Panel Backs Selling MTA Site for School
With a recommendation by a Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee, the Los Angeles Unified School District took a small step Thursday toward acquiring land for a new high school in North Hollywood.
The MTA’s planning and programming committee voted 4 to 0 to recommend that the agency and the school district enter into exclusive negotiations for some or all of the 13-acre parcel at the North Hollywood Red Line subway station.
The full MTA board will take up the committee’s recommendation at its Jan. 25 meeting.
If the board authorizes negotiations, the MTA and the district will have 90 days to make a deal. After that, the committee recommended, MTA can consider other offers, such as from retail and commercial developers.
Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, North Hollywood redevelopment officials and neighbors have opposed selling the land to the school district, saying the site is needed for commercial development to help revitalize the blighted community.
The new high school would help ease overcrowding at nearby schools by creating room for between 1,700 and 2,000 students. It would cost $33 million to $44.7 million to build the school at the northeast corner of Lankershim Boulevard and Chandler Boulevard South.
Also as part of its Thursday recommendation, the MTA committee advocated entering into exclusive negotiations with the LAUSD over a potential school site at the Wilshire Boulevard-Vermont Avenue subway station.
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