Torrance Rejects Developer’s Plan

A developer failed to win permission Tuesday to build eight new homes on a hemmed-in piece of North Torrance property. The proposal would have involved tearing down an existing house to make way for a new street.

Torrance City Council members voted 4-3, with Councilmen Bill Applegate, Tim Mock and Dan Walker in the minority, to reject the project proposed by Steven Facer of Sequoia Real Estate Funds.

The houses would have been built on irregular-shaped lots carved out of a triangular piece of land sandwiched between the Dominguez Channel, just south of El Camino College, and the back walls of existing houses on 166th Street.

Because there is no public access to the site, Sequoia intended to demolish a house on the north side of 166th Street near Falda Avenue to create a new street leading into a cul-de-sac on the site.

But residents complained that Sequoia’s plan would place a street two feet from their back property lines, and in some cases within seven feet of their bedrooms.

They also expressed concern that the existing sewer system, which has in the past backed up into the neighborhood, does not have enough capacity to handle eight new homes and that the new streets would not be wide enough for emergency access.