LAX Expansion Would Displace 190 Businesses, Galanter Says

City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter on Wednesday attacked the heart of Mayor Richard Riordan’s argument for expanding Los Angeles International Airport, contending that although the expansion may help many Southern California businesses, it also would displace 190 firms employing thousands of people near the airport.

The mayor’s plan “may be good for some businesses, but it’s not good for a lot of businesses,” she said during an address to the Westchester / LAX-Marina del Rey Chamber of Commerce. “We don’t know the full economic impact of this. I know that it’s not good for those 190 businesses.”

Galanter’s figures come from a study of the area that would be absorbed into the airport if one of the leading expansion plans is adopted. That plan calls for the enlarged facility to occupy land between the existing airport and the San Diego Freeway.

The businesses that would be displaced run the gamut, from hotels to thriving companies such as Neutrogena and Medical Diagnostics to the venerable local cultural landmark, “Nude Nudes.”

All would be offered space to the north of the expanded airport, but it is unclear whether they would agree to relocate. Jack Driscoll, the airport’s general manager, conceded that some relocations would be needed, but said his department is committed to trying to keep as many businesses in town as possible.

“We’re leaning over backward,” he said. “We want to keep them in the city.”

Deputy Mayor Noelia Rodriguez echoed those comments and said Riordan believes a regional approach to growing air traffic demand is the only way to accommodate it.

“The mayor continues to advocate a regional solution,” she said, adding that such a solution would include expansion of all three of the city’s airports--Los Angeles International, Ontario and Palmdale. By far the largest expansion contemplated is that of LAX.

Galanter’s latest challenge to the proposed airport expansion strikes at the center of Riordan’s argument for it, namely that a bigger airport would stimulate economic growth and create jobs.

Riordan has enthusiastically supported the proposed airport expansion, which will cost an estimated $10 billion to $12 billion, by far the largest and most expensive public works project in Los Angeles. However, the scope of its economic implications is comparable.

If approved, the expansion would nearly double the airport’s passenger capacity, allowing more than 90 million people a year to pass through the airport. It also would dramatically increase the airport’s ability to handle cargo, reinforcing its place as the major hub for air cargo traffic to Asia and Latin America.

Without significant expansion of the region’s air capacity, Riordan and others argue that the local economy will suffer. But with such an expansion, the mayor envisions thousands of new jobs that would benefit everyone from the working poor to the highest income earners.

In fact, Galanter agrees with the need for airport expansion. But she has argued for diverting more of the region’s traffic to Ontario and Palmdale, rather than adding to the burden of the neighborhoods around LAX, which she represents.

Ontario recently completed a major expansion, and Galanter commended the city for that during her speech Wednesday.

Palmdale, however, remains a largely unused facility, resisted by the airlines because it is too far from most of the people in Los Angeles.

As she often does in speeches, Galanter challenged that notion Wednesday, arguing that for many residents of Los Angeles, driving to relatively remote Palmdale is no harder than navigating traffic-clogged freeways leading to LAX.

But the councilwoman’s main emphasis was on what she described as an overlooked consequence of the airport expansion: its effect on businesses near the airport.

Reinforcing her point, Galanter produced a map detailing the footprint that the new airport would cast across the Westchester area. Where the eastern edge of the airport now reaches Sepulveda Boulevard, under the new plan it would stretch nearly to the San Diego Freeway. Most of the buildings in between would be demolished.

Galanter’s arguments were not overwhelmingly endorsed by the chamber group. But Galanter noted two sites that would be closed the expansion: the restaurant where she was speaking and the headquarters of the Westchester chamber.