Environmental study for Museum of Tolerance plan begins

In the face of hefty neighborhood opposition, the Museum of Tolerance has begun an environmental review of a proposal to enclose its open-air memorial plaza and build a two-story cultural center with a cafe and rooftop garden.

The West Pico Boulevard museum, which sees 350,000 visitors annually, plans to rent out the complex for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and other private functions to defray the costs of programs intended to fulfill its mission of educating people about intolerance and hate. The museum also seeks to extend its operating hours to as late as midnight, add a side-street entrance and lift restrictions on construction.

Residents of the adjacent single-family neighborhood contend that the 13,500-square-foot expansion and plans to rent out banquet space for as many as 500 people per event would cause an explosion in traffic, noise and parking problems.

Renting the facility for social events would move “completely outside the scope and permissions of the original conditional-use permit,” said Susan Gans, an entertainment lawyer who lives near the museum and opposes the expansion.

Under the restricted permit that allowed the museum to open in 1993, private parties are prohibited. The permit also requires a 100-foot buffer to separate the museum from houses. That area, now occupied by the memorial plaza, would be reduced to 20 feet under the museum’s expansion plan.

Susan Burden, chief financial officer for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the museum’s owner, said center officials have been meeting with opponents for several months. “We told them we had heard them loud and clear and would go forward” with an environmental impact report, said Burden, who notified neighbors about the EIR in a letter dated Thursday. She added that many museums rent space to private parties.

The center has prepared an initial 75-page study but said the full report will take several months to complete. Once a draft report has been published, the city will hold hearings so that the public can express its opinions. Among issues typically studied are traffic, pollution and noise. The center now has 209 parking spaces, a number that opponents say would be inadequate to handle all of the vehicles at large events. Burden said the museum would also have access to spaces at nearby Wiesenthal headquarters on Roxbury Drive.

Neighbors first heard of the expansion plan on Sept. 29 through a mailing from the city Planning Department, which announced an Oct. 24 public hearing at City Hall. At that meeting, residents learned that the proposal had the strong backing of Councilman Jack Weiss, who represents the area.

By that time, city planners had already agreed to the expansion. Gans, who said neighbors felt blindsided, wrote a 14-page letter to the city, complaining that planners had rubber-stamped the proposal without fully evaluating the potential effects.

Gans and Daniel Fink, another resident of the heavily Jewish Roxbury-Beverwil Homeowners Assn., mobilized opposition to the project.

A spokeswoman for Weiss said the council office appreciated the museum’s willingness to conduct an EIR and looked forward to addressing neighbors’ concerns.

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martha.groves@latimes.com