Landlord Responsible for Fixing Mall Damage

* Re: “Mall Plays Waiting Game” (Aug. 26 Letters to the Editor).

The merchants of Laurel Plaza are right and the developer is wrong. As the landlord, Forest City is responsible for keeping the property in a safe and usable condition and should have repaired the mall immediately after the damage.

Mr. Greenberg and the other merchants of the Laurel Plaza Mall, North Hollywood, are finally finding out what kind of company Forest City Development really is. This company has no concern about the well-being of the merchants who were devastated in the January earthquake. If it did, it could have had the necessary repairs made in the mall and those businesses could have been open in seven to 10 days.

The Robinson-May building, which is connected to the damaged mall stores, suffered severe core damage and was repaired and reopened in less than one week. The repairs were started immediately and continued 24 hours a day, to the chagrin of the surrounding bedroom community, and opened for business to a fanfare of radio, TV and newspaper advertising, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars--all the while the poor, small businesses of the mall were promised time and time again that they would be next to open.

Don’t hold your breath, Mr. Greenberg. Our residents association and the people of this community have been fighting the Forest City developer for over eight years concerning the expansion of the Laurel Plaza Mall. Our fight has never been to stop the development of the plaza. We have fought exclusively to see a successful mall built that would blend into the community.

Our community is the oldest still-intact residential community in the San Fernando Valley. We have fought for a state-of-the-art security system, adequate parking, consistent traffic at the mall and the utmost regard for property setback lines in our community. We are fighting to keep the ice skating rink from being replaced by the developer’s eight-screen movie theater that would keep our community up past midnight every day of the year. Our community already has 52 movie screens located within five miles. But the developer doesn’t understand why someone would want an ice skating rink rather than another movie theater!

Our residents association is supported by the community, other local resident associations, the Los Angeles Police Department Neighborhood Watch groups and the Los Angeles City Planning Department in enforcing the above-mentioned needs. Councilman Joel Wachs has said he would not let a residential community be destroyed to make way for a commercial development and has worked with us in problem solving.

BOB CARCIA

North Hollywood

Carcia is the president of S.T.O.P., a North Hollywood residents association.