The first phase will encompass some of the housing units, the new recreational area and Family Resource Center. (Jordan Downs site plan)

Cindy Memije has been living in the Jordan Downs housing unit for six years with her aunt and currently raising money for a loved one’s funeral, but she’s hopeful and excited.

For the first time since the 1940s, the Jordan Downs housing unit is being redeveloped into an “urban village,” and Memije can’t wait for it to start.

The Jordan Downs housing unit, a housing project built in Watts in the 1940s, is undergoing major redevelopment in an attempt at transformation, helping the Watts shed its reputation as an urban ghetto.

While Downtown Los Angeles continues to also grow into a new, vibrant community with major redevelopments happening all over the area, Watts may not be far behind.

Critics, however, fear that rebranding Watts will push out the longtime low-income, minority residents, in favor of higher-income populations. But, those behind the development, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) have made preemptive strikes as to dispel this issue.

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For the first time since the construction of the Jordan Downs housing unit in the 1940s, HACLA has put forth a redevelopment plan to turn the housing project into a “vibrant mixed-income, mixed-use urban village,” complete with all-new recreation and educational facilities and retail stores, according to HACLA’s master plan.

The mixed-income housing development was designed to resemble a tiered system, according to John King, the HACLA Director of Policy and Planning. The building has been designed so that the lower levels of various housing buildings will continue to house low-income populations (mainly the current residents). Higher floors of the building will house higher-income residents, thereby creating a home of various level incomes.

King said they hope to break the mold of cyclical poverty and subsequent societal issues that typically accompany low-income housing projects.

The first phase of a four-phase process will include three other key developments in addition to the new style housing development: a new community services building, an urban park, and seven acres of “Employment Land,” according to the proposed site plan.

Edgar Jaime, 12, holding a hose and a donation box in the Jordan Downs housing project Saturday afternoon in Watts. Edgar was helping at a car wash to raise money for a neighbor, whose mother recently passed away. (Charlie Magovern/Neon Tommy)

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The redevelopments will be very community-based, aimed to encourage community interaction. In what HACLA is calling the Jordan Downs Family First Plan, all the investments are central to building a community such as a new Family Resource Center that will include programs including a workforce development program and a parenting program, according to King.

Despite this focus on the residents living there now, skepticism remains as to whether the current residents will even be able to stay after the redevelopment is completed.

"The redevelopment is made to try to bring a new light to Watts," said Roberto Savedra, a Watts native who teaches Social Studies at Compton Youth Build, a continuation school in Compton. "That’s the idea. The question is in that attempt to bring a new sense of belonging and community to Watts, do they systematically kick out current residents in order to bring in new ones?” 

Naima Greffon, the General Manager of the Greater Watts Development Corporation (CWDC), thinks so.

She said that any redevelopment that happens will cost money. In Greffon’s history of building housing units for low-income residents, each has been subsidized so that the cost is affordable for the residents living there. The money doesn’t just disappear into thin air, and without subsidies, Greffon, like many others, fears that the increased rent price will fall on the current residents and push them out of Jordan Downs.

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King, however, refutes the idea that the redevelopment isn’t for the community. Though the end goal is to eventually create a more vibrant community that does include higher income residents, he said that the first priority is the current residents. HACLA is redeveloping Jordan Downs in hopes to transform the area and community from the inside up, according to King.

“We are making a long-term commitment to the community. We are investing in the people, and any other redevelopment in L.A. does not have an investment in the people,” said King, when asked what makes the Jordan Downs redevelopment different from other redevelopments that have caused displacement of residents.

King also said that HACLA has committed to one-to-one replacement, meaning that for every unit they tear down, they must rebuild one to replace it. Additionally, they indeed have subsidies lined up to sustain the affordable rent prices so that hopefully the current residents will be able to stay.

Only time will tell if the money putting into redeveloping the Jordan Downs housing project will truly improve the community, and if the current residents will remain there at an affordable cost. HACLA intends to break ground on Jordan Downs until the end of this year at the earliest.

Reach Staff Reporter Katie Chen here. Follow her on Twitter here.