COUNTY SUES CITY OVER REDEVELOPMENT DISTRICT.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County has filed suit against the city of Los Angeles over the new downtown redevelopment district, county officials said Wednesday.

``The county is financially impacted by the redevelopment to a very substantial degree,'' Principal Deputy County Counsel Thomas M. Tyrrell said. ``The county believes it would lose millions potentially - even as much as $280 million over the lifetime of this project - if the project were to go forward.''

Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn said he was disturbed by the lawsuit.

``I am disappointed that the county of Los Angeles has chosen to use taxpayer dollars to block urban redevelopment,'' Hahn said. ``This lawsuit will delay our efforts to build affordable housing and eliminate blight in an area that sorely needs this kind of development.''

The lawsuit seeks a court order to stop the project.

The lawsuit is based upon objections the county made of the adoption of the redevelopment project, arguing against the inclusion of the 30 acres of sports and entertainment parking lots adjacent to Staples Center.

``The inclusion of those lots was inappropriate because they were neither blighted or necessary for redevelopment of the area as a whole,'' Tyrrell said. ``The second objection was that by deleting areas from the central business district project and placing them in a new project, the actions of the council violated (a judgment), limiting the agency to $750 million of tax increment on the original central business district project of the city.''

Last month, the City Council gave its approval to the City Center project, an 879-acre area in which the Community Redevelopment Agency predicts new investment could create more than 12,000 dwellings as well as millions of square feet of commercial and industrial development.

Last week, the Anschutz Entertainment Group dropped its plans to build a football stadium and the City Council began a quest to bring a National Football League team to Los Angeles by creating a new committee to try to resurrect the Memorial Coliseum as a potential stadium site.