House Blocks VA Land Sale in Westwood, Sepulveda

The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to block the proposed sale of Veterans Administration lands in Westwood and in Sepulveda until at least 1988.

The vote came after a campaign by elected officials and neighborhood groups who were concerned about traffic, parking problems and air pollution that could result from development of the prime Westwood real estate.

The limited ban represented a compromise between House and Senate leaders. Senate approval of the measure was expected today, according to Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif).

It was part of an amendment to a veterans’ appropriations bill, which Reagan Administration officials have said may be vetoed because of spending limitations of the Gramm-Rudman act.

“That’s good news. It gives us a few more years to work on it,” said Sandy Brown, a director of Friends of Westwood, a neighborhood association. “Naturally I’m disappointed that it was not blocked permanently, but we’ll be there in 1988.”

In the San Fernando Valley, opposition came largely from local Little League parents whose children play baseball on the grounds of the Sepulveda VA hospital.

“We’re relieved we have this temporary hiatus. . . , “ said Carl Carlson, president of the Mission Hills Little League. “We were constituents who went to our representatives in Congress seeking help, and our voices were heard in Washington, D. C.”

Veterans’ organizations and some VA officials also spoke out against the proposed sale, saying that the open land might be needed in the future.

The VA’s proposal would have declared 80 acres at the Veterans Administration complex in Westwood to be surplus, along with 31.8 acres at Sepulveda. The Reagan Administration proposed the sale as part of its long-range goal of shrinking federal holdings, but it ran into spirited opposition from Rep. G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Montgomery, who argued that the VA land was irreplaceable, wanted to block the sale permanently. But he agreed to the 1988 date in order to win the agreement of Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

While Murkowski does not favor the dumping of unused property, he felt that the VA should be able to make its own decisions about what land to keep or sell, said Julie Susman, a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee staff member. Still, Murkowski went along with the limited ban at Montgomery’s request, she said.

“I firmly believe that the decision to sell these properties was made in haste, and I am pleased that Congress will now have the opportunity to review that decision,” Sen. Wilson said. “The communities involved don’t support the sales and the facts don’t support the sales.”

Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston also hailed the compromise, saying that while California’s representatives wanted a total ban, the votes were not there on the Republican-controlled Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

The Reagan Administration originally wanted to sell 109 acres of the 442-acre Westwood compound, along with 46 acres of the 164-acre grounds at Sepulveda, but it scaled back the proposal in June. Officials had hoped to realize about $360 million from the sale.

A VA spokesman said there was no immediate comment on the House vote. Under the provisions of the measure, the VA will be barred from again proposing the sale until July 1, 1988, at which time Congress will have 180 days to act again to block it.

“I guess the threat will always be over our heads and that there’s no way to remove that threat,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents the Westwood area. “However, I feel it’ll never be done and certainly never should be done for the purpose of financing the national debt. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The Westwood land proposed for sale includes city-sponsored baseball diamonds and a vacant, wooded ravine that serves as a buffer zone between a VA psychiatric hospital and the nearby community of Brentwood. A second parcel includes a nine-hole golf course for hospital patients, while the third tract includes six acres of parking and lawns south of Wilshire Boulevard.

In Sepulveda, the area the VA wanted to sell includes a public golf course as well as the Little League fields.

Staff writer Mayerene Barker contributed to this story.