Supervisors Grant Reduction in Rent for Marina City Club : Finances: Deal with waterfront athletic facility will cost the county $178,500 a year.

As hundreds of county workers gathered to protest the threat of massive budget cuts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday quickly and quietly approved a rent reduction for a major Marina del Rey developer.

In a matter of seconds, without discussion, the board voted to reduce the rent the county receives from the athletic facilities at the waterfront Marina City Club. The deal will cost the financially strapped county government an estimated $178,500 a year in lost revenue.

Despite an $833-million budget deficit, county officials favored the rent reduction for the club, saying the alternative would be worse.

For months, Los Angeles developer Jerome Synder had threatened to close the athletic club permanently--at a greater cost to the county--if the rent was not reduced from 15% of the club’s monthly dues and initiation fees to 6%. Like all businesses in the publicly owned marina, the club operates on public land through a long-term lease with the county.

Ted Reed, director of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, which administers the marina, said the deal ensures there will be a viable club and the county will be “getting 6% of something as opposed to 15% of nothing.”

The rent reduction was supported by an appraisal that found the county’s share of monthly dues and initiation fees should be cut even further, to 5.6%.

Snyder has long argued that the club has suffered unacceptable losses, and he demanded rent relief if it was to continue operations. To underscore the point, he closed the club briefly in August. A new club with a new membership was opened afterward.

Reed said the club, with its fitness center, swimming pools, spas and tennis courts, is important to the future sale of condominiums in the high-rise circular towers that surround it.

As part of a restructuring of the club, homeowners in the condominiums will assume financial responsibility for maintenance of the athletic facilities and will play a role in decisions concerning club operations.

The supervisors postponed a vote two weeks ago after condominium owners and life members of the former club raised questions about the deal.

The final language of an agreement between Snyder and the Marina City Club Homeowners Assn. was negotiated in the hallway outside the supervisors’ meeting before the rent reduction issue was put to a vote Tuesday.

“Everyone is extremely excited about the new club,” said William Basch, vice president of the homeowners association. In the absence of an agreement to reduce the rent, Basch said, “the club would never have reopened.”

Michael Wise, representative of the J. H. Snyder Co., hailed the deal. “We’re very pleased with it,” he said. “The homeowners are pleased with it. We look forward to establishing a great club there.”

Life members of the former club are not satisfied with the deal, however, because they will have to pay initiation fees and monthly dues to belong to the new club, Wise said.

The athletic club issue is one element in the continuing saga of financial problems at the Marina City Club complex. Threatened with foreclosure by one of his lenders, Snyder last May sought federal bankruptcy protection for the project, which includes the marina’s only condominium development. A plan to reorganize the project’s debts has yet to be filed.