Church Fights Traffic Plan That Would Cut Play Area

Sorry, but members of Westchester’s Covenant Presbyterian Church don’t think the right-turn lane is right.

Not when they have to give up a chunk of their church school’s playground so the new traffic lane can benefit a $75-million retail center being built a mile away.

Developers of the retail complex now under construction at the Howard Hughes Center are being required by Los Angeles officials to install the 300-foot right-turn lane at Sepulveda Boulevard and 80th Street.

But church leaders say the turning lane will destroy a tree-lined, 20-foot-wide buffer zone between the busy boulevard and the play yard and take out a block wall that protects children who attend nursery school and day-care sessions there.

They say the lane will intrude about two feet into the playground, requiring a redesigning of the area so that play equipment meets state safety-setback standards. And because the redesigned playground will be smaller, the preschool may end up being forced to reduce its enrollment to meet other state requirements, church leaders complain.

Officials of the 52-year-old Presbyterian congregation say they learned of the playground problem by accident several weeks ago. A preschool parent who is familiar with the Howard Hughes Center project casually mentioned that the vine-covered wall was earmarked for demolition.

Congregation leaders were in for another jolt when they asked city officials why the church was being required to give up a portion of its land.

“They told us our fence and part of the play area was on city land,” said Christine Cooper, head of the church’s board of deacons.

If that was true, church leaders wondered, why had the city issued the church permits to build a redwood fence there 45 years ago and then replace it with a concrete block wall in 1987? And why had previous Howard Hughes Center plans provided to the church made no mention of the wall’s pending demolition--or of the church’s purported incursion on the city’s right of way?

On Monday, Cooper met with an aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and with a representative of Jerry Snyder, the developer of the new retail complex. Cooper said she was shown blueprints that specified that replacement of the demolished wall would be the responsibility of the church.

But officials could not produce proof that the church was encroaching on city land, Cooper contended. “We keep asking to see the survey. If it’s our land, they can condemn it and take it. But they have to negotiate and pay the church,” Cooper said.

Viet Tran, Galanter’s aide who attended the meeting, declined to comment Wednesday on the issue.

Niki Tennant, a Galanter spokeswoman, said she was unaware of the contention that the wall is on city property.

The Rev. Frank Marshall, Covenant Presbyterian’s pastor of 29 years, said that if the wall must go, it should be replaced with one sturdy enough to protect the school’s 50 pupils from automobiles traveling a few feet away. It should be soundproof, too, he said.

Snyder, the developer, said Wednesday that his company has decided to pay for a new playground wall.