L.A. Cuts Fee but Finds Use for the Savings at Air Force Project

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to cut the Air Force’s sewer hookup bill for new military housing in San Pedro by about $56,000, but required that the savings be spent on landscaping to shield nearby neighborhoods from the housing.

The price break was about $35,000 less than originally sought by the Air Force and harbor-area Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores. Facing opposition from the city administrative office, Flores scaled back the request at Wednesday’s meeting.

Both the city administrative office and Councilman Marvin Braude, acting chairman of the Public Works Committee, opposed any reduction.

“The fundamental question here is . . . whether or not the council--or city--should subsidize the Air Force,” Braude told the council. He added later during an interview, “The Air Force should be made to pay its own way.”

Flores and Air Force Lt. Col. Craig Birch argued that the Air Force does not have enough money to both pay the required $177,725 hookup fee and provide extra landscaping for the 170 units of housing, which are located on two sites near the intersection of 25th Street and Western Avenue. Nearby residents have asked for more trees and shrubs because they complain that the two-story stucco buildings are an eyesore.

“From the start, one of our goals was, and still remains, to be a good neighbor,” Birch told the council. “We have worked hard to satisfy this goal. But we would like to do more. Specifically, we would like to do more in the way of landscaping.”

The Air Force proposed last month that it get around the problem by paying the city $87,114, which is based on hookup fees in effect in early 1987 when work began on the $15.3 million project. Air Force officials suggested they would have paid the lower fee if their contractor had applied for a hookup permit in 1987.

Under the compromise approved Wednesday, the Air Force will pay $121,877, which is based on hookup rates in effect when the housing was actually connected to the city’s sewer system in 1988. Without the special exemption, the Air Force would have been required by law to pay prevailing rates, or $177,725.

Flores said in an interview after the vote that she supported the price break in part because the city was responsible for numerous delays in the project. The Air Force began construction in 1987 after lengthy negotiations with the city over where the housing could be built. Construction was further delayed when contractors discovered toxic waste at one of the sites.

Louis Dominguez, president of the Palisades Residents Assn., an organization of 1,600 homes near the military housing, said the group supports the hookup fee reduction. “We get a lot of complaints about the lack of landscaping,” he said. “We want to see the landscaping go in.”