Battle to Control V.A. Turf Escalates

It was supposed to be a peace treaty to end decades of arguments over what many claim is the most valuable open land in Los Angeles.

But a new 25-year master plan for the sprawling Veterans Affairs hospital grounds in Brentwood may be turning into a declaration of war between Westside residents and the federal government.

Local V.A. administrators have completed the land-use guide that they believe shows a community consensus for 7.2 million square feet of commercial and medical-related development on the hospital’s 388 acres spanning Wilshire Boulevard west of the San Diego Freeway.

Angry Brentwood leaders are repudiating the plan, however. They contend that it could lead to the construction of the equivalent of “two Century Cities” on the V.A. land and secretly eliminate congressional protection of the open space that constitutes about 25% of the grounds.

Community activists who served on a committee organized to help write the master plan assert that local V.A. officials ignored their recommendations. They charge that officials then refused to show them the finished three-volume document until after it was shipped off to the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington.

The dissidents are urging V.A. Secretary Anthony Principi to scrap the plan and order a new one. And the next time around, they say, the V.A. needs to pay attention to the community and to local government officials’ concerns about over-development.

Local V.A. officials are standing firm in their contention that the development plan is a good one--and that Westside residents’ views are accurately reflected in it.

But V.A. administrators are refusing to release it to the public or comment on its specifics until Principi signs off on it.

The dispute escalated Friday when a pair of local lawmakers delivered a list of their complaints about the V.A. to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski assert that the V.A. refused to include either the county or the city in the planning process.

One thing everyone agrees on is that creation of the $450,000 master plan turned into a rush job when it got underway in February.

The master plan was requested two years earlier by the House Veterans Affairs Committee. That panel oversees the V.A. and had been barraged by complaints that outside interests have nibbled away at the valuable Westside property.

Philip P. Thomas, newly appointed head of the Westwood V.A. hospital, acknowledged in February that he was on a tight timetable.

But he promised that the the process would open. “We don’t want the community surprised by what happens on the grounds,” he insisted.

Thomas said the V.A. intended to retain ownership of the hospital land. But officials were hoping to enter into partnerships with private developers willing to build revenue-producing projects such as nursing homes and office space there. A buffer zone of open space would be maintained between new construction and adjoining Brentwood neighborhoods, he promised.

Brentwood leaders who volunteered for the master plan committee say they are bitterly disappointed.

“I feel bamboozled,” said Flora Gil Krisiloff. “It’s dishonest and the outcome is being hidden and buried from the public.”

Krisiloff, who sits on several Los Angeles citizen planning panels and is the current Brentwood Citizen of the Year, said she joined the V.A. committee hoping that the plan “would prevent the kind of bickering and turmoil this community has gone through in the past.”

A plan in the 1980s for the federal government to sell part of the property sparked such an uproar that then-Sen. Alan Cranston stepped forward to author a law that preserves 109 acres as open space.

Krisiloff said she was stunned when she finally obtained a copy of the final plan and found a recommendation that the master plan “supersede” what has come to be known as the Cranston Act.

“I feel I was used to mislead the public. I was used as a mechanism to rubber-stamp what the V.A. administration had predetermined to be the outcome,” she said.

Committee colleague Elizabeth Brainard, who for 42 years has lived a few blocks from the V.A. grounds and heads the Brentwood Glen Homeowners Assn., called the V.A. action “appalling.”

She said V.A. officials failed to record comments critical of the commercialization of the land made by a parade of speakers during a workshop session. Officials said the tape recorder failed to work.

The third community member of the 12-member advisory committee, Brentwood businessman Tim Byk, said he is distressed that the city of Los Angeles was not given more opportunity to shape the plan.

“The process should be opened up again. The V.A. and the surrounding city need to work together,” Byk said.

Miscikowski said massive commercial construction on the hospital grounds could create havoc on surrounding city streets that are already clogged.

“My advice to the V.A. is, don’t force us to get into this battle,” Miscikowski said. “This is coming out as a fiasco. And it’s going to blow up.”

Yaroslavsky said the V.A. grounds are the “worst place in L.A. County” to put in more high-density development.

“We are, to say the least, not only suspicious but downright paranoid about what’s going on with that property,” he said. “We’re not going to sit by and wait. I’m asking the Board of Supervisors to take legal action to fight this scheme.”

In Washington, officials said Principi has not yet reviewed the master plan. But he will respond to the Brentwood activists.

“The secretary cares about the concerns of the communities at large,” V.A. spokeswoman Laurie Tranter said.

Thomas, meanwhile, suggested that nervousness over future land development is unnecessary.

“We didn’t betray their trust or confidence or compromise the process. I firmly believe that,” he said. “Were the people on the committee used? Clearly no. No one was duped.”

Thomas said the recommendation involving the Cranson Act “is not intended to usurp or do away with” open space protections. He also denied that the V.A. is seeking to shove too much new construction onto the V.A. grounds. In any event, he said, there is much more planning to be done before anything is built.