Police May Surrender Station to Elderly : Land swap: The department offers its cramped North Hollywood quarters for use as a senior center in exchange for a vacant lot that would become its new home.

The North Hollywood police station would be converted into a senior citizens center and officers moved to spacious new quarters on Burbank Boulevard under a plan proposed by Los Angeles police officials.

The Police Department wants to trade its crowded quarters on Tiara Street for a vacant, 2.75-acre lot on Burbank Boulevard near Troost Avenue. The land is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

A $12-million, two-story police station and parking garage would be built on the lot with money from a 1989 bond issue if the plan is approved by the Recreation and Parks Commission, the Police Commission and the City Council.

In return, the Department of Recreation and Parks would use the 32-year-old, one-story station on Tiara Street as a senior citizens center. The center would serve the many elderly people who live near Tiara Street but do not wish to travel to an existing facility about a mile south in North Hollywood Park, said Frank Catania, director of planning and development for the Department of Recreation and Parks.

“The possibility of getting a ready-made facility for senior citizens is very attractive,” Catania said. “We’re just looking to make sure it’s an equal trade.”

In a letter dated Aug. 30, David D. Dotson, acting chief of police, asked parks officials to approve the land swap “in concept” before completion of an environmental impact report. The Recreation and Parks Commission will probably consider the matter at its Sept. 24 meeting, Catania said.

The environmental report will examine the need for a senior center in the area and a count of elderly residents will be undertaken as part of the study, Catania said.

Police officials estimate that acquiring the property through the swap will save them $3 million in land costs. They said, however, getting the trade approved and constructing the new station will take at least four years.

For example, the property is zoned for single-family residential use and police must obtain a conditional use permit from the City Council to operate a station on the site.

“It will be a lengthy process, but it appears to be a very desirable swap because the current site is very, very jammed,” said Stephen Hatfield, acting commander for the police facilities construction group.

The existing station was designed in 1958 for 108 officers, but 220 officers are now assigned there. File cabinets and boxes are crammed into hallways, closets and stairwells, and interview rooms have been converted into offices shared by as many as six detectives. One stairwell has even been turned into a makeshift office for one detective.

The station’s heating, air-conditioning and electrical systems are in disrepair, resulting in uncomfortably hot summers and cold winters. A private consultant’s 1988 report on the station’s condition said “with extreme inadequacies in several functional categories, North Hollywood station has reached the end of its usable life.”

“There’s enough stress in police work without adding overcrowded, noisy conditions,” Capt. Bruce W. Mitchell, the station’s commanding officer, said.

Hatfield said it would be too expensive and disruptive to expand the existing station with money from the $176-million bond measure approved by voters in April, 1989.

Police officials conceived the land swap early this summer but wanted to muster public support before officially proposing it, Hatfield said. Most of the 40 residents who live near the Burbank Boulevard site and who attended an Aug. 19 neighborhood meeting held by police appeared supportive of the project, Hatfield said. Councilman John Ferraro, whose district includes parts of North Hollywood, has endorsed the plan, Hatfield said.

The residents initially expressed concern over increased traffic and prisoners being released from jail into the largely single-family neighborhood, Hatfield said. They were also concerned with police helicopters disturbing their sleep, he said.

The new station would not have a heliport and officers would be dispatched primarily by radio from patrol areas, not from the station, Hatfield said.