School Site Is at Center of Dispute

A dispute between the city of Los Angeles and the school district over plans for a North Hollywood shopping center has threatened to significantly delay construction of a middle school and interfere with the redevelopment of the property as a commercial center.

The Community Redevelopment Agency filed a written challenge to the school project and officials said they are considering filing a lawsuit if the Los Angeles Unified School District goes ahead with plans to build the school in the middle of the Valley Plaza Shopping Center. The city wants the district to build the school on another site within the 30-acre plaza.

But school officials said the location proposed by the city would probably require a costly redesign of the project, delay construction by more than a year and jeopardize state funding that has been secured.

The disagreement has become so tangled that Mayor James K. Hahn recently met with schools Supt. Roy Romer to try to work out a compromise to a conflict that pits the city’s goal of economic development against the district’s need to relieve severe crowding in its schools. So far, no agreement has been reached.

“What we have here is a classic clash of public interests,” said James A. McConnell, the district’s chief facilities executive.

McConnell said the district needs to build more than 80 schools in the next few years to accommodate the growing student population. One of the district’s top priorities is to build a 1,620-seat middle school on 10 acres of the Valley Plaza Shopping Center, which the CRA long ago identified as a redevelopment target because its buildings are old and blighted.

“This is one of the most overcrowded neighborhoods in the entire district,” said school board President Caprice Young. “It would be a tragedy if they sued, not just for the kids but the whole community.”

Young and McConnell said they are hopeful a compromise can be worked out to allow the project to go forward.

The new school, proposed on the northeast corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Hamlin Street, would relieve crowding at Madison, Reed and Sun Valley middle schools. Young said that every year the project is delayed will cost the district $3 million to bus students to less-crowded campuses.

District officials said they decided on the proposed site in the middle of the plaza because it is the most cost-effective location to build a school, budgeted at $55 million.

The project would displace 20 businesses, including a Blockbuster video store, Sears Auto Center, Kragen Auto Parts, 99 Cents Only, Payless shoes and See’s Candies.

But city redevelopment administrators say the school originally was to be built on the northernmost portion of the property, a plan that would have allowed a large contiguous retail development on the property to the south.

In a 23-page formal protest of the school project made public last week, the redevelopment agency contends that school officials “unilaterally” decided to put the school in the middle of the plaza property.

The CRA also said that the change jeopardizes the viability of the current stores as well as a retail project proposed by developer Jerome Snyder, who has contributed $16,000 in recent years to elected city officials, including Hahn, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, whose district includes Valley Plaza.

“The placement of the proposed middle school at the ‘preferred site’ makes it difficult to attract viable tenants to either portion of the bifurcated shopping center, and this already challenged center will deteriorate further, contributing to blighting conditions immediately adjacent to a brand-new school,” said the letter signed by CRA administrator Jerry Scharlin. He also said an environmental study required by state law failed to adequately consider the effect of the school on traffic, pedestrian safety and the economic viability of the retail project.

Scharlin chided the school district for complaining that the city might create delays by moving the school site.

That claim “rings hollow in light of the LAUSD’s own actions in delaying development of the school by at least two years when it unilaterally switched intended sites from the original northern site to the presently ‘preferred site,’ ” Scharlin wrote.

Romer disputed the suggestion that the district has dragged its feet. “Quite the opposite. We are very pressured to get these schools built,” he said.

The district has built six schools, started construction on nine more and is nearing groundbreaking on dozens of others, district officials said.

Redevelopment project manager Lillian Burkenheim said a decision on whether to file a lawsuit on grounds the project violates state environmental quality laws will not be made until the school board acts on the project.

Young said she hopes talks between now and then will be fruitful. “There is no reason why two agencies committed to the public good should be dueling,” she said.