Cost to Repair Torrance Hill Includes Delay of Other Work

Torrance will begin reconstruction of a hillside at the south end of the city, but the cost of the work probably will force postponement of several park projects and storm drain construction.

The City Council voted 6 to 1 this week to borrow $2.8 million from several city accounts to pay for stabilizing the slope between Via Corona and Vista Largo, south of Pacific Coast Highway.

The city-owned hill collapsed in April, 1986, and two nearby homes were demolished in order to make preliminary repairs.

In Tuesday’s action, the council hired grading contractor Dutch Phillips to haul 80,000 cubic yards of dirt off the hillside and replace it with 110,000 cubic yards of more cohesive, stable soil. The work is scheduled to begin next month and will require more than 12,600 dump-truck trips along residential streets.

The total cost of rebuilding the hill will approach $5 million, including more than $2 million already paid for preliminary repairs and for the two condemned homes.

The city will drain the entire $1.1-million Park and Recreation Facilities Fund to help pay for the project.

Park and Recreation Director Gene Barnett said loss of the park facilities fund could mean a delay in several projects, including restoration of the Madrona Marsh, construction of some facilities at the new Greenwood Park, regular replacement of playground equipment around the city and furnishing the city’s proposed theater-arts complex.

Barnett said the city will have to win state and federal grants, or hope for passage of a state bond measure, to pay for those improvements.

The park facilities fund was accumulated through the sales of surplus drainage sumps and fees collected from housing developers. The city staff did not propose repaying the park fund, but City Council members insisted that the money be restored. Under the plan approved by the council, the $1.1 million will be returned to the park fund by 1998.

To pay the remainder of the cost, the city will empty its $300,000 insurance reserve and borrow $1.4 million from funds that had been designated for building sewers and storm drains.

About one-third of that money was supposed to pay for an extension of storm drains into the Hollywood Riviera area, but that project will be postponed indefinitely. The drains were designed to eliminate the large streams that sometimes wash across Riviera streets during storms.

Councilman Bill Applegate cast the only vote against the funding proposal. “If this slide is the unique emergency that we claim it to be, then we should go outside the city” for a loan, said Applegate, “and not affect the necessities of life . . . Now we are talking about slicing muscle from the bone.”

But other council members said borrowing money from outside lenders would cost the city even more in the long run and that repaying such a loan would also require cutting some projects.

Several council members said they were disturbed that contracts for the hillside construction were awarded as an emergency without competitive bidding.

City Manager LeRoy Jackson said there wasn’t time for bidding because the city completed plans for rebuilding the hill just last week. And construction must begin almost immediately to assure that the work is finished before rains begin next winter, Jackson said.

The cost of the work also jumped from an initial estimate of $2 million to $2.9 million, Jackson said. Much of the increase was caused by the unexpectedly high price of finding what the city manager called “good, clean fill dirt,” suitable for stabilizing the hill.

City Engineer Richard Burtt said dump trucks will have to go as far as the Hollywood Hills to find such dirt, because some local construction sites contain the same type of unstable clay that undermined the hillside.

Jackson defended the plan to borrow park money for the work because the hillside will be preserved as open space. “It’s not a traditional park,” he said, “but it is a community commitment to preservation of an open space.”

A few minutes later, City Councilwoman Dee Hardison said she wasn’t buying that. “I just can’t call this a park or a greenbelt,” she said. “Never in our wildest dreams would we make this a park.”

City Council members laughed when Jackson suggested that the city might one day recoup its loss by selling the hillside property. “Not this City Council,” said Mayor Katy Geissert. “I can see it in the newspaper: ‘Slightly unstable hillside for sale.’ ”

One city official later joked that the hill could be converted into a ski jump. Another suggested a water slide. But neither was laughing.