Mall Plans OKd, but Bridge Use Left Undecided

The Los Angeles City Council approved a 105,000-square-foot expansion of the Westside Pavilion on Tuesday but left unresolved whether the developer can include retail shops on a bridge that will link the new building to the existing shopping mall.

Several nearby homeowner groups had asked that the council specifically ban shops on the bridge over Westwood Boulevard, arguing that it would violate Proposition U, a growth-limitation measure approved by voters in 1986.

If connected by a retail bridge, the homeowners said, the mall and its expansion in effect would be one large development--not two distinct projects. Under Proposition U, the mall could grow by just 22,000 square feet if the two projects are regarded as one. If the expansion is treated separately, Proposition U would allow the 105,000-square-foot proposal.

The developer, meanwhile, had asked that the council specifically permit stores on the pedestrian and vehicular bridge to create “a comfort zone” for shoppers moving between the two parts of the mall. The developer, Westfield Inc., argued that the expansion is a separate project and that putting shops on the bridge would not make a difference under Proposition U. Westfield offered to pick up the tab if the city were challenged over the issue in court.

Honors Neither Request

But the council, following the lead of Westside Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, honored neither request. The ordinance approved by the council makes no mention of commercial uses on the bridge. It states only: “The building to be constructed on the subject property will be connected to the existing Westside Pavilion by a vehicular and pedestrian bridge.”

Yaroslavsky, who has spent several months trying to negotiate a deal among Westfield and two factions of neighboring homeowners, said he interprets the ordinance to mean that shops would not be allowed on the bridge. But he acknowledged that the language could be interpreted differently--and he said the ambiguity was intentional.

“It is not my feeling that we should be inserting . . . conditions either precluding it or allowing it,” said Yaroslavsky, one of the authors of Proposition U. “It is a technical, legal issue of some substance . . . and it ought to be resolved in a legal forum.”

Assistant City Atty. Anthony Alperin has said that putting shops on the pedestrian and vehicular bridge would violate Proposition U, but he also told the council on Tuesday that the ordinance as crafted by Yaroslavsky falls within the law.

Yaroslavsky said he remains committed to upholding Proposition U, but several homeowner leaders complained that the councilman had abandoned his support for the growth-control measure. Shortly after the council action, several of them met with aides to Mayor Tom Bradley--whom Yaroslavsky is expected to challenge in next spring’s mayoral election--in hopes of persuading Bradley to intervene.

The homeowners--led by Sandy Brown and Laura Lake of Friends of Westwood--said they asked that the mayor either amend the ordinance to explicitly ban shops on the bridge or veto the council approval.

“We think we have made it very apparent that there should be a . . . condition (prohibiting a retail bridge) so there is no doubt and nobody spends time and money on lawsuits,” said Lake, who has said she will run for Yaroslavsky’s seat if he runs for mayor.

In fact, Bradley has no authority to amend ordinances sent to him by the council. He can sign ordinances, veto them or allow them to lapse into law by taking no action for 10 days. Jane Blumenfeld, Bradley’s planning deputy, said the mayor has not decided what he will do with the Westside Pavilion ordinance.

In September, Bradley wrote a letter to the City Council urging approval of a scaled-down version of the expansion that by and large paralleled the compromise that was worked out by Yaroslavsky and approved by the council. In that letter, he recommended approval of a bridge, but he did not say whether it should include retail space.

Westfield had originally requested a 160,000-square-foot expansion on the southwest corner of Pico and Westwood boulevards, across Westwood from the Nordstrom department store. The council’s Planning and Environment Committee last week slashed the project to 105,000 square feet and insisted that the developer still provide 1,000 parking spaces, including 456 to make up for insufficient parking at the existing mall.

‘Move Ahead’

Richard E. Green, president of Westfield, said after the council vote that it is “our hope to move ahead” with the project even with the cut in size and the ambiguity about the retail bridge. He said the company’s lawyers will look into the legal issues surrounding the bridge, but he said the fate of the expansion does not hinge on whether shops can be included on the bridge.

“We are going to build something there,” said Green. “We have to determine what is the right thing to build. . . . The design process has to get very, very detailed now. . . . We now know what we can build; now we are going to decide what is the best way to do it.”

The expansion was intended in part to solve some of the parking and traffic problems created by the existing mall by providing another parking structure and allowing shoppers to move between the two buildings without using surface streets. Yaroslavsky described the compromise approved Tuesday as a major victory for local homeowners, but the expansion actually has split several neighboring homeowner organizations. Some homeowners see the expansion as a long-overdue remedy, while others interpret it as more development in an already congested neighborhood.

Westfield, eager to show the council that it has support in the community, provided free transportation on Tuesday to City Hall--as well as lunch--for about 80 residents who favor the project. Terri Tippit, who lives about eight houses from the project, told the City Council that residents who support the project simply want some relief from shoppers driving through their neighborhoods.