Plan to Build Schools on MTA Land Hits Bumps

Nick Patsaouras, the suave contractor, urbanist and transit visionary, said the idea came to him while driving, naturally.

Los Angeles needs schools and doesn’t have enough places to put them; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has vacant land at its new transit stops.

Put them together, he thought, and you get a marvelous opportunity to create schools as jewels of civic life, linked symbiotically with transit, retail, commercial and housing all around them.

The result also could be a good development opportunity for Patsaouras. He presented the idea to Caprice Young, a Board of Education member and protege of Mayor Richard Riordan. She loved it. Then he briefed MTA chief Julian Burke, who, according to Patsaouras, responded favorably as well.

That’s how deals are made.

But in fractured, backbiting Los Angeles, deals can be unmade and remade just as easily--especially when the deal involves a search for scarce space for schools.

In fact, Patsaouras’ notion inspired a reportedly raucous closed-door session of the MTA board last week. In the end, the board urged a host of bickering parties to work out their many differences.

So this week, an unparalleled collection of public agencies and private interests are huddling in an attempt to plan together for the civic good.

Among them are the MTA, the Community Redevelopment Agency, Caltrans, the city and the county of Los Angeles, and private parties from developers to community activists and businessmen.

“We have the opportunity now for all these jurisdictions to work together,” said Young. “It’s sort of a test of our government structure.”

If the strategy succeeds, the school district could get two vacant and pollution-free sites--one for a middle school in the Mid-Wilshire district and another for a high school in North Hollywood. In addition, the projects could be coordinated with other commercial and residential developments to provide recreational facilities and meeting spaces for the community.

But if the parties can’t agree, the district will fall back on its strategy of last resort: seizing properties through eminent domain.

“I’d prefer not to have to condemn the 400 or 500 houses,” Young said.

The North Hollywood site in particular illustrates the many obstacles that confront school officials in their desperate search for space. It also shows how hard it can be to execute an idea that, at least in theory, seems perfect.

Patsaouras, a former MTA board member whose name is memorialized in the plaza outside the agency’s high-rise headquarters, knew that the MTA was seeking private development proposals for the land in question.

But he figured that he and his partners could submit a development plan to build schools instead of retail or commercial space, and then sell that school to the district.

Young, who represents the north San Fernando Valley on the Board of Education, already was interested in the MTA site. It apparently offered a solution to a frustrating problem.

More than a year ago, business leaders became outraged over her proposal to raze the Valley Plaza shopping center for a high school. Because Valley Plaza houses the headquarters of Robinsons-May, as well as one of its department stores, the school would have wiped out more than 1,000 jobs critical to the East Valley economy.

The district then approached the redevelopment agency about using its property next to the MTA station on Lankershim Boulevard. The CRA wasn’t interested because it was planning a large commercial and retail complex.

Resident, business and arts groups also objected to a school in the redevelopment project, which they didn’t think would go with commercial revitalization.

Meanwhile, some nearby homeowners, fearful of losing their properties for the school, asked the district a year ago to consider the MTA site, arguing that it made no sense to take homes when vacant government land was nearby.

But the MTA, which declared the land available for development in October, was aiming for high-end commercial and residential use that would bring in lots of revenue.

Enter Patsaouras, who went straight to the top, asking MTA chief executive Burke to give the school district a chance. He appeared to have prevailed when a transit agency committee voted to recommend a 90-day exclusive negotiation with the district. Had the board approved, Patsaouras and his partners would have had to compete against any firm that wanted to build a school.

But as the full MTA board convened last Thursday, it became obvious there was going to be a fight.

Meeting Results in New Plan

Staff members of Councilman Joel Wachs were there to argue for shops and restaurants on the MTA site. So was MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky, who prefers a commercial development that would provide parking for the station.

The board summarily adjourned to a closed session where Mayor Richard Riordan reportedly pushed hard for the school proposal but couldn’t muster enough support.

Then matters got really complicated.

The board member heatedly debated a development rights swap in which the MTA would turn its land over to the CRA, which in turn would give some of its land to the east over to the district.

Yaroslavsky and other board members rejected that.

“Why would we give away our asset?” he said. “That MTA station has other public purposes.”

By the time board members emerged, there was an entirely new plan focused on a six-acre Caltrans maintenance yard east of the station.

It still remains a highly complex transaction because the Caltrans land is part of the redevelopment project and would have to be augmented by other CRA land. Besides that, Caltrans will not abandon the property without having a replacement.

The search for replacement land for Caltrans began Monday when officials from several of the affected agencies scouted the city from a helicopter.

In the meantime, Caltrans has no plans to start negotiations with the district.

“That is between the CRA and the LAUSD to work that out,” said spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli. “And whatever they agree to, is fine with us.”

CRA spokesman Thomas Knox said the agency has not yet considered how a school would fit in with the redevelopment project, originally geared toward business. But he said the agency would take the proposal seriously.

North Hollywood Concerned Citizens, which has opposed the proposal for a school at the MTA station, is only slightly less alarmed by the idea of a school a block to the east.

“I realize education is a sacred cow, but notwithstanding we have to arrive at some balance with competing needs of the community and not just the schools,” said president Glenn Hoiby.

As the talks head off in the direction of a possible mix of schools, transit, commerce and housing, Patsaouras has begun to feel left out.

“My idea was to have a school,” he said. “The idea is to have a jewel of a school.”

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Search for High School Site

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board rejected a proposal to place a new high school at its North Hollywood transit station. Now the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Community Redevelopment Agency and Caltrans are negotiating on possible alternate sites nearby.