P.V. Estates Residents Fight Bid to Close Road

Palos Verdes Estates residents turned out in force Wednesday to try to put the brakes on a proposal by some of their Torrance neighbors to close off Via Valmonte, one of five major access roads leading into and out of the peninsula city.

An estimated 200 people, the vast majority of them peninsula residents, crowded into the Torrance City Council chambers to press their demand that Torrance officials prepare an environmental impact report on the proposal, which would close the road at the border of the two cities.

After listening to more than two hours of testimony, the Environmental Review Board agreed, voting unanimously to order city planners to put together the report.

“Via Valmonte is our gateway to the world,” one Palos Verdes Estates resident told the board before the vote was taken.

More than 30 people spoke in favor of the report. A handful of people who live in Torrance and Palos Verdes Estates spoke against the report, saying they favor closing the busy street.

Torrance council members will ultimately decide whether to close the steep, S-shaped street, which motorists use as a shortcut between Hawthorne Boulevard and Palos Verdes Estates.

For years, residents along Via Valmonte have pressured the council to erect a gate at the cities’ borders because of increasing traffic. Last year, after the city’s Traffic Commission recommended closing the street, the council turned the matter over to the Environmental Review Board before deciding the issue itself.

“I am very sympathetic to the problem they have,” Mayor Katy Geissert said before the hearing, adding that she is undecided on the matter.

The Via Valmonte proposal is the latest round in the battle between Torrance and peninsula cities over how to handle growing traffic problems. In recent years, Torrance officials have complained that the cities have placed an unfair traffic burden on Torrance by failing to make needed roadway improvements and imposing restrictions on heavy trucks.

For example, Torrance officials point to Rolling Hills Estates, which since the 1970s has banned trucks weighing more than 6,000 pounds from using Palos Verdes Drive North, a major east-west artery. The ban forces more trucks onto Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance, the officials contend.

Torrance officials estimate up to 6,000 vehicles use Via Valmonte each day. The curvy street snakes along for about 1,500 feet through a Torrance neighborhood before reaching the Palos Verdes Estates boundary, according to John Vance, traffic manager for the city’s Department of Transportation.

Larry Schneider, a Torrance resident who has lived on Via Valmonte since 1968, said there has been a steady increase in traffic along the street in recent years. Many motorists speed down the narrow street, and there are frequent accidents, he said. Once, a car crashed into his home, he said.

“The only people who are going to be inconvenienced by (the road’s closure) are those that live just inside the border in Palos Verdes Estates,” Schneider said.

Palos Verdes Estates officials say constructing a gate would close off one of five major access roads leading into their city. The road, which is most congested in the morning and evening when commuters use it, was built in the early 1920s specifically to provide access to the western part of the peninsula, they said.

Palos Verdes Estates City Manager James Hendrickson said in an interview that closing the road would create more congestion on Palos Verdes Drive North, the next closest major access road into the city. Moreover, residents living in the Valmonte neighborhood near Via Valmonte would be traveling significantly farther to reach Hawthorne Boulevard, and the response time for emergency vehicles could increase. Torrance’s proposal calls for a gate that could easily be unlocked by emergency personnel such as firefighters.

“It befuddles us why out of the blue this proposal to close it would come at this time or why in fact it is being pursued,” Hendrickson said. “. . . Why would you propose to shut a road which has been a major access as far back as 1927?”

The proposal has also upset some Torrance business owners. John Bauman, general manager of the Palos Verdes Begonia Farm, a nursery just inside the Torrance city limits and not far from Via Valmonte, said he is opposed to the road’s closure because at least half his customers come from the peninsula. If those customers are forced to drive another route, they might choose a nursery closer to their homes, he said.

“My feeling has always been . . . the answer is not to block off any more streets in the area,” he said, referring to streets in the vicinity of Via Valmonte that have been closed because of traffic problems. “The answer, I believe, is to open up the streets that have been blocked off in the past.”