City May Strip St. Vibiana’s Historic Status

The Los Angeles Conservancy on Thursday denounced a Los Angeles City Council proposal to strip landmark status from St. Vibiana’s Cathedral so the downtown church can be demolished quickly.

Meanwhile, in a rare moment of cordiality in the ongoing dispute over the Roman Catholic church’s fate, leaders of the preservationist group met Thursday with the architect chosen to design a replacement cathedral. That meeting, however, did not produce any agreement on how much of the 120-year-old cathedral should or could be saved.

A motion by Councilwoman Rita Walters would delete the earthquake-damaged church from the city’s list of 624 historic cultural monuments. The motion, expected to be passed by the council Tuesday, could exempt the archdiocese from the full environmental impact study normally required for destruction of a landmark.

Conservancy Executive Director Linda Dishman said the council proposal sets “an extremely dangerous precedent for future preservation efforts in our city.” By seeking to satisfy the archdiocese so quickly, the council may encourage other construction projects to demand similar treatment, she said.

Such a deletion from the landmark list would be extremely rare, officials said. But city officials, hoping to revitalize downtown, are eager to meet Cardinal Roger Mahony’s demand that the old cathedral be demolished quickly so a $50-million new church can be built in its place. Mahony has warned that he will build a new cathedral out of downtown, or out of the city, if he does not receive assurances about demolition.

The motion by Walters, whose district includes the cathedral, is blunt about its goal.

“St. Vibiana’s has to be demolished. No other alternative is physically and financially viable,” declares the motion, seconded by Richard Alatorre “It is pointless to delay the inevitable with endless bickering, which stands in the way of the ultimate outcome of this issue--which we all know will be the demolition of this destroyed building . . . “

But the city attorney’s office said Thursday that a simple council vote is not enough to take away St. Vibiana’s landmark status. The move would require both review by the Cultural Heritage Commission and a report to comply with state environmental law, officials said. Those steps should take much less time, however, than would the full environmental review afforded a landmark’s demolition, said Jan Perry, Walters’ chief of staff.

Dishman said that the so called de-listing should not affect her group’s lawsuit seeking to stop what they allege is the illegal demolition of the cathedral bell tower at 2nd and Main streets. That razing began June 1 but was temporarily blocked by a court order at least until a hearing scheduled for Monday.

In legal papers, the archdiocese contends that it believed no demolition permit was needed when demolition began on the tower because the city had ordered abatement of the seismic danger. Under questioning by Conservancy attorneys for a recent deposition, however, Richard Holguin, chief of the city’s engineering bureau, repeatedly stated that he told archdiocese representatives May 30 that a demolition permit would be needed. The archdiocese now says it will apply for a required demolition permit.

A Los Angeles monument is given protection from demolition for only a year.

The Cultural Heritage Commission’s official policy guide says that a building should be taken off the protected list only if the evidence for its original designation is later found to be “significantly” wrong. The “desires of property owners” are not reason enough for such a de-listing, according to the policy.

Assistant City Atty. Mark Brown said Thursday that those guidelines are not legally binding. If the Cultural Heritage Commission refuses to take the cathedral off the list, then the council would need a two-thirds vote for such an action, he said.

Mary George, president of the Cultural Heritage Commission, said she did not know how the panel would vote. “It’s a very difficult place to be right now. It is very political,” said George, an appointee of Mayor Richard Riordan, who strongly supports demolition.

Both sides in the cathedral dispute described Thursday morning’s meeting between Conservancy leaders and architect Jose Rafael Moneo as pleasant. Moneo, who is returning to his Madrid home today, favors demolition but wants to include such old pieces as stained glass windows and porticos in the new cathedral complex. The Conservancy hopes that the entire cathedral, now red-tagged for seismic danger, can be repaired and incorporated in the new project.

The Conservancy’s Dishman stressed that the Moneo meeting did not signify that her group is backing off its lawsuit.

The conservancy’s board of directors was scheduled to meet Thursday night to discuss the cathedral situation.