Upset by Approval of Mini-Mall, Lomita Group Vows to Fight Plan to Rezone PCH

A group of Lomita residents and business owners, distressed by the City Council’s decision to exempt a Torrance developer’s project from a building moratorium, say they plan to fight a planned ordinance that would take effect once the moratorium is lifted.

The ordinance, to be heard by the Planning Commission on May 9, would rezone a mile-long stretch of Pacific Coast Highway from general commercial to retail-oriented uses. The moratorium was enacted to give the city time to develop the proposed ordinance.

Last week, with Councilman Charles Belba absent, the council unanimously granted an exemption to the moratorium for developer Norman La Caze, who plans to build a 30,000-square-foot shopping center on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Eshelman Avenue.

But members of a neighborhood group, Citizens for a Better Lomita, say the city has acted unfairly.

“If they’re going to lift the moratorium for him to build, they should lift it for everyone,” said Bob Williams, owner of Bob and Son Auto and RV Repair on Pacific Coast Highway, half a block from the La Caze project.

Mark Hays, an organizer of the neighborhood group, said granting La Caze an exemption was wrong “from a basic standpoint of fairness and decency, no matter the quality of his development. Why does he get a special deal? You can’t have it both ways. A moratorium is supposed to be a moratorium, period.”

The moratorium, passed in October, 1987, has been extended twice and is scheduled to expire in October, city officials said. The ban is intended to tighten the city’s control over development along Pacific Coast Highway in Lomita while it draws up new guidelines.

The La Caze project was granted an exemption because “his track record impressed the council,” said Senior Planner Richard Kawasaki.

Councilman Hal Hall, who opposed the moratorium in 1987, said he voted to grant La Caze an exemption because “the developer came in with a plan that meets or exceeds all we want in a development there. We’re trying to get larger parcels of development, and this is large enough to start with.”

The La Caze project has 4.5 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of retail space, beyond the 3- to 3.5-space minimum required by the city, Kawasaki said. The project also has extensive landscaping, he said.

La Caze, whose company recently renovated the 37-acre Rolling Hills Plaza on Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance, said he became interested in buying the two-acre site 10 years ago, when it was still the Palos Verdes Mobile Home Park. The park closed in 1987.

The site is “the largest contiguous piece of property on PCH” available for development, he said. “I’ve always felt it was a good corner.”

La Caze said a major video outlet has already signed a lease for one store in the development, and he is trying to attract a florist, clothing stores, a stationery store and independent restaurants to fill the remaining vacancies.

The proposed city ordinance would prohibit businesses such as car washes, motels smaller than 50 units, auto repair shops and liquor stores. The ordinance would encourage retail businesses and restrict service-oriented businesses such as medical and professional offices.

The ordinance would also require new businesses to have at least 10,000 square feet and storefronts at least 100 feet wide.

The intent of such changes is to increase the city’s tax base, Kawasaki said.

When the ordinance was first proposed last fall, Citizens for a Better Lomita, a group composed mostly of business owners, formed to fight it. The group argues that the ordinance will encourage a glut of mini-malls and drive out the family owned businesses that have existed in Lomita for years.

Mara Sidler, whose family has owned the 10-unit Randles Motel on Pacific Coast Highway for 26 years, said the new ordinance would prevent an expansion they had planned before the measure was proposed. The ordinance would require a minimum of 50 units as well as restaurant and banquet facilities.

The family has scrapped the expansion plans because it does not want to add another 40 units and because a banquet facility at a small motel “is a losing proposition,” Sidler said. “We don’t have enough space.”

Hays said business owners on Pacific Coast Highway would like to see the ordinance broadened to include other uses, such as allowing doctors’ offices on the first floor. The proposed ordinance would restrict such offices to second-story facilities.

Traffic Danger Argued

Hays and other business owners argue that there are already too many mini-malls and small shopping centers in the city that have never been fully occupied.

More important, the group argues, is the danger that traffic generated by the shopping center will pose to children from three nearby schools, Eshelman Elementary, Fleming Junior High and St. Margaret Mary.

About 33,500 cars a day pass through Lomita on Pacific Coast Highway, and an average of 2,800 cars per hour use the street during peak hours, according to state Department of Transportation figures.

A traffic study, paid for by the developer, concluded that the project would increase the traffic volume to 34,560 cars a day.

The citizens group disputes those figures.

“A big mini-mall next to a school is a bad idea,” Hays said. “The La Caze mini-mall would place two large, busy driveways directly in the path of many young children walking to and from school.”

But Dottie Qualls, president of the Eshelman Elementary PTA, said potential danger from traffic generated by the development has not been an issue among parents.

“The parents I come in contact with pick up their kids,” Qualls said.

The citizens group is planning a show of force at the Planning Commission meeting May 9 to voice their opposition to the proposed zoning ordinance, Hays said.

“I just don’t think a string of doughnut shops, print shops and nail shops is going to do a whole lot for our town,” he said.