For Pozzo Construction Co. building profits means more market muscle and less red tape.

For Pozzo Construction Co., building profits means more market muscle and less red tape Victor Pozzo, president of Pozzo Construction Co., dislikes bureaucratic snags that turn into big battles. He and his 89-year-old construction company recently engaged in legal combat with a leader of Los Angeles' slow-growth movement, City Council member Zev Yaroslavsky. And Pozzo won.

But Pozzo would rather talk about the more pressing subject of new business in an industry marked by declines in construction orders throughout the county, than discuss past wars with City Hall.

In the last eight decades, Pozzo Construction has built a number of landmark buildings around Los Angeles. St. John's Hospital and Health Center, Ross Loos Medical Center, Braille Institute of America and St. Basil Roman Catholic Church are just a few of its structures familiar to Angelenos.

The company has also constructed 27 buildings for California Federal Savings and Loan since the late 1940s.

The great grandson of P.E. Pozzo, who brought the firm from New York to Los Angeles in 1898, says the only "stable base of revenues" in a waning industry has been the hospital and medical-office building market.

This demand reflects concern felt by health-care providers who want to adapt their facilities to new insurance requirements and consumer needs. As health-care providers need new surgical rooms, radiological labs, emergency treatment centers and out-patient clinics, Pozzo Construction is able to benefit, he says.

Another complaint is that the "permit process is the most frustrating experience of your life," he notes. "They (city officials) don't give you all the requirements at one time."

To fight these trends, Pozzo suggests that contractors and developers should push for their own organization to counteract Los Angeles' slow-growth movement. This seems the right way to deal with politicians, he says, who today seem interested in setting up "bloody roadblocks" to the construction industry, "which is the most challenging, most exciting business to be in."