MTA Discusses New School Site Near Subway

Under pressure to find a school site in the San Fernando Valley that does not conflict with redevelopment plans in North Hollywood, officials said Thursday they are considering a new campus location about a block east of the Red Line subway station.

The proposal was discussed in closed session Thursday during the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting. It could involve a land swap between the MTA and the Community Redevelopment Agency, on behalf of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

School district officials had recently proposed building a high school for about 1,700 students on the 13-acre North Hollywood MTA subway station and parking lot. The district submitted the request to the MTA, which is accepting proposals from developers who want to build commercial and retail complexes at the station.

But business owners, redevelopment leaders and Councilman Joel Wachs, say the MTA parcel at Lankershim and Chandler boulevards should be used for commercial development, not a school.

Since the early 1990s, the fledgling NoHo Arts and Entertainment District has struggled to establish itself as a theater and entertainment destination. The district suffered disruptions and detours during the MTA Red Line subway construction project. A school, community activists said, would hamper civic rejuvenation.

“It’s a knife in the back of the business district,” said Guy Weddington McCreary, a local property owner and past president of the Universal City/North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “We won’t be allowed to have liquor licenses close to a school. That will kill our night life.”

New retailers would be reluctant to open a business near a high school where teenagers might loiter and scare off customers, said Dale Thrush, a planning deputy for Wachs.

Although an MTA committee voted last week to recommend the transit agency and the school district enter negotiations for two school sites--the North Hollywood and the Wilshire Boulevard-Vermont Avenue subway stations--the land swap concept emerged Thursday as an alternative.

CRA land near Cumpston Street and Vineland Avenue, one block to the east of the MTA station, could be used for a school, said Joanne Carras Halbert, an assistant deputy mayor to Mayor Richard Riordan. In return, MTA land could be swapped back to the CRA, she said.

In the past, the school district had approached the CRA about building a school in the redevelopment zone, but the agency was committed to a commercial retail project proposed by developer J. Allen Radford, said W. Roderick Hamilton, an LAUSD facilities consultant.

The discussion about considering CRA land did not occur during the MTA meeting, although the school matter was on the agenda for open discussion. Yet early in Thursday’s meeting, the board went into closed session.

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After the board meeting, MTA counsel Steve Carnevale acknowledged the matter was discussed in the closed session and “was probably not appropriate for open session.”

Board members asked to be briefed on the legal issues surrounding the school proposal, Carnevale said.

MTA spokesman Gary Wosk said taking the matter into closed session did not violate the state open meetings Brown Act.

“We’re not setting any precedent to take an open item and discuss it in closed session if there are legal ramifications,” he said.

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Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.