Torrance Panel Rejects Housing, Office Project

After more than 150 homeowners demonstrated their opposition to the proposal, the Torrance Planning Commission rejected a residential and commercial development on the former site of Meadow Park School.

The development, which would have included 36 patio homes, 54 townhouses and a 40,000-square-foot office building on an 11-acre lot, was unanimously rejected Wednesday. The commission’s decision will be appealed to the City Council, officials said.

“We really think this was the only correct decision to make,” said Jim McEntyre, president of the Southwood Riviera Homeowners Assn., who presented a petition with the signatures of 162 neighborhood residents.

Most of the residents who spoke at the meeting said the proposed development, on a parcel west of Hawthorne Boulevard between Lomita Boulevard and 230th Street, would be incompatible with the neighborhood and would add traffic to an already congested area. Access to the two-story homes would have been from 230th Street and Lomita Boulevard.

The developer, Arthur Valdez, president of Val-Co Enterprises, called the development “a superb project that the city can be proud of” and told the commission that he was surprised by the opposition.

Valdez said that in the past year and a half he had consulted several times with homeowners association representatives and City Council members and had changed the project three times before presenting the plan to the commission.

During the meeting, however, a representative of the homeowners association turned to the audience and asked all those opposed to the project to stand. Nearly all of the more than 150 people stood.

“The traffic there is crazy,” said one homeowner, who suggested that the city acquire the former school site as open space. “We have no place for the kids.”

Torrance city officials were offered a chance to buy the property but declined. Another homeowner suggested that the city approve no more developments until its traffic problems are solved. “I think we have the cart before the horse,” he said. Another resident said traffic from the project will cause gridlock.

Valdez acknowledged that the area has a traffic problem but said the development would not add to it significantly.

“My project is not going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said.