South Bay : Settlement Sought on Plans for Park

County plans for a $4.4-million nature center at a hilltop park in Rancho Palos Verdes have been put on hold until a settlement can be reached on a lawsuit filed by environmentalists who hope to scale back the proposal.

Jim Park of the county Department of Parks and Recreation said his office has stopped taking contracting bids for the 6,500-square-foot facility, planned for Deane Dana Friendship Park, while legal proceedings on a court petition move forward. He said the agreement to delay the project was reached this week between county lawyers and critics of the plan.

The suit, filed in December by the Friends of Friendship Park and the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe, maintains that the county’s environmental impact report failed to consider any sites other than the one chosen, which is on the crest of the reserve’s highest hill.

Opponents contend that the facility will not only ruin the rural splendor of the oceanside hill but also harm the last vestiges of a 5,000-year-old Gabrielino-Tongva village at the site.

Jane Jones, who chairs the Friends group, has blasted the plan as a green light for “automobiles and buses [to come] right into the center of the park.”

“This is a nature park, and we want to keep it that way,” she said in a recent interview.

Jan Chatten-Brown, an attorney for the group, said it is willing to settle the matter out of court if county officials agree to reduce the facility’s size and relocate it near an existing parking lot midway down the hill.

Park would not comment on the compromise proposal or the county’s position on the lawsuit.