Residents Fight FBI Expansion

Federal officials hope to build a new Los Angeles headquarters for the FBI in Westwood, but some residents fear the massive building would make their neighborhood a target for terrorists, and squeeze more cars into an area already struggling with traffic gridlock.

“It’s like drawing a big bull’s-eye on Westwood for the terrorists,” said Laura Lake, president of two community advocacy groups. “And how are ... agents even going to get to work? We are already of such density and traffic that it’s impossible to move.”

Lake and other neighborhood residents shared those and other concerns last week, when federal officials unveiled for the public their plans for a structure that would be erected next to the Federal Building in Westwood.

At a meeting last week, FBI and federal construction officials barreled through their PowerPoint presentation to a hostile audience that kept interrupting with questions and comments.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, an FBI representative said, the agency has doubled its counterterrorism personnel, added 450 translators and expanded its staff nationwide. That growth has taxed the agency’s Los Angeles offices.

“Right now, we’re occupying 440,000 square feet, and we’re maxed out,” said FBI space planner Kurt Steigerwald.

The agency’s Los Angeles headquarters is in the Federal Building. In addition to the headquarters and 10 smaller field offices in the region, the FBI has leased 140,000 square feet of office space to accommodate its growing workforce.

The proposed headquarters would include about 937,000 square feet of additional space and 1,200 secured parking spaces. But with the added space would come more agents driving more cars, which residents fear would add to their significant traffic problems.

The Federal Building and surrounding grounds, an area perhaps best known as the site of countless protests against U.S. policies, is near the busy confluence of the San Diego Freeway and Wilshire Boulevard.

“All our community groups are already hard at work trying to solve this [traffic] problem,” said Flora Gil Krisiloff, chairwoman of the Brentwood Community Council. “And instead of helping, you’re talking about making it worse. Please look at the larger context here. This is going to be horrendous.”

The three-hour meeting in the Federal Building’s cafeteria drew about 50 residents and neighborhood activists. Interrupting the FBI’s presentation, they called out questions about everything from parking plans to the effect the proposed headquarters would have on the sunlight in their neighborhood’s only park. Public safety was a frequent topic.

“Do you really want to put [most of] your agents all in one spot?” asked resident Sharon Milder. “Doesn’t that just make you more vulnerable?”

Planners from the General Services Administration, which constructs federal buildings for the government, showed a slide show of past GSA-built offices meant to impress the audience. But residents mocked the designs, comparing them to industrial steel furnaces.

“We’re just fed up,” said Alvin Milder, Sharon Milder’s husband and vice president of the Westwood Hills Property Owners Assn.

For years now, the neighborhood has been squeezed on all sides by construction and expansion, he said.

“UCLA used to be the 800-pound gorilla pushing us around, and now it’s the federal government coming in and doing it,” Alvin Milder said.

UCLA is building a hospital in the area, and the city Planning Commission recently approved a retail project called Palazzo Westwood. But homeowner organizations and merchants plan to appeal aspects of that project on Wednesday.

Lake said that the two key issues are a one-year closure of a portion of Glendon Avenue and developer Alan Casden’s plan to build parking beneath Glendon.

Moreover, she said, the FBI office proposal creates a huge new wrinkle that should trigger additional analysis of traffic, air quality and other considerations. “There’s a lot of massive construction going on in the area,” Lake said.

At Thursday’s public meeting, Sharon Milder shared a common sentiment: that the forum was only an empty gesture by federal officials determined to build the headquarters no matter what the public says.

“In your mind, this is already a done deal,” she said. “We’ve been to too many meetings at UCLA. We know the look [of a done deal], and you’ve already got it.”

So far, funding to build the FBI headquarters has not been approved. President Bush included $14 million for designing the building in his proposed budget submitted to Congress.

The GSA has the sole authority to approve the project, and Congress will have the final say in approving funding, federal officials said. If approved, the GSA expects that construction, which would be divided into two phases, would take 10 years.

The next public hearing is scheduled for the fall, after the GSA releases a draft of its environmental impact study.

Lake warned federal officials to prepare for an even louder crowd next time because many residents had not yet heard of the project.

“You’re actually seeing a nice and polite Westwood today,” she said after the meeting. “Next time, there will be lawyers, media, picket signs, protests -- the whole enchilada.”