Developer Fails to Win OK for Lomita Mini-Market

The Lomita City Council rejected a zone change proposal Monday that would have allowed a developer to build a 24-hour gas station and mini-market on Palos Verdes Drive North at Western Avenue.

After nearly two hours of heated testimony from residents roundly opposed to a proposal to sell beer and wine at the mini-market, the council voted 4 to 0 to deny zoning the previously unzoned property for commercial planned development. Councilman Hal Hall was absent.

Residents argued that the development was inappropriate for the neighborhood because of a proposal to keep it open around the clock and to sell beer and wine there. Residents said such an operation, adjacent to the Harbor Hills housing project and at an intersection already congested by traffic, would be detrimental to the neighborhood.

Beverly Hart, board president of the Rolling Ranchos Residential Assn., told the council that “the quality of life for a number of Lomita residents would be significantly lowered” by the project.

“It cannot come as a surprise to you that we don’t like it,” Hart said.

The zoning would have permitted the Park/Abrams Development Co. of Irvine to build a gas station with a mini-market that would also have sold beer and wine between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., hours set under a condition imposed by the city’s Planning Commission.

Earlier this month, the City Council had approved a conditional-use permit that would have allowed the project had the zone change been approved.

The property is in a public right of way and, under city ordinance, such land is unzoned, said Senior Planner Richard Kawasaki.

Resident Timothy King, a patrol captain with the Los Angeles Police Department Harbor Division, said the project could have increased crime in an area where liquor is readily available.

“You can go a couple of blocks from there in either direction and buy booze if you want,” King said.

Milton Patterson, a housing manager who oversees the Harbor Hills project for the county Community Development Commission, said county officials would be opposed to a store selling beer and wine next to a housing project. Such sales would be inconsistent with the federal government’s anti-drug efforts, he said.

Some residents also questioned whether the city had acted illegally in approving the conditional-use permit before the property was zoned. Many also complained that they had not been been notified by the city of the proposed development, although they said they had been promised notification by council members.

Mayor Charles Belba said that the developer’s requests for a conditional-use permit and the zone change had been submitted simultaneously and that the requests were not improper.

“We’ve never played a game, we’re not playing a game, and I for one would never tolerate it,” Belba said.

A. Y. Olds, a vice president of the development company, said about 100 homeowners had been notified about public hearings, including some who lived as far as 750 feet away from the site. The city is required to notify only residents who live within 300 feet of planned projects.

Olds said a sign had been up at the site for nearly a year inviting requests from developers and others interested in the property. The only serious replies, he said, were from oil companies.

The developer’s research indicated that the best possible uses for the odd-shaped parcel were as a strip commercial center or as a gas station, Olds said. The latter would have been successful only with an additional business such as a mini-market, he said.

Olds, property co-owner Darrell Dudley and architect Seth Lazarus had met with homeowners groups earlier this month to discuss their plans for the 38,000-square-foot parcel.

Dudley, of East Palos Verdes Properties and Ernest (Tom) Papadakis of Rancho Palos Verdes, representing a group that co-owns the property, attended Monday’s meeting but did not address the council.

City’s Right of Way

After the meeting, Dudley said the two groups bought the property in 1971 from Palos Verdes Properties, which in 1933 had deeded a 220-foot-wide portion of the property to the city for future road widening. About half of the easement was used to build Palos Verdes Drive North, he said.

The city retains the right to the right of way underlying the property and would have to decide whether to vacate it in order for any development, Dudley said.

Reading from the deed, residents at Monday’s meeting cited its stipulation that the right of way remain a parkway forever as a reason why the city should not vacate the easement.

The council held two closed sessions during the meeting to discuss legal aspects of the zone change. After the second session, the council emerged to deny the change with little additional discussion.

“Those words (that the right of way remain a parkway), I believe, were enough to kill the whole thing,” said resident Bob Gorman.

Dudley said the owners plan to meet to decide whether to pursue ideas for a commercial or other development at the site, although he said a service station and mini-mart would have been “the ideal situation.”

“We all are aware of the shootings and the drugs and the criminal element,” Dudley said. “I really don’t think that would have happened here.”