City Seeks $1.5-Million Rent for Underwater Parcel : Coastal: County received the land in 1957 in exchange for building a restroom at Venice Beach. The 1.4-acre stretch of beach became the marina’s ocean access channel.

A 1.4-acre patch of beach that Los Angeles gave up 35 years ago to create an ocean access for Marina del Rey is the issue in a quirky rent dispute between the city and county of Los Angeles.

City officials want to be paid $1.5-million-a-year rent for the county’s use of the property, which is 20 feet underwater and a part of the marina’s main channel. More than 2,000 boats pass through the channel on a typical summer Sunday.

Jackie Tatum, general manager of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, reported Monday that the city hopes to begin negotiations with county officials, who have rebuffed previous suggestions that they should pay to use the channel.

When city officials first broached the rent proposal, Ted Reed, director of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, said angrily: “What the hell are they going to do, not let people go in and out?”

County officials this week declined further comment.

The question of compensation for the property is as old as the marina itself.

The city turned over use of the 1.4-acre, 900-foot-wide swath of sand to Los Angeles County in 1957, under a 30-year franchise agreement. In return, the county built a restroom on Venice Beach just north of what is now the channel into the small-craft harbor.

But when the franchise expired in 1987, city officials said they were entitled to much more than a bathroom in return for the county’s continued use of the property. Marina del Rey had become a successful commercial enterprise in the intervening 30 years, they argued, and whereas the county receives $25 million in gross revenue from the marina each year, the city gets nothing.

City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter suggested after her 1987 election that, as compensation, the county could pay for the repair of retaining walls on Dockweiler Beach, refurbish Ocean Front Walk in Venice, build more beach restrooms or refurbish Venice Pier.

But the county balked and negotiations broke off.

Debate was not renewed until last May, when Galanter again pressed for rent payments as the city struggled to balance its budget.

The city’s Real Estate Division subsequently calculated the beach’s value, based on what it would have been worth if it had been developed with residential lots. That came to $17 million, a value that justifies yearly rent of $1.53 million, officials in the Real Estate Division said.

Tatum’s report suggests that the rent would be only a starting point, with periodic reappraisals that could increase the county’s payments.

County officials declined to discuss the report, saying only that the county counsel’s office is studying the issue.

But a member of the city’s own Recreation and Parks Commission expressed concern that an attempt to extract funds from the county could come back to haunt the city.

“Is there anywhere we could face the prospect of retaliation?” Commissioner Dominick Rubalcava asked Monday. “Their budget is not much better than ours . . . and I can just see their bean counters getting ready to jump on us.”