Legislators Protest Coast Guard Housing Plan

U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer joined forces Friday with Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) to support the city in its effort to persuade the Coast Guard to reconsider a request for housing at Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station.

The three, along with Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills), sent a letter to Secretary of Defense William J. Perry requesting that the Coast Guard consider putting new housing in the Los Angeles area, rather than at the Tustin base, which will close by 1997.

The Coast Guard has asked the Department of Defense for approval to use 55 acres of the 1,600-acre base for 274 units of military housing.

Cox said military housing sites in San Pedro and other areas of the Palos Verdes Peninsula make more sense because they are closer to Los Angeles Harbor, where the Coast Guard is based. He also said the Coast Guard request was made late, after the city had crafted a base reuse plan.

Cox called the Coast Guard’s request “illogical and untimely” and said the city of Tustin “will have my strong support on this.”

“The notion that taxpayers should pay extra so that the Coast Guard can incur a 72-mile round-trip commute to L.A. Harbor from Tustin is outrageous,” Cox said. “Palos Verdes is five miles from the L.A. Harbor, and Palos Verdes wants these people.”

Cox also said that the Coast Guard has provided no economic data to show why the housing should be in Tustin.

“The city of Tustin has spent five long years putting together a plan, with federal funding, and then the Coast Guard comes in to bust up all the china because of only one reason: The quality of life is better in Tustin than in Palos Verdes,” Cox said.

Tustin city officials have long maintained that, if the Coast Guard’s request is granted, the reuse plan will be thrown into disarray and the city will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in potential tax revenue.

Coast Guard officials said they had not seen the legislators’ letter and could not comment.