Neighborhood Opposition Stalls Getty Villa Reopening

More than two years have passed since the J. Paul Getty Museum closed its villa in Pacific Palisades for a four-year, $150-million renovation, but construction has yet to begin. Well-organized neighborhood groups in Pacific Palisades and Malibu oppose expansion and already have delayed the project for one year. If their veiled threats of litigation come to pass, the reopening of the popular venue may be a long way off.

The Roman-style building housed the museum’s entire art collection until the opening of the Getty Center in Brentwood in 1997. The museum is now deserted and the once meticulously kept grounds look forlorn. About the only signs of progress are a fire road that is being widened and large trees that have been put in boxes so they can be moved.

Museum officials plan to transform the villa into a museum and study center devoted exclusively to antiquities, the only one of its kind in the country. Among other changes, plans call for the addition of a 600-seat outdoor amphitheater for classical plays and concerts and underground parking facilities, both of which some neighbors vehemently oppose.

“It’s a wonderful concept, but this site--a very small, narrow canyon completely surrounded by single-family residences--is not the right location for it,” said Barbara Kohn, a leading opponent whose house is adjacent to the Getty property. There isn’t an adequate buffer zone between the villa and surrounding residences, she said. As for parking, “there’s never enough,” she said; adding more wouldn’t solve the problem.

The parking issue may be resolved Tuesday at a public hearing of the Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals at which the Getty will seek to increase the villa’s parking spaces from the existing 291 to 610. Opponents want to maintain the current number.

In early November, the City Council is expected to cast its final vote on the villa master plan, which also includes a new entry pavilion, a cafe, a bookstore and an underground auditorium. If approval is granted, Getty officials say construction could begin by the end of the year. But the opening date already has been pushed back a full year, to fall 2002. If other obstacles arise, the opening is likely to be even later.

Indeed, City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who has attempted to reconcile differences between the Getty and its opponents, to little avail, warns of continuing trouble.

“There’s no question that the greater good, the community asset and the community opportunity that the Getty villa’s reopening presents to the area is something that is immeasurable. I think we ought to embrace it,” she said. “But my sense is that there may well be litigation beyond the council action. I think it’s not just a situation of, ‘Get to the council and get it over.’ There could be another year in litigation unless they really come to the table in the most meaningful way.”

Miscikowski said that the 2,000 letters and telephone calls she has received from constituents are about equally divided pro and con. Community organizations usually oppose the Getty’s plan, but individuals she encounters generally support it, she said, leading her to think “the silent majority” favors the project.

Some opponents warn that the opening of the museum 25 years ago was only the beginning of the end of their peace and quiet. In a cartoon circulated by Pacific Coast Homeowners, a coalition of homeowners groups, the Getty Trust is characterized as a camel poking its head into a tent to request shelter, then rudely ousting the occupant. The caption: “In 1974 the neighborhoods gave an inch. In 1999 the mile is about to be taken.”

The entire period since the July 1997 closure hasn’t been lost, according to Don Baker, the Getty’s legal counsel. Much of the first year was spent packing and moving the 40,000-piece collection of antiquities to the Getty Center in Brentwood and doing some preliminary work on the grounds. “We built in a lot of time for planning, but from this point on, the more delay there is, the more delay in the opening,” he said.

Meanwhile, the lack of progress is affecting more than the public. Scholars currently have access to the Getty’s collection of Greek and Roman art under severely restrictive conditions, if at all.

“Most of the collection is in storage, so the public can only see what’s on display at the Getty Center” in Brentwood, said Marion True, curator of antiquities and assistant director of planning for the villa. “Everything else is crated. We try to serve scholars, but each item requested has to be uncrated and re-crated because everything is kept ready to move back.”

Noise From Theater Among Concerns

The Getty has scaled back some of its plans and circulated a second environmental impact report. To allay fears about noise from the outdoor theater, performances would be limited to 45 a year. The only amplification allowed would be for spoken voices, and that would not exceed 65 decibels.

The Getty also is putting $2 million into a city-controlled neighborhood protection fund for additional traffic control, landscaping and sound buffers, if needed, said Baker. The outdoor theater program would be reviewed after three years.

Before its closure, the villa had about 400,000 visitors a year. The reopening will probably draw large crowds, but in the long run Getty officials say they expect a slight drop in attendance because of the specialized program. They also say additional parking is needed to accommodate scholarly programs during museum operating hours. But Kohn and others express fears that the proposed visitors’ parking structure will bring more noise, even though it will be located below the existing open-air lot, which will be covered by landscaping.

The project architects, the Boston-based team of Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti, have designed the outdoor theater to fit into the space formerly occupied by the cafe. Although a hill rises behind it, then dips down into residential property, detractors dispute the Getty’s acoustical tests indicating that sound will not travel to surrounding homes. Getty officials say the theater will function primarily as a casual gathering place and that planned performances are merely an extension of the past outdoor program.

“No matter what’s performed there, there will be 600 people clapping or coughing or laughing, in addition to the performers,” Kohn said.

Other residents dispute these concerns. In fact, about 1,100 residents of Pacific Palisades have formed a support group, Palisadians for the Getty Villa Master Plan.

Lawrence McNamee, whose house is near the villa, said, “People in the neighborhood have parties that are far louder and more distressing than anything the Getty ever does.”