In addition to its authority under any other section of this article, an authority is hereby authorized to plan and undertake urban renewal projects. As used in this article, an urban renewal project may include undertakings and activities for the elimination (and for the prevention of the development or spread) of slums or blighted, deteriorated, or deteriorating areas and may involve any work or undertaking for such purpose constituting a redevelopment project or any rehabilitation or conservation work, or any combination of such undertaking or work. Such undertaking and work may include (1) carrying out plans for a program of voluntary or compulsory repair and rehabilitation of buildings or other improvements; (2) acquisition of real property and demolition, removal, or rehabilitation of buildings and improvements thereon where necessary to eliminate unhealthful, insanitary or unsafe conditions, lessen density, reduce traffic hazards, eliminate obsolete or other uses detrimental to the public welfare, or to otherwise remove or prevent the spread of blight or deterioration, or to provide land for needed public facilities; (3) installation, construction, or reconstruction of streets, utilities, parks, playgrounds, and other improvements necessary for carrying out the objectives of the urban renewal project; and (4) the disposition, for uses in accordance with the objectives of the urban renewal project, of any property or part thereof acquired in the area of such project: Provided, That such disposition shall be in the manner prescribed in this article for the disposition of property in a redevelopment project area.

Notwithstanding any other provisions of this article, where the local governing body certifies that an area is in need of redevelopment or rehabilitation as a result of a flood, fire, hurricane, earthquake, storm or other catastrophe respecting which the Governor of the state has certified the need for disaster assistance under Public Law 875, Eighty-first Congress, or other federal law, the local governing body may approve an urban renewal plan and an urban renewal project with respect to such area without regard to any provisions of this article requiring public hearings or requiring that the urban renewal plan conform to a general plan for the community as a whole, or that the urban renewal area be a slum area, or a blighted, deteriorated, or deteriorating area, or that the urban renewal area be predominantly residential in character or be developed or redeveloped for residential uses.