Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Lancaster Courthouse Design Work to Resume : Supervisors: Decision will allow planning for the $80-million project that had been delayed because of lack of funds.

Four months after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors indefinitely postponed all but two of its courthouse construction projects due to a lack of funding, design work on the proposed $80-million courthouse in Lancaster will resume.

Supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to resume design of the Lancaster courthouse and also approved several other interim projects in the wake of the halt on construction projects.

“Since January . . . we’ve kind of been floundering out there,” said Lori Howard, justice deputy for Supervisor Mike Antonovich. “Today is the first definitive action to moving forward with the Antelope Valley project.”

While the county go ahead with the design of the Lancaster courthouse, on which it has already spent nearly $6 million, it is not known when there will be funding to allow construction of the 21-courtroom building to begin.

“We’re sort of taking this incrementally, one step at a time,” Howard said.

There is legislation pending that would increase courthouse construction funding statewide, and Los Angeles County would get a portion of those funds, she said.

To relieve crowding at the Lancaster courthouse until a new one is built, the supervisors also agreed to lease space for non-criminal matters.

The decisions benefiting the Lancaster courthouse were among several that supervisors made Tuesday to reduce crowding and make improvements to a number of courthouses, including those in Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, Culver City and the South Bay.

The interim projects will cost more than $9 million over the next two years and in excess of $1 million each year in lease costs, according to Chief Administrative Officer Sally R. Reed. The county does not have the money, she said, and passage of a series of three Assembly bills is crucial to the future of the proposals.

Faced with declining courthouse construction funds, the board voted in January to indefinitely postpone eight projects and to complete just two court buildings, one in Chatsworth and the other near Los Angeles International Airport.

In March, the supervisors directed Reed to find space to lease in Lancaster and Santa Monica and funds to pay for it. She was also told to find a way to relieve inadequate custody space at the West Los Angeles Courthouse. At that time, the board also agreed to make construction of the new Antelope Valley Courthouse a top priority, when and if funds become available.

The county was hoping to lease space and design temporary courtrooms at the now-empty Mira Loma Jail, which was closed by Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block last summer during budget cutbacks. Block, however, is talking with the state Department of Corrections about that agency’s leasing of the entire jail to allow expansion of the state prison in Lancaster, which is adjacent to the vacant jail.

Howard said the county will begin looking immediately for other space to lease for Municipal Court traffic and small claims matters, as well as Superior Court civil, probate and family law hearings.