Homeowner Groups Attack UCLA’s ‘Guest House’ Plan

Westwood activists are charging UCLA with reneging on its “good neighbor” development policy by planning a 100-room “guest house” on the residential side of Tiverton Avenue for families of its hospital patients.

The facility is proposed for 900-920 Tiverton Ave., across from the UCLA Medical Center. A 10-unit apartment house donated to the university is now at that site.

But area homeowner groups said the proposed facility sounds like a hotel, with the attendant influx of people and traffic to the already crowded area, while UCLA insists it is not.

Under its charter from the state, UCLA is exempt from local zoning regulations. But the university prides itself in being a good neighbor by participating in the city planning process and building accordingly. This case is no exception, said UCLA Community Relations Director Carole Magnuson.

Magnuson insisted the proposed building is not a hotel but a much-needed “Patient Family Guest House” that will provide affordable lodging for people from outside the area who need to be close to the medical center, such as outpatients undergoing tests or treatment, families of patients and visiting medical personnel.

Laura Lake, president of the homeowners group Friends of Westwood, said she applauds the purpose, but disagrees with UCLA’s claim of compliance with community standards. “It’s flagrantly not in the spirit, the intent or the letter of the local plan,” Lake said. “This is a test of good faith and good will with the community.”

Under the terms of the Westwood Community Plan, the city’s master plan for the Westwood area, the east side of Tiverton is a buffer zone of apartments that separates Westwood Village from single-family residences. The area was downzoned to R-3 for apartments, with the few small hotels that are already operating grandfathered into the new plan.

The dispute over the Tiverton facility is likely to be repeated on the other side of Westwood Village as UCLA embarks on an explosion of development on the campus and beyond.

Long-range UCLA development plans released this month contain a long-awaited blueprint for “Lot 32,” a 40-acre parcel stretching north from Wilshire Boulevard at Gayley Avenue. The lot is the largest piece of undeveloped land in Westwood.

The university proposes more than 2 million square feet of construction on Lot 32, about half of it consisting of housing for faculty, staff, graduate and postgraduate students such as hospital interns. It also plans a nine-story conference center that would provide short-term housing for participants in campus programs. Neighborhood group leaders say they regard the conference center as another disguised hotel.

There has been a longstanding brouhaha on the question of what hotels, if any, belong in Westwood Village. The village has its own master plan, called the Westwood Village Specific Plan. Several years of negotiations before the adoption of the village plan a year ago resulted in a compromise of one hotel to be built across the street from Bullock’s Westwood.

Last fall, homeowner activists tried in vain to have Westwood Horizons retirement hotel designated a commercial hotel, thus shutting out the hotel specified in the plan.

The guest house and the proposed conference center for Lot 32 are outside the boundaries of the village plan but within the area covered by the community plan.

Lake charges that UCLA representatives, who actively participated in planning workshops despite the university’s exemption from zoning rules, are aware that the guest house does not conform with the zoning for Tiverton.

Neighborhood residents suggest putting the facility in some other part of Westwood or issuing vouchers to make other area hotels affordable to those who need housing near the medical center.

Lake and her allies also accuse the university of trying to sneak the Tiverton facility by them. According to Lake and another Westwood homeowner group leader, Sandy Brown, they and others have been quietly meeting with UCLA officials for a year, ostensibly to provide the university with guidance on what neighborhood residents would like--and not like--to see UCLA build.

A mediator was hired by UCLA to conduct the sessions, and participants attended by invitation only. They were asked not to notify the press, and UCLA did not publicize the sessions.

Although the activists gave UCLA credit for following their suggestion and committing a large portion of “Lot 32” to residential uses, they criticized the university for not discussing its more controversial plans, including the Tiverton building.

Another example, Lake said, was an attempt to build a 600-space parking garage at Westwood Park in partnership with the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department. After hearing of the negotiations from other sources, the homeowner groups put pressure on the city, and the plan appears to have been dropped, Lake said.

“We felt the university was going to do what the university wanted,” she said. “We felt they held the meetings so they could say they consulted with the community.”

Magnuson denies any hidden agenda, noting that a public hearing was held last week on the environmental impact report of the proposed patient guest house. Projects not on the campus were not included in long-range development discussions with the community, she said.