Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), in a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, has urged rejection of a plan for the development of the VA’s 388-acre Brentwood campus.
The letter is the latest in a series of salvos launched by community and political leaders, who claim the VA has shut them out of the planning process for the site, at Wilshire Boulevard and the San Diego (405) Freeway.
The most incendiary aspect of the plan now under consideration is a proposal to repeal the Cranston Act, which protects 109 acres of the site and is the very foundation on which VA officials stood while trying to soothe community fears that large portions of the property would be commercially developed or sold.
The Cranston Act of 1988, penned by the late Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) with great community support, set aside roughly a quarter of the West L.A. campus. VA officials continually referred to that protection when telling the community that open space was guaranteed. The act was a direct response to a similar threat during the Reagan Administration to develop VA property commercially.
What’s got area representatives in a lather is a “plan for a 25-year general use plan” in which the Department of Veterans Affairs recommends up to 7.2 million square feet of potential commercial development on the property.
The VA recommended that Congress allow the plan to supercede the Cranston Act because the it “incorporates the principals of the Cranston Act in its guidelines and makes specific recommendations for a minimum acreage that will be designated as open space.”
In his June 15 letter to Principi, Waxman addressed the recommendation to rescind the Cranston Act and the fact VA Greater Los Angeles failed to disclose the recommendation to the VA’s Land Use Advisory Committee, made up of community representatives.
“Not only is this lack of notification a cause for great concern, but the Cranston Act itself offers important, strongly supported protections to the land and limits certain development,” Waxman wrote. “I oppose any attempt to weaken the Cranston Act and urge you to delete this language from the report.”
Two years ago, the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee ordered VA Greater Los Angeles to deliver by April of this year a 25-year land-use plan. The report was submitted to Principi on May 11, and no public comment is expected until he has responded.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said he and City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski were set to meet June 22 with Waxman and would follow that with meetings with California’s Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.
Beverly Fitzgerald, director of public affairs at VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, said the VA would not address the opposition until the document returns from Washington with comments from the secretary of veterans affairs.
“We believe we have fulfilled out obligation to include everyone in the process,” she said.
It’s that silence from local VA officials has community leaders seething.
Miscikowski, who said she was omitted from the early stages of the VA’s community input process, said the VA has no intention of cooperating with the city, county or neighborhoods that would be affected by a plan that amounts to creating a miniature city in West L.A.
“The idea of plunking down another Century City in the Westside urban core is a phenomenal thought almost incomprehensible,” Miscikowski said.
Flora Gil Krisiloff, chairwoman of the Brentwood Community Council and member of the VA’s Land Use Advisory Committee said the plan now before Principi protects just 7 percent (28 acres) of the property.
Yaroslavsky was adamant in his disdain for Phil Thomas, chief executive of VA Greater Los Angeles. “I think he’s a cowboy who’s trying to impress his superiors and he’s going to drop a bomb on West L.A.,” Yaroslavsky said.
“I cannot think of a more inappropriate place in Los Angeles to build another 7 million square feet of development,” he said. “A first-grader wouldn’t propose that.”
Thomas did not return calls seeking comment.
Yaroslavsky said he was insulted to have been excluded from the process to create the plan. And with any development on the property utilizing county services and thus subject to county approval, Yaroslavsky said he would ask the county board of supervisors to formally oppose the VA plan and authorize any legal action necessary to halt it.
