Ferraro Opposes Farmers Market Proposal : Development: City Council president says planned 2-million-square-foot shopping center on the site is too large and should be reduced to 700,000 square feet.

Responding to fears about increased traffic and other impacts on the quality of life in the Fairfax district, City Councilman John Ferraro called Tuesday for a drastic reduction in the size of a 2-million-square-foot shopping center proposed for the Los Angeles Farmers Market.

“I cannot support the project as presented,” he said, revealing his position for the first time after years of discussions on the A.F. Gilmore Co.’s proposal to build three department stores, a hotel, offices and housing on a 31-acre site at 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue.

Speaking at a crowded hearing, Ferraro turned the microphone over to his planning aide, Rene Weitzer, who said “the proposed project . . . is simply too large. The public does not want to be burdened by another ugly closed mall.”

Instead, Ferraro would agree to a 700,000-square-foot shopping center at the site, she said. It would be anchored by two department stores, including a May Co. that would move from its current location a few blocks away at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.

The current May Co. site has been proposed as the keystone of an office building and hotel project to be built by Forest City Development, which operates the nearby Park LaBrea apartment complex.

Hank Hilty, president of the A.F. Gilmore Co., which has owned the Farmers Market land for more than a century, said that it was too early to comment on Ferraro’s vision for the site.

It would be “a dramatic change from our program,” Hilty said. “There’s a lot of thinking that’s got to go on. Real quick.”

Ferraro’s plan would add less than 300,000 square feet of new retail space to the Fairfax district, Weitzer said, and the traffic effects would be “addressed relatively well” by wider streets, computerized signals and other changes to be paid for by the developer.

Ferraro’s long-awaited recommendations carry considerable weight because his district includes the Farmers Market, and because he serves as president of the City Council.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents an adjacent residential neighborhood, said Ferraro’s ideas represented “a step in the right direction.”

The project as proposed by the developer was “absurd,” Yaroslavsky said.

In a separate report, City Planning Department staff members recommended against any proposal for the site, saying that there are already four regional shopping centers within five miles of the Farmers Market.

The project “will not preserve or enhance the residential character of the area . . . (which) cannot accommodate the traffic generated,” said the report by city planning assistant Simon Pastucha. It quoted the results of an environmental impact report, which found that even with the installation of $21 million worth of street improvements, traffic would be worse at seven intersections in the chronically congested area.

The project would also be out of scale with the shops, small office buildings and single-family homes in the neighborhood, the planning staff said, and it would turn its back on the 56-year-old Farmers Market.

If any project is built, planners said, they would recommend a variation including 729,250 square feet of office space and 600 residential units.

Weitzer, however, said that this, too, would “drastically change the character of this community.”

Hilty also ruled out an office development, saying that the Planning Department showed “a curious lack of understanding of our community.”

Over the last eight years, he said, as his family-owned firm has struggled to shape its proposal for the site, businessmen and residents alike have made it clear that offices should go on Wilshire Boulevard, and that housing would best be part of Park LaBrea’s proposed expansion.

“I was brought up in the market and I love it,” he said, pausing as his voice choked with emotion. “But I know it is not the unique attraction it was 20 or 30 years ago.”

“While we delight in hearing about people’s fond memories of childhood trips to the market, many of those same folks are shopping some place else,” Hilty said.

The Gilmore Co. could have built “strip malls, fast-food drive-throughs and convenience stores” on the site, he noted.

The hearing was punctuated by frequent applause and some hissing as speakers made their points before hearing officers John Parker and Darryl L. Fisher, whose rulings on the proposed zone changes and tract map revisions are expected before Nov. 13.

Farmers Market Development Since 1983, a huge development has been envisioned for the corner of 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue, provoking debate among residents and merchants over whether it would bring too muchtraffic.