Torrance Council Rejects Proposed Auto Dealership

In a clash between economics and aesthetics, the latter has triumphed in Torrance.

Turning their backs on the prospect of substantial tax revenue, Torrance City Council members earlier this week rejected a proposed automobile dealership in the center of the city because of concerns that it was inappropriate for the area.

The Ford dealership--proposed for a vacant lot at Amie Avenue and Torrance Boulevard near Del Amo Fashion Center--would be incompatible with the surrounding hotels, offices and commercial buildings, the council decided on a 6-1 vote.

The dealership’s sole supporter was Councilman Dan Walker, who said it would generate an estimated $42 million to $45 million a year, provide jobs and bring more than $400,000 in sales-tax revenue to city coffers.

“We don’t have a Ford dealership in this city,” Walker said. “There are a lot of people out there who want to buy a Ford, to buy America.”

Peyton Cramer had applied to the city Planning Commission for a conditional use permit to open the dealership, but the commission voted against it and sent the matter to the council. “An automobile dealership,” city planners wrote to the council, “will not be compatible with the surrounding uses in terms of aesthetics and will not continue the Torrance Boulevard corridor’s mix of developments.”

Representatives from Del Amo Fashion Center, the Torrance Marriott Hotel and the Pacific Heritage Bank, all located near the site of the proposed dealership, told the council that their businesses would suffer if it were allowed to open. They complained of the noise and traffic the dealership would generate, as well as the landscaping and display signs it would use. The council majority agreed. Mayor Katy Geissert called the area “a beautiful, upscale commercial-office corner, which I don’t find an auto dealership compatible with, even as fine as the one Mr. Cramer has before us.”