Some Owners Say They May Have to Destroy Their Animals : Stable Evicted From Wetlands Property

The seven-acre Playa del Rey Stables has been ordered to leave its Culver Boulevard site, and the owners of some of the 90 horses boarded there say they may have to destroy their animals if new homes cannot be found.

Summa Corp., which owns the land, last month sent an eviction notice that ordered the stables at 315 Culver Blvd. vacated by Sept. 1. A company spokesman said the horses must leave because of damage they have caused to the Ballona Wetlands, the environmentally sensitive marshes south of Marina del Rey.

Summa has been ordered by the City of Los Angeles to preserve and restore 209 acres of wetlands before the company can begin construction on the Playa Vista project, a $1-billion planned community that will house 20,000 people. The stables will be replaced by 225 apartments for senior citizens.

But after pleas from some owners, a Summa spokesman said the company might extend the stables’ lease.

Seeking Assurances

“We have asked them to come to us with a proposal that will give us satisfaction that there will be no riding on the wetlands,” Summa spokeswoman Chris Henry said. “And we have asked them to give us a date when they can find new quarters for their horses.”

Henry said the lease extension will be “in terms of months and not years.”

Bob Harvey, who has owned the stables for 17 years, has strung a cable along the perimeter of the property to keep riders off the wetlands and has threatened to evict anyone caught riding outside it. But Summa said it can guarantee protection of the plants and animals on the wetlands only if it shuts the stables.

The announcement of the closing has caused “panic” among some patrons, especially those with older horses, Harvey said.

“People regard their horses at the very least as pets,” Harvey said. “And some people regard them as children. There are four or six horses that might have to be (destroyed) if they have to move. Horses like that are just used to where they are. You can’t move them.”

Evelyn Crumpton agreed. “I don’t want to face the fact that I may have to have her put down (destroyed),” she said of her 29-year-old mare, Kapr. “But I’d rather do that than have her not taken care of. She is part of the family. . . . At most stables they just don’t take that kind of care.”

Owners said they have not been able to find other stables that are as convenient.

“One of the things that saddens me is that I have seen four stables close in this area in the (16) years that I have been here,” Sally Bates said. “There aren’t any new stables like this opening, where an ordinary working person like me can keep a horse.”

‘We Desperately Need Stables’

Most owners said they live within 15 minutes of Playa del Rey Stables but would have to drive for an hour or more to get to stables in Malibu and Palos Verdes that would also be more expensive.

“We desperately need stables in this part of town,” Bates said.

Many owners said they can visit their horses every day in Playa del Rey but would be forced to give them less attention if they are moved farther away.

They said that two sites on the Westside, the abandoned Mission Canyon dump and Chevron Oil land in the Baldwin Hills, are possible locations for new stables. Harvey said he would be happy to build stables if the owners were willing to rent the land.

Chevron, owner of the Baldwin Hills property, and the City of Los Angeles, which owns the Mission Canyon site, have not decided whether they would rent land for stables, according to Tana Simmons, a member of the Playa del Rey Equestrian Club.

Ruth Lansford, a leader of the Friends of the Ballona Wetlands environmental group, said biologists have determined that horses have damaged the wetlands. She said they trampled native salicornia bushes (known to riders as “pickleweed”), killing the unusual plant and thus damaging the only habitat of Belding’s savannah sparrow.