RTD Board Expected to Reject Bus Yard

Southern California Rapid Transit District officials today will recommend that a plan backed by Councilwoman Ruth Galanter to build a bus maintenance yard in Westchester be abandoned because the proposal was rejected by neighbors.

The 11-member transit board of directors is scheduled to vote on the recommendation, contained in a staff report dated today, at the RTD’s downtown headquarters this afternoon.

The board is expected to go along with the report because the bus yard proposal last month was soundly opposed by residents of Ladera Heights, a middle-class neighborhood of single-family homes across the street from the Pacific Centinela Drive-In Theater, at 5700 W. Centinela Ave. between the San Diego Freeway and La Tijera Boulevard.

Officials said approval of the project hinged on support from the Ladera Heights Civic Assn., which represents about 2,000 residents. But the association attacked the proposal because, members said, it would lower property values and give the area the image of a “bus maintenance yard neighborhood.”

Alternative Site

Galanter proposed the 39-year-old drive-in site as an alternative to building the bus yard on the Lopez Ranch, a produce farm at Jefferson and Grosvenor boulevards, north of Hughes Airport. That plan ran into heavy neighborhood opposition and last spring drew a campaign promise from Galanter to find a new site. Both the Lopez Ranch and the Centinela drive-in were proposed to replace the RTD’s 3-acre bus yard from Sunset Avenue and Main Street in Venice, where neighbors have complained for years about noise and diesel fumes.

In fighting the bus yard at the drive-in site, the Ladera Heights Civic Assn., known for its political savvy and sophisticated lobbying on neighborhood issues, enlisted the support of Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) state Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) and U.S. Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Inglewood).

Hahn represents Ladera Heights, which is in an unincorporated area of the county, and Galanter represents the drive-in area in the City of Los Angeles.

In response to the lobbying effort, Galanter sent out a letter stating that she believed the bus yard was the best use of the property but that she would accommodate residents’ demands for other uses, such as an apartment or condominium complex.

“If the residents prefer a high-density residential use to this bus facility, we can go along with it,” said Rick Ruiz, Galanter’s press deputy. “We were hoping we could convince other people to see what we saw.”

Revive Ranch Plan

The RTD staff report recommends that the bus company revive its plans to build the facility at the Lopez Ranch site, a suggestion that promises to rekindle last year’s battle between the RTD and the ranch’s neighbors. Last April, the RTD board of directors ordered an environmental impact report on the facility after 2,000 residents signed a petition opposing the yard.

“None of the alternate sites proposed to date has features that are overwhelmingly superior to the Jefferson Boulevard site (the Lopez Ranch site),” the report states. “There is no strong indication of support from the community or from local elected bodies for the Centinela site or other alternative sites. . . . Staff will continue to pursue the analysis of the Jefferson Boulevard site.”

Salvatore Grammatico, president of the Mar Vista Del Rey Homeowners and Neighbors Assn., which represents neighbors of the Lopez Ranch, said this week that the facility would be built in his community “over my dead body.”

“This is going to be in Ruth (Galanter)’s lap,” he said. “If it goes over there (to the Lopez Ranch site), it’s going to be her responsibility. If she is sensitive to Ladera Heights, she should be sensitive to us.”

The bus facility envisioned by planners for the drive-in site would have been a fully enclosed building using state-of-the-art filters to eliminate fumes from buses. The 6-acre yard would have been shielded from homes by three office buildings on 5.7 acres along Centinela Avenue. The only bus access to the yard would have been from the San Diego Freeway, directly to the west.

But neighbors were skeptical that the plan for direct freeway access would work, because new ramps would have been required and the buses would have contributed to already heavy traffic.

George Smart, a partner in Sage Development Corp., which owns the drive-in, said that “from a pure economic standpoint” he prefers building the bus yard, but he will consider building a 624-unit luxury apartment complex that was overwhelmingly favored by residents who listed their preferences for the site at a neighborhood meeting last Thursday.

Smart said about 80% of the 125 residents who attended the meeting favored some kind of residential use for the property.

“We’re local people, and we just want a quality project” said Smart, whose office is in Playa del Rey. “As long as the majority of the people support a project, we’d like to get involved. Right now, we have high hopes that it will be in everybody’s interest to have housing.”