especially the Westside where a tech boom is underway, young professionals are scooping up fixer-uppers and newly remodeled homes in neighborhoods they can afford.

In particular, Jefferson Park and West Adams — largely bounded by the 10 Freeway to the north, Exposition Boulevard to the south, La Cienega to the west and Western Avenue to the east — have been attractive given their location halfway between downtown and the Westside.

The Times further reports:

Jefferson Park, West Adams and nearby Leimert Park were among Los Angeles’ first suburbs, and racial covenants kept the areas largely white for decades until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial deed restrictions unenforceable in 1948.

As middle- and upper-class African Americans purchased homes, many white residents and businesses left and in 1952, a black homeowner was bombed. The largely African American and Latino area has struggled to attract investment for decades, particularly after the 1992 riots.

Now, long-term residents are concerned they and their families will lose their place in the neighborhood as it grows more expensive.

“It’s interesting, once the color of the people changes, they want to start investing,” Pruitt, who is African American, said of developers. “We want the same kind of stuff, we want a great grocery store and they ignored this area.”

But developers and their politician pals at L.A. City Hall have shown little, if any, interest in the plight of ordinary Angelenos. It’s why L.A.’s planning and land-use system is rigged, broken and unfair, favoring only deep-pocketed developers who want to break city zoning rules to build luxury development for huge profits.

Then we, the people, suffer the consequences of ruined neighborhoods, gridlock traffic and widespread displacement of longtime residents, including the poor, middle-class and senior citizens.

That’s why we desperately need to return power back to communities. Vote “Yes on S” on March 7, 2017.

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