LAX Check-In Site Is Mired in Delays

The cornerstone of Mayor James K. Hahn’s $9-billion plan to modernize Los Angeles International Airport is a passenger check-in center near the San Diego Freeway that would allow officials to ban private vehicles -- and thus the threat of car bombs -- from the current facility.

But after six years of buying homes and apartment buildings in the Westchester area, the city still does not own the property it needs to build the facility, and records and interviews suggest the land will not be available on Hahn’s timeline of 2005, assuming his LAX proposal is approved. The effort to acquire the 143-acre area known as Manchester Square has bogged down because of mismanagement, cost overruns and a lack of resources, according to dozens of interviews.

The city must acquire 38 houses and 179 apartment buildings in Manchester Square, demolish them and 263 other structures it already has purchased, and then remove the debris. It must purchase a 52-year-old elementary school from the Los Angeles Unified School District. And it must relocate about 6,200 people, some with federally subsidized housing vouchers, in a region that’s experiencing an acute housing shortage. Now several residents and apartment owners say they won’t leave voluntarily -- raising the possibility the city would need to condemn their homes and evict them, a time-consuming and expensive process.

“Manchester Square is Chavez Ravine for the 21st century,” said attorney Christopher Sutton, referring to the city’s eviction of families from a hillside enclave in the late 1950s to make way for Dodger Stadium. Sutton has advised several Westchester residents.

“In the long run, they’re going to have a slower project and a more expensive project, and lawyers are going to be crawling all over this thing,” he said.

The mayor’s office acknowledges it probably won’t meet the 2005 timeline, although it is spelled out in the 5,000-plus page environmental review of Hahn’s plan, and now says 2007 is a more realistic date.

Officials continue operating as if on the earlier deadline. They have hired a company to speed the relocation of residents in the area and plan to bring another firm on board this fall to manage property acquisitions, said Airport Commission President Ted Stein.

Even if the city acquires the entire Manchester Square site on time, Hahn must convince the City Council that a remote passenger facility is needed.

“I’m not sure there’s a consensus, or even a majority of the council, that is for” Manchester Square, said Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa. “One of the most problematic aspects of [Hahn’s] proposal is the one-stop check-in center.”

Hahn’s airport plan would dramatically alter LAX by knocking down Terminals 1, 2 and 3, demolishing the parking structures in the central terminal area and replacing them with a new terminal complex, and moving the airport’s two sets of parallel runways farther apart.

The heart of the proposal is the passenger check-in center at Manchester Square. Hahn says it would make travelers and airport employees safer, in part by dispersing them among this facility and several other check-in locations. But it has been the most contentious element of the mayor’s plan, with residents, several airlines and lawmakers calling on Hahn to remove it from his proposal, arguing that it would move the threat of car bombs closer to residents and businesses.

Hahn’s color drawings of a spacious, glass-enclosed check-in center -- complete with an elevated people-mover and congestion-free roadways for dropping off passengers -- belie the current condition of the site.

Tired of noise and pollution, Manchester Square residents went to the city agency that runs LAX in 1997 and asked it to buy their homes. The airport agency agreed, and targeted 280 homes and 288 apartment buildings in an area bordered by Arbor Vitae Street on the north, La Cienega Boulevard on the east, Aviation Boulevard on the west and just shy of Century Boulevard on the south. To date, about 84% of the homes and 37% of the apartment complexes have been purchased. By the time it’s complete, the program will have moved about 7,600 people from the area.

Today, scores of homes are vacant and surrounded by chain-link fences. Residents who remain -- some are the only ones left on their block -- report problems with crime and trash. The neighborhood’s condition is so stark that producers of a TV movie chose a street there to shoot a scene depicting the aftermath of a tornado.

Blight isn’t the only challenge facing the city’s airport agency, Los Angeles World Airports. The acquisition program’s budget has doubled to $485 million, mostly because of the soaring real estate market, and a backlog of 590 homeowners and tenants awaiting relocation assistance.

A Federal Aviation Administration audit of the acquisition program late last year found that some tenants owed the agency as much as three years in back rent -- with total rent arrears approaching $1 million. The airport agency says it’s cracking down on scofflaws, with 40 tenants recently coming current on rent payments.

It also has hired a firm, Overland Pacific Cutler, to relocate the backlog of Manchester Square tenants and directed it to move 1,000 households by May 30. The firm is being paid $3.95 million for the yearlong contract. To keep the program on track, the consultant will receive an additional $250 for every household it moves by May 30 in excess of 1,000, and will be penalized $250 for every household shy of 1,000, said Samson Mengistu, a deputy executive director with the city’s airport agency.

“It’s very ambitious,” Mengistu acknowledged. He added that the city relocated 400 households over four years, and now it’s asking the consultant to move more than twice that many in 12 months.

Even so, the first round of relocations will be relatively easy, because 590 households are ready to move, program managers said. The second round promises to be more complicated, they concede, because the agency must both acquire properties and relocate 6,090 people who still live in the area.

In addition, relocation program managers face a tough housing market with little room -- especially for the 70 or so tenants who rely on Section 8 vouchers -- federal housing assistance that pays a portion of tenants’ monthly rent. With few vacancies in the Westchester area and many apartment owners unwilling to accept the vouchers, searches can take months, said Steve Renahan, director of the city’s Section 8 housing program.

Management turnover -- the program has had five directors since 1998 -- also has caused the airport agency to fall behind in acquiring homes and apartment buildings. This part of the program has stalled, officials say, because they initially acquired properties too fast, leading residents and business owners to claim that offers were quickly outpaced by the area’s red-hot real estate market.

“Limited resources in the acquisition office equated to not being able to handle acquisitions in a timely manner,” said Jeanne Breunig, a consultant hired by the agency to help residents through the program.

In the voluntary buyout program, the city makes a home or apartment owner an offer based on comparable home values from the Osage neighborhood in Westchester. The owner can accept or reject the offer.

If the owner rejects the offer and decides to remain in the area, the city eventually could condemn the property and force the owner out, according to the environmental study for Hahn’s plan. In this case, a court would determine the fair market value of the property.

Brenda Underwood had her two-bedroom house appraised at $395,000 two years ago. After the airport agency made her an offer, she tried to counteroffer by asking for $415,000, but said she was told the figure wasn’t open to negotiation, and she declined. Several months later, the agency offered her $415,000.

“That’s last year’s offer, and I said no; we would have to start all over again,” she said.

Disagreements over the accuracy of the agency’s appraisals have prompted several homeowners to say they will not move from Manchester Square until the city offers them more for their homes.

“I went and spent $400 to have my own appraisal done and the value was $461,000, not the $390,000 the airport offered me,” said homeowner Cari Parrish, who challenged her first appraisal and has been waiting for a new one for 18 months. “The value of my home must be $461,000, or I will be condemned. It’s a sad day when a homeowner looks forward to condemnation.”

Apartment owners recount similar problems. After he characterized the buyout process as “time consuming,” David Taft said his firm received an inadequate offer from the agency for four complexes he owned in the area.

“We were convinced they undercut us,” said Taft, who owns several apartment buildings on the Westside. “So we put together our own proposal, and the appraiser was shocked to see how efficient we were.”

The city hasn’t met with the majority of the apartment owners in Manchester Square to inquire whether they’re willing to sell. Many of these businesses are likely to wait for condemnation because federal law doesn’t require the airport agency to provide them the same benefits that homeowners receive, experts say.

“The reality is that this is not as good of a deal for business owners as it is for residents,” said Chad Galayda, a vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle, a Chicago-based firm that has consulted other airports on voluntary buyout programs. The agency “will pay for fair market value for the land, but there could be a loss of business during the relocation and they may have to pay significantly more for a property that allows them to do the same type of business.”

The city could accommodate the homeowners’ and apartment owners’ wish for condemnation. The environmental study for Hahn’s LAX plan notes that the city will condemn homes and force residents and tenants out if officials fail to voluntarily acquire all 568 properties in Manchester Square by 2005.

Many City Council members have said they won’t support condemning homes in Manchester Square, however, until an LAX modernization plan is approved.

The council will choose from among Hahn’s plan and three expansion proposals from former Mayor Richard Riordan.

Hahn hopes to present his plan to the City Council next fall. If it’s approved, and receives the FAA’s blessing, the city could consider condemnation just as Hahn and eight council members gear up for a reelection fight in 2005.

“It’s a politically tough thing for council people to adopt a resolution to acquire someone’s land,” said Mike Nave, a San Jose-based eminent domain attorney who represents public agencies in condemnation proceedings. “It’s not a popular thing to move someone off land in a neighborhood they’ve lived in for many years.”

Several council members said they would rather prolong the voluntary acquisition program at Manchester Square than file lawsuits to take the properties.

“If prolonging the [voluntary] program would add to the amicable clearing of that area, that would be ideal,” said Council President Alex Padilla.

The city must also make an offer to the Los Angeles Unified School District for the 98th Street Elementary School that sits in the middle of the site. Money to purchase the school isn’t included in the acquisition program’s $485-million budget.

The district, which says it won’t enter formal negotiations until Hahn’s plan is approved, may also ask the city to pick up the tab for adding onto another school or building a new one, depending on the number of students who are displaced, said Glenn Gritzner, special assistant to Supt. Roy Romer.

Finally, after the city acquires homes, apartment buildings and the school, it must demolish them to make the site ready for construction, a process that could drag on if hazardous materials are found.

Many of the apartments -- particularly those in the Belford Square area of the project -- were built before 1978 and could contain asbestos, said Bill Simone, a certified graduate remodeler and president of Custom Design & Construction, a Los Angeles-based remodeling firm.