(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) The neighborhood surrounding the former Cypress section of Route 880 in Oakland has suffered great and unusual hardship due to the freeway’s collapse during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and its subsequent demolition.
(2) In addition to the hardship and suffering related to the freeway disaster, the Cypress neighborhood had endured for many years the pollution, noise, and environmental degradation of having a freeway cut through the neighborhood.
(3) The Cypress neighborhood will face additional hardships related to the Cypress freeway reconstruction project for, unlike other freeway projects elsewhere, this will be the second time that residents and businesses in that neighborhood will be required to endure freeway construction-related problems, dislocations, and sacrifices.
(b) In order to alleviate a portion of those problems for residents and businesses in the Cypress neighborhood, the Legislature has enacted this article.
(Added by Stats. 1992, Ch. 1228, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 1993.)